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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33537-8.txt b/33537-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc89bc4 --- /dev/null +++ b/33537-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13935 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life on the Stage, by Clara Morris + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life on the Stage + +Author: Clara Morris + +Release Date: August 26, 2010 [EBook #33537] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE ON THE STAGE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Life on the Stage + + +_Previous Books by Clara Morris_ + +The Silent Singer + +Little Jim Crow + +[Illustration: Frontispiece, photograph of Clara Morris] + + + + +CLARA MORRIS + +Life on the Stage + +My Personal Experiences and Recollections + +New York + +McClure, Phillips & Co. + +MCMII + +_Copyright, 1901, by_ S. S. MCCLURE CO. + +_1901, by_ CLARA MORRIS HARRIOTT + +FIFTH IMPRESSION + + + + + In memory of a labor shared, I affectionately dedicate this + book to my husband. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER FIRST--I am Born + +CHAPTER SECOND--Beginning Early, I Learn Love, Fear, and Hunger--I Become +Acquainted with Letters, and Alas! I Lose One of my Two Illusions + +CHAPTER THIRD--I Enter a New World--I Know a New Hunger and we Return to +Cleveland + +CHAPTER FOURTH--I am Led into the Theatre--I Attend Rehearsals--I am Made +Acquainted with the Vagaries of Tights + +CHAPTER FIFTH--I Receive my First Salary--I am Engaged for the Coming +Season + +CHAPTER SIXTH--The Regular Season Opens--I have a Small Part to Play--I +am among Lovers of Shakespeare--I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under +the Charm + +CHAPTER SEVENTH--I find I am in a "Family Theatre"--I Fare Forth away +from my Mother, and in Columbus I Shelter under the wing of Mrs. Bradshaw + +CHAPTER EIGHTH--I Display my New Knowledge--I Return to Cleveland to Face +my First Theatrical Vacation, and I Know the very Tragedy of Littleness + +CHAPTER NINTH--The Season Reopens--I meet the Yellow Breeches and become +a Utility Man--Mr. Murdock Escapes Fits and my "Luck" Proves to be Extra +Work + +CHAPTER TENTH--With Mr. Dan. Setchell I Win Applause--A Strange +Experience comes to Me--I Know Both Fear and Ambition--The Actress is +Born at Last + +CHAPTER ELEVENTH--My Promiscuous Reading wins me a Glass of Soda--The +Stage takes up my Education and Leads me through Many Pleasant Places + +CHAPTER TWELFTH--The Peter Richings' Engagement brings me my First Taste +of Slander--Anent the Splendor of my Wardrobe, also my First Newspaper +Notice + +CHAPTER THIRTEENTH--Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as "That Young Woman," to My +Great Joy--I Issue the "Clara Code"--I Receive my First Offer of Marriage + +CHAPTER FOURTEENTH--Mr. Wilkes Booth comes to us, the whole Sex Loves +him--Mr. Ellsler Compares him to his Great Father--Our Grief and Horror +over the Awful Tragedy at Washington + +CHAPTER FIFTEENTH--Mr. R. E. J. Miles--His two Horses and our Woful +Experience with the Substitute "Wild Horse of Tartary" + +CHAPTER SIXTEENTH--I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study _King Charles_ in +One Afternoon and Play Without a Rehearsal--Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd +Revelation + +CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH--Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my +Reputation--I Own a Baby on Shares--Miss Western's Pathetic Speech + +CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH--Mr. Charles W. Couldock--His Daughter Eliza and his +Many Peculiarities + +CHAPTER NINETEENTH--I Come to a Turning-Point in my Dramatic Life--I play +my First Crying Part with Miss Sallie St. Clair + +CHAPTER TWENTIETH--I have to pass through Bitter Humiliation to win High +Encomiums from Herr Bandmann; while Edwin Booth's Kindness Fills the +Theatre with Pink Clouds, and I Float Thereon + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST--I Digress, but I Return to the Columbus Engagement +of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean--Their Peculiarities and their Work + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND--I hear Mrs. Kean's Story of Wolsey's Robe--I laugh +at an Extravagantly Kind Prophecy + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD--Mr. E. L. Davenport, his Interference, his Lecture +on Stage Business, his Error of Memory or too Powerful Imagination--Why I +remain a Dramatic Old Slipper--Contemptuous Words arouse in me a Dogged +Determination to become a Leading Woman before leaving Cleveland + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH--I recall the Popularity and too early Death of +Edwin Adams + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH--I See an Actress Dethroned--I make myself a +Promise, for the World does Move + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH--Mr. Lawrence Barrett the Brilliant and his Brother +Joseph the Unfortunate + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH--I Play "Marie" to Oblige--Mr. Barrett's +Remarkable Call--Did I Receive a Message from the Dying or the Dead? + +CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH--I accept an Engagement with Mr. Macaulay for +Cincinnati as Leading Lady--My Adieus to Cleveland--Mr. Ellsler Presents +Me with a Watch + +CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH--My first Humiliating Experience in Cincinnati is +Followed by a Successful Appearance--I Make the Acquaintance of the +Enthusiastic Navoni + +CHAPTER THIRTIETH--New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington +and Mr. Johnson--Mr. Ellsler's Mild Assistance--I Journey to New York, +and Return to Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST--John Cockerill and our Eccentric Engagement--I Play +a Summer Season at Halifax--Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at +Last + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND--I Recall Mr. John E. Owens, and How He "Settled my +Hash" + +CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD--From the "Wild West" I Enter the Eastern "Parlor of +Home Comedy"--I Make my First Appearance in "Man and Wife" + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH--I Rehearse Endlessly--I Grow Sick with Dread--I +Meet with Success in _Anne Sylvester_ + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH--I Am Accepted by the Company--I am Warned against +Mr. Fisk--I Have an Odd Encounter with Mr. Gould + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH--A Search for Tears--I Am Punished in "Saratoga" +for the Success of "Man and Wife"--I Win Mr. Daly's Confidence--We Become +Friends + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH--A Study of Stage-Management--I Am Tricked into +Signing a New Contract + +CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH--I Go to the Sea-shore--The Search for a "Scar"--I +Make a Study of Insanity, and Meet with Success in "L'Article 47" + +CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH--I Am too Dull to Understand a Premonition--By Mr. +Daly's Side I See the Destruction of the Fifth Avenue Theatre by Fire + +CHAPTER FORTIETH--We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New +Theatre--Our Astonishing Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a +Great Triumph + +CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST--Trouble about Obnoxious Lines in "Madeline +Morel"--Mr. Daly's Manipulation of Father X: In Spite of our Anxiety the +Audience accepts the Situation and the Play--Mr. Daly gives me the +smallest Dog in New York + +CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND--I am Engaged to Star part of the Season--Mr. Daly +Breaks his Contract--I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction--I meet +Mr. Palmer and make Contract and appear at the Union Square in the +"Wicked World" + +CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD--We Give a Charity Performance of "Camille," and Are +Struck with Amazement at our Success--Mr. Palmer Takes the Cue and +Produces "Camille" for Me at the Union Square + +CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH--"Miss Multon" Put in Rehearsal--Our Squabble over +the Manner of her Death--Great Success of the Play--Mr. Palmer's Pride in +it--My _Au Revoir_ + + + + +LIFE ON THE STAGE + + + + +CHAPTER FIRST + + I am Born. + + +If this simple tale is to be told at all, it may as well begin at the +beginning and in the good old-fashioned and best of all ways--thus: Once +upon a time in the Canadian city of Toronto, on the 17th of March, the +sun rose bright and clear--which was a most surprising thing for the sun +to do on St. Patrick's Day, but while the people were yet wondering over +it the sunlight disappeared, clouds of dull gray spread themselves evenly +over the sky, and then the snow fell--fell fast and furious, quickly +whitening the streets and house-tops, softly lining every hollow, and was +piling little cushions on top of all the hitching-posts, when the flakes +grew larger, wetter, farther apart, and after a little hesitation turned +to rain--a sort of walk-trot-gallop rain, which wound up with one vivid +flash of lightning and a clap of thunder that fairly shook the city. + +Now the Irish, being a brave people and semi-amphibious, pay no heed to +wet weather. Usually all the Hibernians residing in a city divide +themselves into two bodies on St. Patrick's Day, the ones who parade and +the ones who follow the parade; but on this occasion they divided +themselves into three bodies--the men who paraded, the men and women who +followed the parade, and the Orangemen who made things pleasant for both +parties. + +As the out-of-time, out-of-tune band turned into a quiet cross-street to +lead its following green-bannered host to a broader one, the first brick +was thrown--probably by a woman, as it hit no one, but metaphorically it +knocked the chip off of the shoulder of every child of Erin. Down fell +the banners, up went the fists! Orange and Green were at each other tooth +and nail! Hats from prehistoric ages side by side with modern beavers +scarcely fifty years old received the hurled brick-bat and went down +together! + +The band reached the broad avenue alone, and looked back to see the short +street a-sway with struggling men, while women holding their bedraggled +petticoats up, their bonnets hanging down their backs by green ribbon +ties, hovered about the edges of the crowd, making predatory dashes now +and then to scratch a face or rescue some precious hat from the mêlée, +meanwhile inciting the men to madness by their fierce cries--and in a +quiet house, in the very midst of this riot--just before the constabulary +charged the crowd--I was born. I don't know, of course, whether I was +really intended from the first for that house, or whether the stork +became so frightened at the row in the street that he just dropped me +from sheer inability to carry me any farther--anyway, I came to a house +where trouble and poverty had preceded me, and, worse than both these put +together--treachery. + +Still, I accepted the situation with indifference. That the cupboard +barely escaped absolute emptiness gave me no anxiety, as I had no teeth +anyway. As a gentleman with a medicine-case in his hand was leaving the +house he paused a moment for the slavey to finish washing away a pool of +blood from the bottom step--and then there came that startling clap of +thunder. Brand new as I was to this world and its ways, I entered my +protest at once with such force and evident wrath that the doctor +down-stairs exclaimed: "Our young lady has temper as well as a good pair +of lungs!" and went on his way laughing. + +And so on that St. Patrick's Day of sunshine, snow, and rain, of riot and +bloodshed, in trouble and poverty--I was born. + + + + +CHAPTER SECOND + + Beginning Early, I Learn Love, Fear, and Hunger--I Become Acquainted + with Letters, and Alas! I Lose One of my Two Illusions. + + +Of the Days of St. Patrick that followed, not one found me in the city of +my birth--indeed, six months completed my period of existence in the +Dominion, and I have known it no more. + +Some may think it strange that I mention these early years at all, but +the reason for such mention will appear later on. Looking back at them, +they seem to divide themselves into groups of four years each. During the +first four, my time was principally spent in growing and learning to keep +out of people's way. I acquired some other knowledge, too, and little +child as I was, I knew fear long before I knew the thing that frightened +me. I knew that love for my mother which was to become the passion of my +life, and I also knew hunger. But the fear was harder to endure than the +hunger--it was so vague, yet so all-encompassing. + +We had to flit so often--suddenly, noiselessly. Often I was gently roused +from my sleep at night and hastily dressed--sometimes simply wrapped up +without being dressed, and carried through the dark to some other place +of refuge, from--what? When I went out into the main business streets I +had a tormenting barège veil over my face that would not let me see half +the pretty things in the shop windows, and I was quick to notice that no +other little girl had a veil on. Next I remarked that if a strange lady +spoke to me my mother seemed pleased--but if a man noticed me she was not +pleased, and once when a big man took me by the hand and led me to a +candy store for some candy she was as white as could be and so angry she +frightened me, and she promised me a severe punishment if I ever, ever +went one step with a strange man again. And so my fear began to take the +form of a man, of a big, smiling man--for my mother always asked, when I +reported that a stranger had spoken to me, if he was big and smiling. + +I had known the sensation of hunger long before I knew the word that +expressed it, and I often pressed my hands over my small empty stomach, +and cried and pulled at my mother's dress skirt. If there was anything at +all to give I received it, but sometimes there was absolutely nothing but +a drink of water to offer, which checked the gnawing for a moment or two, +and at those times there was a tightening of my mother's trembling lips, +and a straight up and down wrinkle between her brows, that I grew to +know, and when I saw that look on her face I could not ask for anything +more than "a dwink, please." + +As an illustration of her almost savage pride and honesty: I one day saw +a woman in front of the house buying some potatoes. I knew that potatoes +cooked were very comforting to empty stomachs. One or two of them fell to +the street during the measuring and I picked one up, and, fairly wild +with delight, I scrambled up the stairs with it. But my mother was angry +through and through. + +"Who gave it to you?" she demanded. + +I explained with a trembling voice: "I des' founded it on the very +ground--and I'se so hungry!" + +But hungry or not hungry, I had to take the potato back: "Nothing in the +world could be taken without asking--that was stealing--and she was the +only person in the world I had a right to ask anything of!" + +It was a bitter lesson, and was rendered more so by the fact that when I +carried the tear-bathed potato back to the street and laid it down, +neither the woman who bought nor the man who sold was in sight--and, dear +Heaven! I could almost have eaten it raw. + +But I was learning obedience and self-respect; more than that, I was +already acquiring one of the necessary qualities for an actress--the +power of close observation. + +The next four years (the second group) were the hardest to endure of them +all. True, I now had sufficient food and warmth, since my mother had +given up sewing for shops--which kept us nearly always hungry--and had +found other occupations. But the great object of both our lives was to be +together, and there are few people who are willing to employ a woman who +has with her a child. And if her services are accepted, even at a reduced +salary, it is necessary for that child to be as far as possible neither +seen nor heard. Therefore until I was old enough to be admitted into a +public school I never knew another child--I never played with any living +creature save a remarkable cat, that seemed to have claws all over her, +and in my fixed determination to trace her purr and find out where it +came from, she buried those claws to the very last one in my fat, +investigating little hands. + +Meantime my "fear" had assumed the shape and substance of a man, a man +who bore a name that should have been loved and honored above all others, +for this "bogey" of my baby days--this nightmare and dread--was my own +father. When my mother had discovered his treachery--which had not +hesitated to boldly face the very altar--she took her child and fled from +him, assuming her mother's maiden name as a disguise. But go where she +would, he followed and made scenes. Finally, understanding that she was +not to be won back by sophistries, he offered to leave her in peace if +she would give the child to him. And when that offer was indignantly +rejected, he pleasantly informed her that he would make life a curse to +her until she gave me up, and that by fair means or by foul he would +surely obtain possession of me. Once he did kidnap me, but my mother had +found friends by that time, and their pursuit was so swift and unexpected +that he had to abandon me. + +So, he who should have been the defender and support of my mother--whose +arms should have been our shelter from the world--the big, smiling +French-Canadian father--became instead our terror and our dread. +Therefore when my mother served in varying capacities in other people's +homes, and I had to efface myself as nearly as possible, I dared not even +go out to walk a little, so great was my mother's fear. + +It seems odd, but in spite of my far-reaching memory, I cannot remember +when I learned to read. I can recall but one tiny incident relating to +the subject of learning. I stood upon a chair and while my hair was +brushed and braided I spelled my words, and I had my ears boxed--a custom +considered criminal in these better days--because, having successfully +spelled "elephant," I came to grief over "mouse," as, according to my +judgment, m-o-w-s filled all the requirements of the case. I remember, +too, that the punishment made me afraid to ask what "elephant" meant; but +I received the impression that it was some sort of a public building. + +However, when I was six years old I joyfully betook myself to a primary +school, from which I was sent home with a note, saying that "in that +department they did not go beyond the 'primer,' and as this little girl +reads quite well from a 'reader,' she must have been taught well at +home." We were a proud yet disappointed pair, my mother and I, that day. + +An odd little incident occurred about that time. One of our hurried +flights had ended at a boarding house, and my extreme quietude--unnatural +in a child of health and intelligence--attracted the attention of a +certain boarder, who was an actress. She was very popular with the +public, and both she and her husband were well liked by the people about +them. She took a fancy to me, and informing herself that my mother was +poor and alone, she offered to adopt me. She stated her position, her +income, and her intention of educating me thoroughly. She thought a +convent school would be desirable--from ten, say to seventeen. + +Perhaps my mother was tempted--she was a fanatic on the question of +learning--but, oh! what a big _but_ came in just then: "but when I should +have, by God's will, reached the age of seventeen, she (the actress) +would place me upon the stage." + +"Gracious Heaven! her child on the stage!" my mother was stricken with +horror! She scarcely had strength to make her shocked refusal plain +enough; and when her employer ventured to remonstrate with her, pointing +out the great advantage to me, she made answer: "It would be better for +her to starve trying to lead a clean and honorable life, than to be +exposed to such publicity and such awful temptations!" + +Poor mother! the theatre was to her imagination but a beautiful vestibule +leading to a place of wickedness and general wrong-doing! + +During those endless months, when I had each day to sit for hours and +hours in one particular chair in a corner, well out of the way--sit so +long that often when I was lifted down I could not stand at all, my limbs +being numbed to absolute helplessness, I had two great days to dream of, +to look forward to--Christmas and that wonderful 17th of March, when +because it was my birthday all those nice gentlemen, with the funny hats +and green collars, walked out behind the band. And I felt particularly +well disposed toward those most amusing gentlemen who wore, according to +my theory at least, their little girls' aprons tied about their big +waists. + +I did not like so well the attendant crowd, but then I could not be +selfish enough to keep people from looking at "my procession" and +enjoying the music that made the blood dance in my own veins, even as my +feet danced on the chill pavement. + +I always received an orange on that day from my mother, and almost always +a book, so it was a great event in my life, and I used to get down my +little hat-box and fix the laces in my best shoes days ahead of time that +I might be ready to stand on some steps where I could bow and smile to +the nice gentlemen who walked out in my honor. Heaven only knows how I +got the idea that the procession was meant for me, but it made me very +happy, and my heart was big with love and gratitude for those people who +took so much trouble for me. + +I had but two illusions in the world--Santa Claus and "my +procession"--but, alas! on my eighth birthday, when in an outburst of +innocent triumph and joy I cried to a grown-up: "Ain't they good--those +funny gentlemen--to come and march and play music for my birthday?" I was +answered with the assurance that I "was a fool--that no one knew or cared +a copper about me--that it was a Saint, a dead and gone man, they marched +for!" + +All the dance went out of my feet, heavy tears fell fast and stood round +and clear on the woolly surface of my cloak, and bending my head low to +hide my disappointment, I went slowly home, where the chair seemed +harder, the hours longer, and life more bare because I had lost the +illusion that had brightened and glorified it. + +At the present time, here in my home, there is seated in an arm-chair, a +venerable doll. She is a hideous specimen of the beautiful doll of the +early "fifties." She sits with her soles well turned up, facing you, her +arms hanging from her shoulders in that idiotically helpless +"I-give-it-up" fashion peculiar to dolls. With bulging scarlet cheeks, +button-hole mouth and flat, blue staring eyes she faces Time and +unwinkingly looks him down. To anyone else she is stupidity personified, +but to me she speaks, for she came to me on my fourth Christmas, and she +is as gifted as she is ugly. Only last birthday--as I straightened out +her old, old dress skirt--she asked me if I remembered how I cried, with +my face in her lap, over that first loss of an illusion--and I told her +quite truly that I remembered well! + + + + +CHAPTER THIRD + + I Enter a New World--I Know a New Hunger and we Return to Cleveland. + + +The experiences of the first two of my third group of years have +influenced my entire life. Still flying from my seemingly ubiquitous +father, my mother after a desperate struggle gained enough money to pay +for our journey to what was then called the "far West"--namely, the +southwestern part of Illinois. Child-fashion, I was delighted at the +prospect of a change, and happy over the belief that I was going to some +place where I could be free to go and come like other children, without +dreading the appearance of a big, smiling man from any deep doorway or +from around the next corner. To tell the truth, that persistent, +indestructible smile always seemed an insult added to the injury of his +malicious and revengeful conduct. + +Then, too, I experienced my first delicious thrill of imaginary terror. +In a torn and abandoned old geography I had seen a picture labelled +"Prairie." The grass was as high as a man's shoulders, and stealthily +emerging from it was a sort of compound animal, neither tiger nor +leopard, but with points of resemblance to both. And here every day I was +listening to the grown-ups talking of "prairie lands," and how far we +might have to drive across the prairie after leaving the train; and I +made up my mind that I would hold our umbrella all the time, and when the +uncertain beast came out I'd try to stick his eyes with it, and under +cover of the confusion we would undoubtedly escape. + +That being settled, I could turn all my attention to preparations for +the long journey. Dear me, I remember just where each big red rose came +on the carpet-bag, and how sorry I was that the tiny brass lock came +right in the side of one. It was a large bag and held a great deal, but +was so arranged that whatever you wanted was always found at the +bottom--whether it was the tooth-brush or a night-gown or a pair of +rubbers. It had a sort of dividing wall of linen in its middle, and while +one side held clothing, the other side was the commissary department. No +buffet-cars then, travellers ran their own buffets, and though the things +did not come into actual contact, there was not an article, big or +little, in that bag that did not smell of pickles. And once when my +mother had hastily attended to my needs in the miserable toilet-room of +the car (no sleeper--just a sit-up-all-night affair), my clean stockings, +white apron and little handkerchief all exhaled vinegar so strongly that +I wrinkled up my nose, exclaiming: "I smell jes' like a pickled little +girl--don't I, ma'ma?" And then, when weary and worn and dusty, we left +the cars and had to drive some thirty miles, in a carriage of uncertain +class, over the open prairie--then smooth and bright and green--I wearily +remarked, after a time, that it was a "pretty big lawn, but where was the +prairie?" for true to my plan I had secured the umbrella, and being told +that I was crossing the prairie then, I was a bitterly disappointed young +person. Oh, how I longed to give way to one of those passionate outbursts +we so often see children indulge in! Oh, how I wanted to hurl aside the +umbrella I had begged for, to fling my weary self down on the floor and +cry, and cry! But I dared not--never in my whole life had I ventured on +such an exhibition of temper or feeling--so I winked fast and held very +still and swallowed hard at the disappointment, which was but the first +of such a number of very bitter pills that I was yet to swallow. + +But, thank God! if I was easily cast down, I was as easily cheered; and +the prairie left behind, the sight of the first orchard we passed, with +the soft perfumed snow of the blossoms floating through the rosy sunset +light, raised my spirits to an ecstasy of joy; and when our journey +ended, at the rough farm-house, with my arm around the surly looking +watch-dog, I stood and heard for the first time the mournful cry of the +whippoorwill out in the star-pierced dark of the early May night, I +thrilled with the unspoken consciousness that this was a new world that I +was entering--a lovely, _lovely_ world, that the grown-ups called the +"country"! + +For the two years I knew it the charm of that backwood life never palled. +I had never seen the country before, and I found it a place of beauty and +many marvels. I did not miss the fine city shops, for I never had had +money to spend in them. I did not miss the people, for they had been +nothing to me. And here no day that dawned failed to bring me some new +experience. With what awed wonderment I faced the mystery of the +springing grain. I saw the seed, hard and dry, fall into the furrowed +earth and, a few days later, with gentle strength, tiny pale green spears +come pricking through the brown. I learned not to look under the +hickory-trees for the oak acorns that I adored. I was soon able to tell +the rapidly forming furry green peaches from the smooth young apples, and +I literally fell down upon my knees and worshipped before lambs, calves, +and colts. + +In this new, strange life everyone worked, but they worked for +themselves--to use a country expression, no one "hired out." I was a very +little girl. I could not spin as could my mother, who had passed her +childhood in backwood life. Of course I could not weave, but I was taught +to knit my own stockings--such humpy, lumpy knitting! But I was very +proud of the accomplishment, even though my mother did have to "turn the +heel." Then, too, I with other children at planting-time dropped corn in +the sun-warmed furrows, while a man followed behind with a hoe covering +it up; and when it had sprouted and was a tempting morsel for certain +black robbers of the field, I made a very active and energetic young +scare-crow. + +Here, too, I became acquainted with children. They were all older than I +was, a hearty, healthy, wisely-ignorant lot. They knew so much about +farming and so little about anything else. Not one of them could tell a +story out of the Bible, and as for the "Pilgrim's Progress," they had +never heard tell of it; while Bunyan only meant to them an enlarged +toe-joint--not a great author. + +The lack of reading matter was the one blemish on my country life. The +library, composed of the Bible and the almanac, was not satisfying to my +inquiring mind. One paper was taken in by the head of the family--it was +a weekly, in every possible sense--but I came to watch eagerly for it, +and it filled the family with amazement to see me sit down on the step +and gravely wade through its dreary columns--happy if I could catch hold +of some idea--some bit of news--some scrap of story; and my farmer host +one day at his noon smoke removed his corn-cob pipe from his lips long +enough to remark of me: "Dogorne my skin! if that young 'un ain't awake +and enj'ien hersel'. Now I allers go ter sleep over that paper mysel'!" +So should I--now--I presume. + +These children being for-true, real children had no idea of showing +courtesy or politeness to a stranger, but they had a very natural +yearning to get fun out of that stranger if they could, and so they +blithely led me forth to a pasture shortly after our arrival at the farm, +and catching a horse they hoisted me up on to its bare, slippery back. I +have learned a good bit about horses since then--have hired, borrowed, +and bought them--have been to circuses and horse shows, but never since +have I seen a horse of such appalling aspect. His eyes were the size of +soup-plates, large clouds of smoke came from his nostrils. He had a +glass-enamelled surface, and if he was one half as tall as he felt, some +museum manager missed a fortune. Then the young fiends, leaving me on my +slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off and stood over +against the fence and gave me plenty of room--to fall off. But when I +suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild +shriek--clenched my hands in the animal's back hair, and, madly flinging +propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be behind me, I +cast one pantalet over the enamelled back, and thus astride, safely +crossed the pasture--and lo! it was not I who fell, but their faces +instead. When they came to take me down, somehow the animal seemed +shrunken and I hesitated about leaving it, whereupon the biggest boy said +I had "pluck" (I had been frightened nearly to death, but I always could +be silent at the proper moment; I was silent then), and he would teach me +to ride sideways, for my mother would surely punish me if I sat astride +like that; and in a few weeks, thanks to him, I was the one who was +oftenest trusted to take the horses to water at noon, riding sideways and +always bare-back, mounted on one horse and leading a second to the creek, +until all had had their drink. Which habit of riding--from balance--has +made me quite independent of stirrups on various occasions since those +far-away days. + +In the late autumn, these same children taught me where and when and how +to find such treasures of the woods as hickory-nuts, chestnuts (rare +there), butternuts, and pecan-nuts, while the thickets furnished +hazel-nuts and the frost brought sweetness to the persimmon, and +consequently pleasure to our palates, but never could I acquire a taste +for the "paw-paw," that inane custard-like fruit, often called the +American banana. + +I helped obtain the roots and barks and nut-shells from which the +grown-ups made their dyes. I learned to use a bow and arrow; and on rainy +days, having nothing new to read, I learned by heart the best chapters of +my own birthday books, and often repeated them to the other children when +we cuddled in the hayloft, above the horses. + +One day I became too realistic, and in my "flight from my step-mother's +home" I fell through the hole where the hay was tossed down to old +Jerry's manger. He was a serious-minded and kindly old horse, and did +nothing worse than snort a little over the change in his diet, from hay +to small girl. My severe bruises would have been borne with fortitude, +but when I arose--behold a wretched wandering hen had been in the manger +before me, and if one judged from the state of my clothing, the egg she +had left behind must have been the size of a melon at least! If that +seems an exaggeration, just break an egg in your pocket, if you don't +care to sit down on one, and see how far it will spread. Then, indeed, I +lifted my voice and wept! + +Yes, those were two precious years, in which I learned to love +passionately the beauty of the world! The tender, mystic charm of dawn, +the pomp and splendor of the setting of the sun! Finding in the tiny +perfection of the velvety moss the minute repetition of the form and +branching beauty of the stately tree at whose root it grew! Seeing all +the beauty of the blue sky and its sailing clouds encompassed by a +quivering drop of dew upon a mullein leaf I dimly felt some faint +comprehension of the divine satisfaction when the Creator pronounced the +work of His hands, "Good!" + +From the first my mother had been greatly distressed by the absence of +any school to which I might go, and also by her inability to earn money. +She had been wise enough not to leave Cleveland without sufficient means +to bring us back again--which proved most fortunate. For when quite +suddenly we heard of the published death of my father, we immediately +returned and she obtained employment, while I was sent to the public +school. But, oh, what a poor, meagre course of study I entered on. +Reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and geography--that was all! Only +one class in the grammar-school studied history. However, improvements +were being discussed, and I remember that three weeks before my final +withdrawal from school my mother had to buy me a book on physiology, +which was to be taught to the children, who had not even a bowing +acquaintance with grammar. But I hungered and thirsted for knowledge--I +craved it--longed for it. During the weary years of repression I had +fallen back upon imagination for amusement and comfort, and when I was +ten my "thinks," as I then called my waking dreams, almost surely took +one of these two forms. Since I had abandoned "thinks" about fairies +coming to grant my wishes, I always walked out (in my best hat), and +saved either an old lady or an old gentleman--sometimes one, sometimes +the other--from some imminent peril--a sort of impressionist peril--vague +but very terrible! and the rescued one was always tremblingly grateful +and offered to reward me, and I always sternly refused to be rewarded, +but unbent sufficiently to see the saved one safely to his or her +splendid home. There I revelled in furniture, pictures, musical +instruments and an assortment of beautiful dogs. On leaving this palatial +residence I consented to give my address, and next day the "saved" called +on my mother and after some conversation it was settled that I was to go +to the convent-school for four years, where I knew the education was +generous and thorough, and that languages, music, and painting were all +taught. As these "thinks" took place at night after the ill-smelling +extinguishment of the candle, I generally fell asleep before, in white +robe and a crown of flowers, I gathered up all the prizes and diplomas +and things I had earned. + +When my mother in the performance of her duties had to accept orders, she +received them calmly and as a matter of course--whatever she may have +felt in her heart--but I loved and reverenced her so! To me she was the +one woman of the world; and when I saw her taking orders from another I +flinched and shrank as I would have done beneath the sharp lash of a +whip, and then for nights afterward (so soon as I had released my nose, +tightly pinched to keep out the smell of candle-smoke), I settled down, +with my mother's hand tight clasped in mine, to my other favorite +"thinks" wherein I did some truly remarkable embroidery, of such +precision of stitch, such perfection of coloring and shading, that when +I offered it for sale I was much embarrassed by the numbers of would-be +buyers. However, an old lady finally won me away from the store (that old +lady was bound to appear in all my "thinks"), and I had to be very firm +with her to keep her from over-paying me for the work of my hands. + +Then, as I had graciously promised the store-keeper any over-plus of +embroidery not needed by the generous old person, I felt my income +secure, and hastened to rent two rooms and furnish them, ready to take my +astonished mother there--where she could do the ordering herself. + +I hung curtains, laid carpets, put dishes in the cupboard, gave one +window to my mother and kept one for myself and my very exceptional +embroidery; and, though I laugh now, I had then many an hour of genuine +happiness, furnishing this imaginary home and refuge for the mother I +loved! + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTH + + I am Led into the Theatre--I Attend Rehearsals--I am Made Acquainted + with the Vagaries of Tights. + + +I was approaching my thirteenth birthday when it came about that a +certain ancient boarding-house keeper--far gone in years--required +someone to assist her, someone she could trust entirely and leave in +charge for a month at a time; and I, not being able to read the future, +was greatly chagrined because my mother accepted the offered situation. I +was always happiest when she found occupation in a house where there was +a library, for people were generally kind to me in that respect and gave +me the freedom of their shelves, seeing that I was reverently careful of +all books; but in a boarding-house there would be no library, and my +heart sank as we entered the gloomy old building. + +No, there were no books, but among the boarders there were two or three +actors and two actresses--a mother and a daughter. The mother played the +"first old women"; the daughter, only a year or two older than I was, +played, I was told, "walking-ladies," though what that meant I could not +imagine. + +The daughter (Blanche) liked me, while I looked upon her with awe, and +wondered why she even noticed me. She was very wilful, she would not +study anything on earth save her short parts. She had never read a book +in her life. When I was home from school I told her stories by the hour, +and she would say: "You ought to be in a theatre--you could act!" + +And then I would be dumb for a long time, because I thought she was +making fun of me. One day I was chewing some gum she gave me--I was not +chewing it very nicely, either--and my mother boxed my ears, and Blanche +said: "You ought to be in a theatre--you could chew all the gum you liked +there!" + +And just then my mother was so cruelly overworked, and the spring came in +with furious heat, and I felt so big and yet so helpless--a great girl of +thirteen to be worked for by another--and the humiliation seemed more +than I could bear, and I locked myself in our dreary cupboard of a room, +and flung myself upon my knees, and in a passion of tears tried to make a +bargain with my God! I meant no irreverence--I was intensely religious. I +did not see the enormity of the act--I only knew that I suffered, and +that God could help me--so I asked His help! But, instead of stopping +there, I cried out to Him this promise: "Dear God! just pity me and show +me what to do! Please--please help me to help my mother--and if you will, +I'll never say 'No!' to any woman who comes to me all my life long!" + +My error in trying to barter with my Maker must have been forgiven, for +my prayer was answered within a week, while there are many women +scattered through the land who know that I have tried faithfully to keep +my part of that bargain, and no woman who has sought my aid has ever been +answered with a "No!" + +One day Blanche greeted me with the news that extra ballet-girls were +wanted, and told me that I must go at once and get engaged. + +"But," I said, "maybe they won't take me!" + +"Well," answered she, "I've coaxed your mother, and my mother says she'll +look out for you--so at any rate go and see. I'll take you to-morrow." + +And so dimly, vaguely, I seemed to see a way opening out before me, and +again behind the locked door I knelt and said: "Dear God! dear God!" and +got no further, because grief has many words and joy has so few. + +The school term had closed on Friday, and on Saturday morning, with my +heart beating almost to suffocation, I started out to walk to the theatre +with Blanche, who had promised to ask Mr. Ellsler (the manager) to take +me on in the ballet. When we reached the sidewalk we saw the sky +threatened rain and Blanche sent me back for an umbrella. I had none of +my own, so I borrowed one from Mrs. Miller (our landlady), and at sight +of it my companion broke into laughter. It was a dreadful affair--with a +knobby, unkind handle, a slovenly and corpulent body, and a +circumference, when open, that suggested the idea that it had been built +to shelter not only the landlady, but those wise ones of the boarders who +had paid up before the winds rose and the rain fell. Then we proceeded to +the old Academy of Music on Bank Street, and entering, went upstairs, and +just as we reached the top step a small dark man hurried across the hall +and Blanche called quickly: "Oh, Mr. Ellsler--Mr. Ellsler! wait a moment, +please--I want to speak to you!" + +I could not know that his almost repellent sternness of face concealed a +kindness of heart that approached weakness, so when he turned a frowning, +impatient face toward us, hope left me utterly, and for a moment I seemed +to stand in a great darkness. I think I can do no better than to give Mr. +Ellsler's own account of that, our first meeting, as he has given it +often since. He says: "I was much put out by a business matter and was +hastily crossing the corridor when Blanche called me, and I saw she had +another girl in tow; a girl whose appearance in a theatre was so droll I +must have laughed, had I not been more than a little cross. Her dress was +quite short--she wore a pale-blue apron buttoned up the back, long braids +tied at the ends with ribbon, and a brown straw hat, while she clutched +desperately at the handle of the biggest umbrella I ever saw. Her eyes +were distinctly blue and were plainly big with fright. Blanche gave her +name and said she wanted to go on in the ballet, and I instantly answered +she would not do, she was too small--I wanted women, not children, and +started to return to my office. Blanche was voluble, but the girl herself +never spoke a single word. I glanced toward her and stopped. The hands +that clutched the umbrella trembled--she raised her eyes and looked at +me. I had noticed their blueness a moment before--now they were almost +black, so swiftly had the pupils dilated, and slowly the tears rose in +them. All the father in me shrank under the child's bitter +disappointment; all the actor in me thrilled at the power of expression +in the girl's face, and I hastily added: 'Oh, well! You may come back in +a day or two, and if anyone appears meantime who is short enough to march +with you I'll take you on,' and after I got to my office I remembered the +girl had not spoken a single word, but had won an engagement--for I knew +I should engage her--with a pair of tear-filled eyes." + +The following Tuesday, under the protection of the ever-faithful Blanche, +I again presented myself and was engaged for the term of two weeks, to go +on the stage in the marches and dances of a play called "The Seven +Sisters," for which service I was to receive three dollars a week, or +fifty cents a night, as there were no matinées then, and so I entered, +with wide-astonished eyes, into that dim, dusty, chaotic place known as +"behind the scenes"--a strange place, where nothing _is_ and everything +_may be_. + +In the daytime I found the stage a thing dead--at night, with the blazing +of the gas, it lived! for light is its life, music is its soul, and the +play its brain. + +Silently and cautiously I walked about, gazing curiously at the "scenes," +so fine on one side, so bare and cheap on the other; at the tarlatan +"glass windows"; at the green "calico sea," lying flat and waveless on +the floor. Everything there pretended to be something else, and at last I +said solemnly to Blanche: "Is everything only make-believe in a theatre?" + +And she turned her gum to the other side and answered: "Yes, everything's +make-believe--except salary day!" + +Then came the rehearsal--everything was military just then--and there was +a Zouave drill to learn, as well as a couple of dances. The women and +girls who had been engaged were not the very nicest people in the world, +though they were the best to be found at such short notice; and Mrs. +Bradshaw told me not to stand about with them, but to come to her as soon +as my share in the work was over. "But," said this wise woman, "don't +fail in politeness to them; for nothing can hold a person so far off as +extreme politeness." + +To me the manual of arms was mere child's play, and the drill a veritable +delight. The second day I scribbled down the movements in the order that +they had been made, and learned them by heart, with the result that on +the third day I sat aside chewing gum, while the stage-manager raved over +the rest. Then the star--Mr. McDonough--came along and furiously demanded +to know why I was not drilling. "The gentleman sent me out of the ranks, +sir," I answered, "because he said I knew the manual and drill!" + +"Oh, indeed! well, there's not one of you that knows it--and you never +will know it! You're a set of numbskulls! Here!" he cried, catching up a +rifle, "take hold of this--get up here--and let's see how much you know! +Now, then, shoulder arms!" + +And standing alone--burning with blushes, blinded with tears of +mortification--I was put through my paces with a vengeance; but I really +knew the manual as thoroughly as I knew the drill, and when it was over +Mr. McDonough took the rifle from me, and exclaimed: "Well, saucer-eyes, +you do know it! I'm d----d if you don't! and I'm sorry, little girl, I +spoke so roughly to you!" + +He held out his fat white hand to me, and as I took it he added: "You +ought to stay in this business--you've got your head with you!" + +It was a small matter, of course, but there was a faint hint of triumph +in it, and the savor was very pleasant to me. + +Naturally, with a salary of but three dollars a week, we turned to the +management for our costumes. I wonder what the _danseuse_ of to-day +would think of the costume worn by her sister of the "sixties"? Now her +few gauzy limb-betraying skirts reach but to the middle of the thigh; her +scrap of a bodice, cut far below the shoulder blades at the back, being +absolutely sleeveless, is precariously held in place by a string or two +of beads. To be sure, she is apt to wear a collar of blazing diamonds, +instead of the simple band of black velvet that used to be sufficient +ornament for the peerless Bonfanti and the beautiful and modest Betty +Rigl, who in their graceful ignorance of "splits" and athletic "tours de +force," managed in their voluminous and knee-long skirts to whirl, to +glide, to poise and float, to show, in fact, the poetry of motion. + +But we, this untrained ballet, were not Bonfantis nor Morlachis, and we +wore our dancing clothes with a difference. In one dance we were supposed +to be fairies. We wore flesh-colored slippers and tights. It took one +full week of our two weeks' engagement to learn how to secure these +treacherous articles, so that they would remain smooth and not wrinkle +down somewhere or twist about. One girl never learned, and to the last +added to the happiness of the public by ambling about on a pair of legs +that looked as if they had been done up in curl papers the night before. + +We each had seven white tarlatan skirts, as full as they could be +gathered--long enough to come a little below the knee. Our waists were +also flesh-colored, and were cut fully two or three inches below our +collar-bones, so you see there was plenty of cloth at our backs to hook +our very immature wings to. We had wreaths of white roses on our +heads--Blanche, who was very frank, said they looked like wreaths of +turnips--and garlands of white roses to wave in the dance. I remember the +girl with the curled legs was loathed by all because she lassoed everyone +she came near with her garland--so you see we were very decorous fairies, +whether we were decorative or not. + +Of course we were rather substantial, and our wings did seem too thin and +small to sustain us satisfactorily. One girl took hers off in the +dressing-room and remarked contemptuously that "they couldn't lift her +cat even!" + +But another, who was dictatorial and also of a suspicious nature, +answered savagely: "You don't know nothing about wings--and you haven't +got no cat, nohow, and you know it--so shut up!" and the conversation +closed. + +In our second costume we were frankly human. We still wore dancing +skirts, but we were in colors, and we had, of course, shed our +wings--nasty, scratchy things they were, I remember. Then for the drill +and march we wore the regular Fire Zouave uniform. + +It was all great fun for me--you remember I was not stage-struck. +Dramatically speaking, I was not yet born--I had neither ambition nor +fear--I was simply happy because I was going to earn that, to me, great +sum of money, and was going to give it to my mother, and planned only +what I should say to her, and had no thought at all of the theatre or +anything or any person in it. + +The donning of fleshings for the first time is an occasion of anxiety to +anyone, man or woman. I, however, approached the subject of tights with +an open mind, and Blanche freely gave me both information and advice. She +chilled my blood by describing the mortifying mishaps, the dread +disasters these garments had brought to those who failed to understand +them. She declared them to be tricky, unreliable, and malicious in the +extreme. + +"There's just one way to succeed with 'em," she said, "and that's by +bullying 'em. Show you're afraid and they will slip and twist and wrinkle +down and make you a perfect laughing-stock. You must take your time, you +know, at first, and fit 'em on very carefully and smoothly over your feet +and ankles and up over your knees. See that they are nice and straight or +you'll look as if you were walking on corkscrews, but after that bully +'em--yank and pull and drag 'em, and when you have 'em drawn up as tight +as you can draw 'em, go at 'em and pull 'em up another inch at least. +They'll creak and snap and pretend they're going to tear, but don't you +ever leave your dressing-room satisfied, unless you feel you can't +possibly get down-stairs without going sideways." + +"But," I remonstrated, "they'll break and let my knees through!" + +"Oh, no they won't!" she cheerfully answered. "They'll make believe +they're going to split at the knee, of course, but instead they'll just +keep as safe and smooth as the skin on your arm. But, for Heaven's sake, +don't be afraid of 'em!" + +And I gravely promised to be as bold as I possibly could in my first +encounter with the flesh-colored terrors. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTH + + I Receive my First Salary--I am Engaged for the Coming Season. + + +At last the night came. Hot? Oh, my, hot it was! and we were so crowded +in our tiny dressing-room that some of us had to stand on the one chair +while we put our skirts on. The confusion was great, and I was glad to +get out of the room, down-stairs, where I went to show myself to Mrs. +Bradshaw or Blanche, to see if I was all right. They looked at me, and +after a hopeless struggle with their quivering faces they burst into +shrieks of laughter. With trembling hands I clutched my tarlatan skirts +and peering down at my tights, I groaned: "Are they twisted, or run down, +or what?" + +But it was not the tights, it was my face. I knew you had to put on +powder because the gas made you yellow, and red because powder made you +ghastly, but it had not occurred to me that skill was required in +applying the same, and I was a sight to make any kindly disposed angel +weep! I had not even sense enough to free my eyelashes from the powder +clinging to them. My face was chalk white and low down on my cheeks were +nice round bright red spots. + +Mrs. Bradshaw said: "With your round blue eyes and your round +white-and-red face, you look like a cheap china doll! Come here, my +dear!" + +She dusted off a few thicknesses of the powder, removed the hard scarlet +spots, took a great soft hare's foot, which she rubbed over some pink +rouge, and then holding it in the air she proceeded: "To-morrow, after +you have walked to get a color, go to your glass and see where that color +shows itself. I think you will find it high on your cheek, coming up +close under the eye and growing fainter toward the ear. I'll paint you +that way to-night on chance. You see _my_ color is low on my cheek. Of +course when you are making-up for a character part you go by a different +rule, but when you are just trying to look pretty be guided by nature. +Now----" + +I felt the soft touch of the hare's foot on my burning cheeks; then she +gave me a tooth-brush, which had black on it, and bade me draw it across +my lashes. I did so and was surprised at the amount of powder it removed. +She touched her little finger to some red pomade, and said: "Thrust out +your under lip--no, not like a kiss--that makes creases--make a sulky +lip--so!" + +She touched my lip with her finger, then she drew back and laughed again, +in a different way. She drew me to the glass, and said, "Look!" + +I looked and cried: "Oh--oh! Mrs. Bradshaw, that girl doesn't look a bit +like me--she's ever so much nicer!" + +In that lesson on making-up was the beginning and the ending of my +theatrical instruction. What I have learned since then has been by +observation, study, and direct inquiry--but never by instruction, either +free or paid for. + +Now, while I was engaged to go on with the crowd, fate willed after all +that I should have an independent entrance for my first appearance on the +stage. The matter would be too trivial to mention were it not for the +influence it had upon my future. One act of the play represented the back +of a stage during a performance. The scenes were turned around with their +unpainted sides to the public. The scene-shifters and gas-men were +standing about--everything was going wrong. The manager was giving orders +wildly, and then a dancer was late. She was called frantically and +finally when she appeared on the run, the manager caught her by the +shoulders, rushed her across the stage and fairly pitched her on the +imaginary stage--to the great amusement of the audience. + +The tallest and prettiest girl in the ballet had been picked out to do +this bit of work, and she had been rehearsed and rehearsed as if she were +preparing for the balcony scene of "Romeo and Juliet"; and day after day +the stage-manager would groan: "Can't you run? Did you never run? Imagine +the house a-fire and that you are running for your life!" + +At last, on that opening night, we were all gathered ready for our first +entrance and dance, which followed a few moments after the incident I +have described. The tall girl had a queer look on her face as she stood +in her place--her cue came, but she never moved. + +I heard the rushing footsteps of the stage-manager: "That's you!" he +shouted; "go on! go on, run!" + +Run? She seemed to have grown fast to the floor. We heard the angry +_aside_ of the actor on the stage: "Send someone on here--for Heaven's +sake!" + +"Are you going on?" cried the frantic prompter. + +She dropped her arms limply at her sides and whispered: "I--I--c-a-n-t!" + +He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each +girl shrank back from it. He reached me--I had no fear, and he saw it. +"Can you go on there?" he cried. I nodded. "Then for God's sake go!" + +I gave a bound and a rush that carried me half, across the stage before +the manager caught me--and so I made my entrance on the stage, and danced +and marched and sang with the rest, and all unconsciously took my first +step upon the path that I was to follow through shadow and through +sunshine--to follow by steep and stony places, over threatening bogs, +through green and pleasant meadows--to follow steadily and faithfully for +many and many a year to come. + +On our first salary day, to the surprise of all concerned, I did not go +to claim my week's pay. To everyone who spoke to me of the matter, I +simply answered: "Oh, that will be all right." When the second day came I +was the last to present myself at the box-office window. Mr. Ellsler was +there and he opened the door and asked me to come in. As I signed my name +on the salary list I hesitated perceptibly and he laughingly said: "Don't +you know your own name?" Now on the first day of all, when the +stage-manager had taken down our names, I had been gazing at the scenery +and when he called out: "Little girl, what is your name?" I had not +heard, and someone standing by had said: "Her name is Clara--Clara +Morris, or Morrisey, or Morrison, or something like that," and he dropped +the last syllable from my name Morrison, and wrote me down Morris; so +when Mr. Ellsler put his question, "Don't you know your name?" that was +certainly the moment when I should have spoken--but I was too shy, and +there and thereafter held my peace, and have been in consequence Clara +Morris ever since. + +I having signed for and received my two weeks' salary, Mr. Ellsler asked +why I had not come the week before, and I told him I preferred to wait +because it would seem so much more if I got both weeks' salary all at one +time. And he gravely nodded and said "it was rather a large sum to have +in hand at one time"--and, though I was very sensitive to ridicule, I did +not suspect him of making fun of me. + +Then he said: "You are a very intelligent little girl, and when you went +on alone and unrehearsed the other night you proved you had both +adaptability and courage. I'd like to keep you in the theatre. Will you +come and be a regular member of the company for the season that begins in +September next?" + +I think it must have been my ears that finally stopped my ever-widening +smile while I made answer that I must ask my mother first. + +"To be sure," said he, "to be sure! Well, suppose you ask her, then, and +let me know whether you can or not." + +Looking back and speaking calmly, I must admit that I do not now believe +that Mr. Ellsler's financial future depended entirely upon the yes or no +of my mother and myself; but that I was on an errand of life or death +everyone must have thought who saw me tearing through the streets on that +90-in-the-shade summer day, racing along in a whirl of short skirts, with +the boyish, self-kicking gait peculiar to running girls of thirteen. + +One man, a tailor, ran out hatless and coatless and looked up the street +anxiously in the direction from which I came. A big boy on the corner +yelled after me: "S-a-a-y, Sis, where's the fire?" but you see they did +not know that I was carrying home my first earnings--that I was clutching +six damp one-dollar bills in the hands that had been so empty all my +life! Poor little hands that had never held a greater sum than one big +Canadian penny, that had never held a dollar bill till they had first +earned it. But if the boy was blind to what I held, so was I blind to +what the future held--which made us equal. + +I had meant to take off my hat and smooth my hair, and in a decorous and +proper manner approach my mother and deliver my nice little speech, and +then hand her the money. But, alas! as I rushed into the house I came +upon her unexpectedly--for, fearing dinner was going to be late, she was +hurrying things by shelling a great basket of peas as she sat by the +dining-room window. At sight of her tired face, all my nicely planned +speech disappeared. I flung my arm about her neck, dropped the bills on +top of the empty pods, and cried with beautiful lucidity: "Oh, mother! +that's mine--and it's all yours!" + +She kissed me, but to my grieved amazement put the money back into my +hand, folding my four stiff, unwilling fingers over it, as she said: "No, +you have earned this money yourself--you are the only one who has the +right to use it--you are to do with it exactly as you please." + +And while tears of disappointment were yet swimming in my eyes, triumph +sprang up in my heart at her last words; for if I could do exactly as I +pleased, why, after all, she should have the new summer dress she needed +so badly. So I took the money to our room, and having secreted it in the +most intricate and involved manner I could think of, I returned and laid +Mr. Ellsler's offer before my mother, who at first hesitated, but +learning that Mrs. Bradshaw was engaged for another season, she finally +consented, and I rushed back to the theatre, where, red and hot and out +of breath, I was engaged for the ballet for the next season. After this I +was conscious of a new feeling, which I would have found it very hard to +explain then. It was not importance, it was not vanity, it was a pleasant +feeling, it lifted the head and gave one patience to bear calmly many +things that had been very hard to bear. I know now it was the +self-respect that comes to everyone who is a bread-winner. + +Directly after breakfast next day I was off to get my mother's dress. I +went quite alone, and my head was well in the air; for this was indeed an +important occasion. I looked long and felt gravely at the edges of the +goods, I did not know what for, but I had seen other people do it, and +when my lavender-flowered muslin was cut off, done up and paid for, I +found quite a large hole in my six dollars; for it was war time, and +anything made of cotton cost a dreadful price. But, good Heaven! how +happy I was, and how proud that I should get a dress for my mother, +instead of her getting one for me! Undoubtedly, had there been a fire +just then, I would have risked my life to save that flowered muslin gown. + +I had not been more than two or three days in the theatre when I +discovered that its people seemed to be divided into two distinct +parties--the guyers and the guyed--those who laughed and those who were +laughed at. All my life I have had a horror of practical joking, and I +very quickly decided I would not be among the guyed. I had borrowed many +of Mrs. Bradshaw's play books to read, and often found in the directions +for costumes the old word "ibid." "Count Rudolph--black velvet doublet, +hose and short cloak. Count Adolph, ibid." So when the property-man, an +incorrigible joker, asked me to go home and borrow Mrs. Bradshaw's ibid +for him, I simply looked at him and smiled a broad, silent smile and +never moved a peg. He gave me a sharp look, then affecting great anger at +my laziness, he wrote a request for an ibid and gave it to the fattest +girl in the crowd, and she carried it to Mrs. Bradshaw, who wrote on it +that her ibid was at Mrs. Dickson's, and the fat girl went to Mrs. +Dickson's, who said she had lent it to Mr. Lewis--so the poor fat goose +was kept waddling through the heat, from one place to another, until she +was half dead, to the great enjoyment of the property-man. + +Next day he was very busy, when, glancing up, he saw me looking on at his +work. Instantly he caught up a bottle, and said: "Run upstairs to the +paint-frame (three flights up) and ask the painter to put a little +ad-libitum in this bottle for me--there's a good girl!" + +Now I did not yet know what ad-libitum meant, but I was a very close +observer, and I saw the same malicious twinkle in his eye that had shone +there when he had sent the fat girl on her hot journey, and once more I +slowly chewed my gum, and smiled my wide, unbelieving smile. He waited a +moment, but as I did not touch the bottle he tossed it aside, saying: +"What a suspicious little devil you are!" + +But when a man wanted me to blow down a gun-barrel next morning, the +property-man exclaimed: "Here, you! let saucer-eyes alone! I don't know +whether she gets her _savey_ out of her head or chews it out of her gum, +but she don't guy worth a cent, so you needn't try to put anything on to +her!" + +And from that day to this I have been free from the attacks of the +practical joker. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTH + + The Regular Season Opens--I have a Small Part to Play--I am among + Lovers of Shakespeare--I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under the + Charm. + + +Up to this time the only world I had known had been narrow and sordid and +lay chill under the shadow of poverty; and it is sunlight that makes the +earth smile into flower and fruit and laugh aloud through the throats of +birds. But now, standing humbly at the knee of Shakespeare, I began to +learn something of another world--fairy-like in fascination, marvellous +in reality. A world of sunny days and jewelled nights, of splendid +palaces, caves of horror, forests of mystery, and meadows of smiling +candor. All peopled, too, with such soldiers, statesmen, lovers, clowns, +such women of splendid chill chastity, fierce ambition, thistle-down +lightness, and burning, tragic love as made the heart beat fast to think +of. + +Perhaps if I had attempted simply to read Shakespeare at that time, I +might have fallen short both in profit and in pleasure; but it was the +_hearing_ him that roused my attention. There was such music in the sound +of the words, that the mind was impelled to study out their meaning. It +seems to me that a human voice is to poetry what a clear even light is to +a reader, making each word give up its full store of meaning. + +At that time Forrest, crowned and wrapped in royal robes, was yet +tottering on his throne. Charlotte Cushman was the Tragic Queen of the +stage. Mr. James Murdoch, frail and aging, but still acting, was highly +esteemed. Joseph Jefferson, E. L. Davenport, J. K. Hackett, Edwin Adams, +John E. Owens, Dan. Setchell, Peter Richings and his daughter Caroline, +Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Miss Lucille Western, Miss Maggie Mitchell, Mr. and +Mrs. Conway, Matilda Heron, Charles Couldock, Joseph Proctor, Mr. and +Mrs. Albaugh, Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, the Webb Sisters, Kate +Reynolds, were all great favorites, not pausing to mention many more, +while Edwin Booth, the greatest light of all, was rising in golden glory +in the East. + +Of the above-mentioned twenty-eight stars, eighteen acted in +Shakespeare's plays. All stars played a week's engagement--many played +two weeks, therefore at least twenty-four of our forty-two week season +was given over to Shakespearean productions, and every actor and actress +had the Bard at their tongue's tip. + +In the far past the great disgrace of our profession was the inebriety of +its men. At the time I write of, the severity of the managers had nearly +eradicated the terrible habit, and I never saw but two of that class of +brilliant actor-drunkards, beloved of newspaper story writers, who made +too much of their absurd vagaries. + +Looking back to the actors of '65, I can't help noticing the difference +between their attitude of mind toward their profession, and that of the +actor of to-day. Salaries were much smaller then, work was harder, but +life was simpler. The actor had no social standing; he was no longer +looked down upon, but he was an unknown quantity; he was, in short, an +actor pure and simple. He had enthusiasm for his profession--he lived to +act, not merely living by acting. He had more superstition than religion, +and no politics at all; but he was patriotic and shouldered his gun and +marched away in the ranks as cheerfully as any other citizen soldier. + +But above all and beyond all else, the men and women _respected_ their +chosen profession. Their constant association of mind with Shakespeare +seemed to have given them a certain dignity of bearing as well as of +speech. + +To-day our actors have in many cases won some social recognition, and +they must therefore give a portion of their time to social duties. They +are clubmen and another portion of their time goes in club lounging. +They draw large salaries and too frequently they have to act in long +running plays, that are made up of smartish wit and cheapest +cynicism--mere froth and frivolity, while the effective smashing of the +Seventh Commandment has been for so long a time the principal _motif_ of +both drama and farce, that one cannot wonder much at the general tone of +flippancy prevailing among the theatrical people of to-day. They guy +everything and everybody, and would jeer at their profession as readily +as they would at an old man on the street wearing a last year's hat. + +They are sober, they are honest, they are generous, but they seem to have +grown utterly flippant, and I can't help wondering if this alteration can +have come about through the change in their mental pabulum. + +At all events, as I watched and listened in the old days, it seemed to me +they were never weary of discussing readings, expressions, emphasis, and +action. One would remark, say at a rehearsal of "Hamlet," that Macready +gave a certain line in this manner, and another would instantly express a +preference for a Forrest--or a Davenport--rendering, and then the +argument would be on, and only a call to the stage would end the weighing +of words, the placing of commas, etc. + +I well remember my first step into theatrical controversy. "Macbeth" was +being rehearsed, and the star had just exclaimed: "Hang out our banners +on the outward walls!" That was enough--argument was on. It grew +animated. Some were for: "Hang out our banners! on the outward walls the +cry is still: they come!" while one or two were with the star's reading. + +I stood listening and looking on and fairly sizzling with hot desire to +speak, but dared not take the liberty, I stood in such awe of my elders. +Presently the "old-man" turned and, noticing my eagerness, laughingly +said: "Well, what is it, Clara? you'll have a fit if you don't ease your +mind with speech." + +"Oh, Uncle Dick," I answered, my words fairly tripping over each other +in my haste. "I have a picture home, I cut it out of a paper, it's a +picture of a great castle, with towers and moats and things, and on the +outer walls there are men with spears and shields, and they seem to be +looking for the enemy, and, Uncle Dick, the _banner_ is floating over the +high tower!" + +"Where it ought to be," interpolated the old gentleman, who was English. + +"So," I went on, "don't you think it ought to be read: 'Hang out our +banners! on the outward walls'--the outward walls, you know, is where the +lookout are standing--'the cry--is still, they come!'" + +A general laugh followed my excited explanation, but Uncle Dick patted me +very kindly on the shoulder, and said: "Good girl! you stick to your +picture--it's right and so are you. Many people read the line that way, +but you have worked it out for yourself, and that's a good plan to +follow." + +And I swelled and swelled, it seemed to me, I was so proud of the gentle +old man's approval. But that same night I came quite wofully to grief. I +had been one of the crowd of "witches"; I had also had my place at that +shameless _papier-maché_ banquet given by _Macbeth_ to his tantalized +guests, and then, being off duty, was, as usual, planted in the entrance, +watching the acting of the grown-up and the grown-great. _Lady Macbeth_ +was giving the sleep-walking scene. Her method was of the old, old +school. She spoke at almost the full power of her lungs, throughout that +mysterious, awe-inspiring sleep-walking scene. It jarred upon my +feelings--I could not have told why, but it did. I believed myself alone, +and when the memory-haunted woman roared out: "Yet, who would have +thought the old man to have had so much _blood_ in him?" I remarked, +_sotto voce_: "Did you expect to find ink in him?" + +A sharp "ahem!" right at my shoulder told me I had been overheard, and I +turned to face--oh, horror! the stage-manager. He glared angrily at me, +and began: "Since when have the ladies of the ballet taken to +criticising the work of the stars?" + +Humbly enough, I said: "I beg your pardon, sir, I was just talking to +myself, that was all." + +But he went on: "Oh, you would not criticize a reading, unless you could +better it--so pray favor us with _your_ ideas on this speech!" + +Each sneering word cut me to the heart. Tears filled my eyes. I struggled +hard to keep them from falling, while I just murmured: "I beg your +pardon!" Again he demanded my reading, saying they were not "too old to +learn," and in sheer desperation, I exclaimed: "I was only speaking to +myself, but I thought _Lady Macbeth_ was amazed at the _quantity_ of +blood that flowed from the body of such an old man--for when you get old, +you know, sir, you don't have so much blood as you used to, and I only +just thought, that as the 'sleeping men were laced,' and the knives +'smeared,' and her hands 'bathed' with it, she might have perhaps +whispered: 'Yet, who would have thought the old man to have had _so much_ +blood in him?' I didn't mean an impertinence!" and down fell the tears, +for I could not talk and hold them back at the same time. + +He looked at me in dead silence for a few moments, then he said: "Humph!" +and walked away, while I rushed to the dressing-room and cried and cried, +and vowed that never, never again would I talk to myself--in the theatre +at all events. I mention these incidents to show how quickly I came under +the influence of these Shakespeare-studying men and women, some of whom +had received their very adequate education from him alone. + +It was odd to hear how they used his words and expressions in their daily +conversation. 'Twas not so much quoting him intentionally, as it was an +unconscious incorporation into their own language of Shakespeare's lines. + +Tramps were to them almost always "vagrom men." When one did some very +foolish thing, he almost surely begged to be "written down an ass." The +appearance of a pretty actress in her new spring or fall gown was as +surely hailed with: "The riches of the ship have come on shore!" + +I saw a pet dog break for the third time from restraint to follow his +master, who put his hand on the animal's head and rather worriedly +remarked: "'The love that follows us sometimes is our trouble--which +still'" (with a big sigh) "'we thank as love!' But you'll have to go +back, old fellow, all the same." If someone obliged you, and you +expressed the fear that you had given him trouble, he would be absolutely +certain to reply, pleasantly and quite honestly: "The labor we delight in +physics pain!" And so on and on unendingly. And I almost believe that had +an old actor seen these three great speeches: The "seven ages" of man, +"To be or not to be!" and "Othello's occupation's gone," grouped +together, he would have fallen upon his knees and become an idolator +there and then. + +Yes, I found them odd people, but I liked them. The world was brightening +for me, and I felt I had a right to my share of the air and light, and as +much of God's earth as my feet could stand upon. + +I had had a little part entrusted to me, too, the very first week of the +season. A young backwoods-boy, Tom Bruce, by name, and I had borrowed +some clothes and had slammed about with my gun, and spoken my few words +out loud and clear, and had met with approving looks, if not words, but +not yet was the actress aroused in me, I was still a mere school-girl +reciting her lessons. My proudest moment had been when I was allowed to +go on for the longest witch in the cauldron scene in "Macbeth." Perhaps I +might have come to grief over it had I not overheard the leading man say: +"That child will never speak those lines in the world!" and the leading +man was six feet tall and handsome, and I was thirteen and a half years +old, and had to be called a "child!" + +I was in a secret rage, and I went over and over my lines, at all hours, +under all kinds of circumstances, so that nothing should be able to +frighten me at night. And then, with my paste-board crown and white sheet +and petticoat, I boiled-up in the cauldron and gave my lines well enough +for the manager (who was _Hecate_ just then) to say low, "Good! Good!" +and the leading man next night asked me to take care of his watch and +chain during his combat scene, and my pride of bearing was most unseemly, +and the other ballet-girls loved me not at all, for you see they, too, +knew he was six feet tall and handsome. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTH + + I find I am in a "Family Theatre"--I Fare Forth away from my Mother, + and in Columbus I Shelter under the wing of Mrs. Bradshaw. + + +This theatre in which I found myself was, in professional parlance, a +family theatre, a thing abhorred by many, especially by actresses. Not +much wonder either, for even as the green bay tree flourisheth in the +psalm, so does nepotism flourish in the family theatre; and when it's a +case of the managerial _Monsieur_, _Madame_, _et Bébés_ all acting, many +are the tears, sobs, and hot words that follow upon the absorption by +these three of all the good parts, while all the poor ones are placed +with strictest justice where they belong. At that time men and women were +engaged each for a special "line of business," and to ask anyone to act +outside of his "line" was an offence not lightly passed over. + +For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with theatrical terms of +procedure, I will state that a company was generally made up of a leading +man (heroes, of course), first old man, second old man, heavy man, first +comedian, second comedian, juvenile man, walking gentleman, and utility +man. + +That term, "heavy man," of course had no reference to the actor's +physical condition, but it generally implied a deep voice, heavy +eyebrows, and a perfect willingness to stab in the back or smilingly to +poison the wine of the noblest hero or the fairest heroine in the +business; so the professional player of villains was a heavy man. + +The juvenile man may have left juvenility far, far behind him in reality, +but if his back was flat, his eyes large and hair good; he would support +old mothers, be falsely accused of thefts, and win wealthy sweethearts in +last acts, with great _éclat_--as juvenile men were expected to do. + +Walking gentlemen didn't walk all the time; truth to tell, they stood +about and pretended a deep interest in other people's affairs, most of +the time. They were those absent Pauls or Georges that are talked about +continually by sweethearts or friends or irate fathers, and finally +appear just at the end of everything, simply to prove they really do +exist, and to hold a lady's hand, while the curtain falls on the +characters, all nicely lined up and bowing like toy mandarins. + +The utility man was generally not a man, but a large, gloomy boy, whose +mustache would not grow, and whose voice would crack over the few lines +he was invited to address to the public. He sometimes led mobs, but more +often made brief statements as to the whereabouts of certain +carriages--and therein laid his claim to utility. + +Then came the leading lady, the first old woman (who was sometimes the +heavy woman), the first singing soubrette, the walking ladies, the second +soubrette (and boys' parts), the utility woman, and the ladies of the +ballet. These were the principal "lines of business," and in an artistic +sense they bound actors both hand and foot; so utterly inflexible were +they that the laws of the Medes and Persians seemed blithe and friendly +things in comparison. + +"Oh, I can't play that; it's not in my line!" "Oh, yes, I sing, but the +singing don't belong to my line!" "I know, he _looks_ the part and I +don't, but it belongs to my line!" and so, nearly every week, some +performance used to be marred by the slavish clinging to these defined +"lines of business." + +Mr. Augustin Daly was the first manager who dared to ignore the absolute +"line." "You must trust my judgment to cast you for the characters you +are best suited to perform, and you must trust my honor not to lower or +degrade you, by casting you below your rightful position, for I will not +be hampered and bound by any fixed 'lines of business.'" So said he to +all would-be members of his company. The pill was a trifle bitter in the +swallowing, as most pills are, but it was so wholesome in its effect that +ere long other managers were following Mr. Daly's example. + +But to return to our mutton. If the family theatre was disliked by those +who had already won recognized positions, it was at least an ideal place +in which a young girl could begin her professional life. The manager, Mr. +John A. Ellsler, was an excellent character-actor as well as a first old +man. His wife, Mrs. Effie Ellsler, was his leading woman--his daughter +Effie, though not out of school at that time, acted whenever there was a +very good part that suited her. The first singing soubrette was the wife +of the prompter and the stage-manager. The first old woman was the mother +of the walking lady, and so it came about that there was not even the +pink flush of a flirtation over the first season, and, though another +season was shaken and thrilled through and through by the elopement and +marriage of James Lewis with Miss Frankie Hurlburt, a young lady from +private life in Cleveland, yet in all the years I served in that old +theatre, no real scandal ever smirched it. + +True, one poor little ballet-girl fell from our ranks and was drawn into +that piteous army of women, who, with silk petticoats and painted cheeks, +seek joy in the bottom of the wine cup. Poor little soul! how we used to +lock the dressing-room door and lower our voices when we spoke of having +seen her. + +I can never be grateful enough for having come under the influence of the +dear woman who watched over me that first season--Mrs. Bradshaw, one of +the most versatile, most earnest, most devoted actresses I ever saw, and +a good woman besides. + +She had known sorrow, trouble, and loss. She was widowed, she had two +children to support unaided, but she made moan to no one. She worked +early and late; she rehearsed, studied, acted, mended, and made; for her +salary absolutely forbade the services of a dress-maker. She had two +gowns a year, one thick, one thin. She could not herself compute the age +of her bonnets, so often were they blocked over, or dyed and retrimmed. +Yet no better appearing woman ever entered a stage-door than this +excessively neat, well-groomed, though plainly clad, old actress. + +It is not to be denied that a great many professional women are +absolutely without the sense of order. Their irregular hours, their +unsettled mode of life, camping out a few days in this hotel and then in +that in a measure explain it, but Mrs. Bradshaw set an example of neat +orderliness that was well worth following. + +"I can't see," she used to say, "why an actress should be a slattern." + +Then if anyone murmured: "Early rehearsals, great haste, you know!" she +would answer: "You know at night the hour of morning rehearsal--then get +up fifteen minutes earlier, and leave your room in order. Everything an +actress does is commented upon, and as she is more or less an object of +suspicion, her conduct should be even more rigidly correct than that of +other women." She had been a beauty in her youth, as her regular features +still proclaimed, and though her figure had become almost Falstaffian, +her graceful arm movements and the dignity of her carriage saved her from +being in the slightest degree grotesque. The secret of her smiling +contentment was her honest love for her work. + +We had one taste in common--this experienced woman and my now +fourteen-year-old self--books! books! and yet books, we read. I borrowed +from my friends and she also read--she borrowed from her friends and I, +too, read, and she came to speak of them, and then of her own ideas, and +so I found that this woman, already on the way to age, who was so poor +and hard-working, and had nothing to look forward to but work, was yet +cheerfully contented, because she loved the work--yes, and honored it, +and held her head high, because she was an actress with a clean +reputation! + +"Study your lines--speak them with exactitude, just as they are written!" +she used to say to me, with a sort of passion in her voice. + +"Don't just gather the idea of a speech, and then use your own words, +that's an infamous habit. The author knew what he wanted you to say--for +God's sake honor the poor dead writer's wishes and speak his lines +exactly as he wrote them! If he says: 'My lord the carriage waits!' don't +you go on and say: 'My lord the carriage is waiting!'" + +I almost believe she would have fallen in a dead faint had she been +prompted, and to have been late to a rehearsal would have been a shame +greater than she could have borne. To this woman's example, I owe the +strict business-like habits of attention to study and rehearsals that +have won so much praise for me from my managers. + +Had Mr. Ellsler's intention of taking his company to another city for a +great part of the season been known in advance, my mother would never +have given consent to my membership; but the season was three months old +before we knew that we were to be transferred to Columbus, the State +capital, where we were to remain, while the Legislature sat in large +arm-chairs, passing bad bills, and killing good ones, for some three +months or more--at least that was the ordinary citizen's opinion of the +conduct of the State's wise men. It seemed to me that when a man paid his +taxes he felt he had purchased the right to grumble at his +representatives to his heart's content. + +But that move to Columbus was a startling event in my life. It meant +leaving my mother and standing quite alone. She was filled with anxiety, +principally for my physical welfare, but I felt, every now and then, my +grief and fright pierced through and through with a delicious thrill of +importance. I was going to be just like a grown-up, and would decide for +myself what I should wear. I might even, if I chose to become so +reckless, wear my Sunday hat to a rehearsal; and when my cheap little +trunk came, with C. M. on the end, showing it was my very own, I stooped +down and hugged it. But later, when my mother with a sad face separated +my garments from her own, taking them from her trunk, where they had +always rested before, I burst into sobs and tears of utter forlornness. + +The Columbus trip had a special effect upon the affairs of the ballet. We +had received $3 a week salary, but every one of us had had some home +assistance. Now we were going to a strange city, and no one on earth +could manage to live on such a salary as that, so our stipend was raised +to $5 a week, and the three of us (we were but three that season) set to +work trying to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board-bill, +her basket-bill, her wash-bill, and all the small expenses of the +theatre--powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc., to say nothing at all of +shoes and clothing--all out of $5 a week. + +Of course there was but one way to do it, and that was by doubling-up and +sharing a room with some one, and that first season I was very lucky. +Mrs. Bradshaw found a house where the top floor had been finished off as +one great long room, running the entire length of the building from gable +to gable, and she offered me a share in it. + +Oh, I was glad! Blanche and I had one-half the room, and Mrs. Bradshaw +and the irrepressible little torment and joy of her life, small Jack, had +the other half. No wonder I grew to reverence her, whose character could +bear such intimate association as that. I don't know what her religious +beliefs were. She read her Bible Sundays, but she never went to church, +neither did she believe in a material hell; but it was not long before I +discovered that when I said my prayers over in my corner, she paused in +whatever she was doing, and remained with downcast eyes--a fact that made +me scramble a bit, I'm afraid. + +There was but one thing in our close companionship that caused her pain, +and that was the inevitable belief of strangers, that I was her daughter +and Blanche her protegée--they being misled by the difference in our +manner toward her. In the severity of my upbringing I had been taught +that it was nothing short of criminal to be lacking in respect for those +who were older than myself; therefore I was not only strictly obedient to +her expressed wishes, but I rose when she entered a room, opened and +closed doors, placed chairs at table, gave her precedence on all +occasions, and served her in such small ways as were possible; while +Blanche ignored her to such a degree that one might have mistaken her for +a stranger to our little party. + +Poor mother! the tears stood thick in her brave eyes when the landlady, +on our third day in her house, remarked to her, patting me on the +shoulder as she spoke: "You have a most devoted little daughter, here!" + +And there was a distinct pause, before she answered, gently: "You +mistake--I have a devoted little friend here, in Clara, but Blanche is my +daughter!" She was a singular being, that daughter. It is seldom indeed +that a girl, who is not bad, can yet be such a thorn in the side of a +mother. She was a most disconcerting, baffling creature--a tricksy, +elfish spirit, that delighted in malicious fun. Pleasure-loving, +indolent, and indifferent alike to praise or blame, she (incredible as it +seems) would willingly give up a good part to save herself the trouble of +playing it. I recall a trick she once performed in my favor. I thought +the _Player-Queen_ in "Hamlet" was a beautiful part, and I hungered to +play it; but it belonged to Blanche, and, of course, she was cast for it; +but said she: "You could have it, for all I'd care!" Then, suddenly, she +added: "Say, you may play it with the next _Hamlet_ that comes along!" + +I pointed out the impossibility of such an assertion coming true, but she +grinned widely at me and chewed her gum as one who knew many things +beyond my ken, and counselled me to "watch out and see what happened." I +watched out, and this happened: + +When the mimic-play was going on before the King and Court, my impish +friend Blanche, as the _Player-Queen_, should have said: "Both here and +hence, pursue me lasting strife, if once a widow, ever I be wife!" + +Instead of which, loudly and distinctly, she proclaimed: "Both here and +hence, pursue me lasting strife, _if once a wife, ever I be widowed_!" + +_Hamlet_ rolled over on his face, _Queen Gertrude_ (Mrs. Bradshaw) +groaned aloud, _Polonius_ (Mr. Ellsler) threatened discharge, under cover +of the laughter of the audience, while guilty Blanche grinned in impish +enjoyment of her work, and next "Hamlet" I was cast for the +_Player-Queen_, to punish Blanche. To punish her, indeed--she was as +merry as a sand-boy, standing about chewing gum and telling stories all +the evening. + +The "tatting" craze was sweeping over the country then, everybody wore +tatting and almost everybody made it. I worked day and night at it, +tatting at rehearsal and between scenes, and lady-stars often bought my +work, to my great pleasure as well as profit. Blanche wanted a new +shuttle, and her mother, who was under extra expense just then, told her +she could have it the next week. It was shortly before Christmas, and +next morning at rehearsal, with all the company present, Blanche walked +up to Mr. Ellsler and asked him if he had any money. + +He looked bewildered, and answered somewhat doubtfully that he thought he +had a little. "Well," said she, "I want you to give me a quarter, so I +can get you a Christmas present." + +There was a burst of laughter as Mr. Ellsler handed her the quarter, and +after rehearsal this is what she did with it: + +On Superior Street a clothing store was being sold out--a forced sale. +There she bought a black shoe-string tie for five cents, as a gift for +Mr. Ellsler, and elsewhere got for herself a tatting-shuttle and five +pieces of chewing-gum, and chuckled over her caper, quite undisturbed by +her mother's tears. + +One thing only moved her, one thing only she loved, music! She had a +charming voice, clear, pure, and cold as crystal, and she sang willingly, +nay, even eagerly, whenever she had the opportunity. In after years she +became a well-known singer in light opera. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTH + + I Display my New Knowledge--I Return to Cleveland to Face my First + Theatrical Vacation, and I Know the very Tragedy of Littleness. + + +During that first season I learned to stand alone, to take care of myself +and my small belongings without admonition from anyone. One of my notions +was that, since an immortal soul had to dwell in my body, it became my +bounden duty to bestow upon it regular and painstaking care in honor of +its tenant. The idea may seem extravagant, yet it served me well, since +it did for me what a mother's watchful supervision does for other little +girls when habits are being formed. + +I had learned, too, most of the technical terms used in the profession. I +knew all about footlights, wings, flies, borders, drops, braces, grooves, +traps, etc. I understood the queer abbreviations. Knew that O.P. side was +opposite the prompt side, where the prompter stood with his book of the +play to give the word to any actor whose memory failed him and to ring +the two bells for the close of the act--one of warning to the curtain-man +up aloft to get ready, the other for him to lower the curtain. Knew that +R.U.E. and L.U.E. were right or left upper entrance; C., centre of the +stage; R.C., right of centre; CD., centre-door. That to go D.S. or U.S. +was an intimation that you would do well to go down stage or up stage, +while an X. to C. was a terse request for you to cross to the centre of +the stage, and that a whole lot of other letters meant a whole lot of +other directions that would only bore a reader. + +I understood how many illusions were produced, and one of the proofs that +I was meant to be an actress was to be found in my enjoyment of the +mechanism of stage effects. I was always on hand when a storm had to be +worked, and would grind away with a will at the crank that, turning a +wheel against a tight band of silk, made the sound of a tremendously +shrieking wind, which filled me with pride and personal satisfaction. And +no one sitting in front of the house looking at a white-robed woman +ascending to heaven, apparently floating upward through the blue clouds, +enjoyed the spectacle more than I enjoyed looking at the ascent from the +rear, where I could see the tiny iron support for her feet, the rod at +her back with the belt holding her securely about the waist (just as +though she were standing on a large hoe, with the handle at her back), +and the men hoisting her through the air, with a painted, sometimes +moving, sky behind her. + +This reminds me that Mrs. Bradshaw had several times to go to heaven +(dramatically speaking), and as her figure and weight made the hoe +support useless in her case, she always went to heaven on the entire +paint-frame or gallery, as it is called--a long platform the whole width +of the stage that is raised and lowered at will by windlass, and on which +the artists stand while painting scenery. This enormous affair would be +cleaned and hung about with nice blue clouds, and then Mrs. Bradshaw, +draped in long, white robes, with hands meekly crossed upon her ample +breast and eyes piously uplifted, would rise heavenward, slowly, as so +heavy an angel should. But, alas! there was one drawback to this +otherwise perfect ascension. Never, so long as the theatre stood, could +that windlass be made to work silently. The paint-gallery always moved up +or down to a succession of screaks unoilable, untamable, blood-curdling, +that were intensified by Mrs. Bradshaw's weight, so that she ascended to +the blue tarlatan empyrean accompanied by such chugs and long-drawn +yowlings as suggested a trip to the infernal regions. Mrs. Bradshaw's +face remained calm and unmoved, but now and then an agonized moan +escaped her, lest even the orchestra's effort to cover up the +paint-frame's protesting cries should prove useless. Poor woman, when she +had been lowered again to terra firma and stepped off, the whole +paint-frame would give a kind of joyous upward spring. She noticed it, +and one evening looked back, and said: "Oh, you're not a bit more glad +than I am, you screaking wretch!" + +I had learned to make up my face properly, to dress my hair in various +ways, and was beginning to know something about correct costuming; but as +the season was drawing to its close my heart quaked and I was sick with +fear, for I was facing, for the first time, that terror, that affliction +of the actor's life, the summer vacation. + +People little dream what a period of misery that is to many stage folk. +Seeing them well dressed, laughing and talking lightly with the +acquaintances they meet on the street, one little suspects that the +gnawing pain of hunger may be busy with their stomachs--that a woman's +fainting "because of the extreme heat, you know," was really caused by +want of food. That the fresh handkerchiefs are of their own washing. That +the garments are guarded with almost inconceivable care, and are only +worn on the street, some older articles answering in their lodgings--and +that it is not vanity, but business, for a manager is not attracted by a +seedy or a shabby-looking applicant for an engagement. + +Oh, the weary, weary miles the poor souls walk! with not a penny in their +pockets. They are compelled to say, "Roll on, sweet chariot!" to even the +street-car as it appears before their longing eyes. + +Some people, mostly men, under these circumstances will stand and look at +the viands spread out temptingly in the restaurant windows; others, +myself among the number, will avoid such places as one would avoid a +pestilence. + +We were back in Cleveland for the last of the season, and I used to +count, over and over again, my tiny savings and set them in little piles. +The wash, the board, and, dear heaven! there were six long, long weeks +of vacation, and I had only one little pile of board money to set against +the whole six. I had six little piles of wash money, and one other little +pile, the _raison d'être_ of which I may explain by and by, if I am not +too much ashamed of the early folly. + +Now I was staying at that acme of inconvenience and discomfort, a cheap +boarding-house, where, by the way, social lines were drawn with sharp +distinction, the upper class coldly recognizing the middle class, but +ignoring the very existence of the lower class, refugees from ignoble +fortune. + +Mrs. Bradshaw, by right of dignity and regular payments for the best room +in the house, was the star-boarder, and it was undoubtedly her friendship +which raised me socially from that third and lowest class to which my +small payments would have relegated me. + +Standing in my tiny, closet-like room, by lifting myself to my toes, I +could touch the ceiling. There was not space for a bureau, but the yellow +wash-stand stood quite firmly, with the assistance of a brick, which made +up for the absence of part of its off hind leg. There was a kitchen-chair +that may have been of pine, but my aching back proclaimed it lignum-vitæ. +A mere sliver of a bed stretched itself sullenly in the corner, where its +slats, showing their outlines through the meagre bed-clothing, suggested +the ribs of an attenuated cab-horse. From that bed early rising became a +pleasure instead of a mere duty. Above the wash-stand, in a narrow, once +veneered but now merely glue-covered frame, hung a small looking-glass, +that, size considered, could, I believe, do more damage to the human +countenance than could any other mirror in the world. It had a sort of +dimple in its middle, which had the effect of scattering one's features +into the four corners of the glass, loosely--a nose and eyebrow here, a +mouth yonder, and one's "altogether" nowhere. + +It was very disconcerting. Blanche said it made her quite sea-sick, or +words to that effect. This dreadful little apartment lay snug against the +roof. In the winter the snow sifted prettily but uncomfortably here and +there. In the summer the heat was appalling. Those old-timers who knew +the house well, called No. 15 the "torture-chamber," and many a time, +during the fiercest heat, Mrs. Bradshaw would literally drive me from the +small fiery furnace to her own room, where at least there was air to +breathe, for No. 15 had but half a window. And yet, miserable as this +place was, it was a refuge and a shelter. The house was well known, it +was ugly, as cheap things are apt to be, but it was respectable and safe, +and I trembled at the thought of losing my right to enter there. + +In the past my mother had been employed by the landlady as seamstress and +as housekeeper, besides which she had once nursed the lonely old woman +through a severe sickness, and as I had been permitted to live with my +mother, Mrs. Miller of course knew me well; so one day when she found me +engaged in the unsatisfactory occupation of recounting my money she asked +me, very gruffly, what I was going to do through the summer. I gazed at +her with wide, frightened eyes, and was simply dumb. More sharply, she +asked: "Do you hear?--what are you going to do when the theatre closes?" + +I swallowed hard, and then faintly answered: "I've got one week's board +saved, Mrs. Miller, but after that I--I--," had my soul depended upon the +speaking of another word I could not have uttered it. + +She glared her most savage glare at me. She impatiently pushed her false +front awry, pulled at her spectacles, and finally took up one of my six +little piles of coin and asked: "What's this for?" + +"Washing," I gasped. + +"You don't send your handkerchiefs to the wash, do you?" she demanded, +suspiciously. + +I shook my head and pointed to a handkerchief drying on a string at my +half-window. + +"That's right," she remarked, in a slightly mollified tone. Then she +reached over, took up the pile that was meant for the next week's board, +and putting it in her pocket, she remarked: "I'll just take this _now_, +so you won't run no risk of losing it, and for the next five weeks after, +why, well your mother was honest before you, and I reckon you're going to +take after her. You promise to be a hard worker, too, so, well nobody +else has ever been able to stay in this room over a week--so I guess you +can go on stopping right here, till the theatre opens again, and you can +pay me by fits and starts as it comes handy for you. Why, what's the +matter with you? Well, I vum! you must be clean tuckered out to cry like +that! Land sakes, child! tie a wet rag on your head and lay right down, +till you can get picked up a bit!" and out she bounced. + +Dear old raging savage! how she used to frighten us all! how she barked +and barked, but she never, never bit! How I wanted to kiss her withered +old cheek that day when she offered me shelter on trust! But she was +eighty-five years old and my honored guest here at "The Pines" before I +told her all the terror and the gratitude she brought to me that day. + +My clear skin, bright eyes, and round face gave me an appearance of +perfect health, which was belied by the pain I almost unceasingly +endured. The very inadequate provision my poor mother had been able to +make for the necessaries of her child's welfare, the cruel restrictions +placed upon my exercise, even upon movement in that wooden chair, where I +sat with numb limbs five hours at a stretch, had greatly aggravated a +slight injury to my spine received in babyhood. And now I was facing a +life of hard work, handicapped by that most tenacious, most cruel of +torments, a spinal trouble. + +At fourteen I knew enough about such terms as vertebra of the back, +spinal-column, spinal-cord, sheath of cord, spinal-marrow, axial nervous +system, curvatures, flexes and reflexes to have nicely established an +energetic quack as a specialist in spinal trouble; and, alas! after all +these years no one has added to my list of flexes and reflexes the words +"fixed or refixed," so my poor spine and I go struggling on, and I +sometimes think, if it could speak, it might declare that I am as dented, +crooked, and wavering as it is. However, I suppose that state of +uncertain health may have caused the capricious appetite that tormented +me. Always poor, I had yet never been able to endure coarse food. Heavy +meats, cabbage, turnips, beets, fried things filled me with cold +repulsion. Crackers and milk formed my dinner, day in and day out. Now +and then crackers and water had to suffice me; but I infinitely preferred +the latter to a meal of roast pork or of corned beef, followed by +rice-pudding. + +But the trouble from the fastidious appetite came when it suddenly +demanded something for its gratification--imperiously, even furiously +demanded it. If anyone desires a thing intensely, the continual denial of +that craving becomes almost a torture. So, when that finical appetite of +mine would suddenly cry out for oysters, I could think of nothing else. +Quick tears would spring into my eyes as I approached the oysterless +table. Again and again I would dream of them, cans and cans would be +piled on my table (I lived far from shell-oysters then), and when I awoke +I would turn on my lumpy bed and moan like a sick animal. I mention this +because I wish to explain what that little odd pile of money had been +saved for. + +At the approach of hot weather a craving for ice-cream had seized upon me +with almost agonizing force. It is a desire common to all young things, +but the poverty of my surroundings, the lack of the more delicate +vegetables, of fruits, of sweets, added to the intensity of my craving. I +had found a place away up on the market where for ten cents one could get +quite a large saucer of the delicate dainty. Fifteen or twenty-five cents +was charged elsewhere for no better cream, but a more decorative saucer. + +But, good gracious! what a sum of money--ten cents for a mere pleasure! +though the memory of it afterward was a comfort for several days, and +then, oh, unfortunate girl! the sick longing would come again! And so, in +a sort of despair, I tried to save thirty cents, with the deliberate +intention of spending the whole sum on luxury and folly. Six long, +blazing-hot, idle weeks I should have to pass in the "torture-chamber," +but with that thirty cents by me I could, every two weeks, loiter +deliciously over a plate of cream, feel its velvety smoothness on my lips +and its icy coldness cooling all my weary, heat-worn body. One week I +could live on memory, and the next upon anticipation, and so get through +the long vacation in comparative comfort. + +There was no lock upon my room door, but I said nothing about it, as the +door would not close anyway; and at night, for security, I placed the +lignum-vitæ chair against it. In the day-time I had to entrust my +belongings to the honor of my house-mates, as it were. + +The six little piles of wash-money I had, after the manner of a squirrel, +buried here and there at the bottom of my trunk, which I securely locked; +but my precious thirty cents I carried about with me, tied in the corner +of a handkerchief. It generally rested in the bosom of my dress, but +there came a day when, for economy's sake, I washed a pair of stockings +as well as my three handkerchiefs, and Mrs. Miller said I might hang them +on the line in the yard below. My tiny window opened in that direction. +The day was fiercely hot. I put the money in my pocket and carefully hung +my dress up opposite the window, and, in a little white jacket, did out +my washing; then, singing happily, I ran down-stairs, two long flights, +to hang the articles on the line. As I was putting a clothes-pin in place +I glanced upward at the musk-plant on my window-sill--and then my heart +stood still in my breast. I could neither breathe nor move for the +moment. I could see my dress-skirt depending from its nail, and oh, dear +God! a man's great red hand was grasping it--was clutching it, here and +there, in search of the pocket! Suddenly I gave a piercing cry, and +bounding into the house, I tore madly up the stairs--too late. The dress +lay in the doorway--the pocket was empty! On the floor, with my head +against the white-washed wall, I sat with closed eyes. The smell of a +musk-plant makes me shudder to this day. I sat there stupidly till dusk; +then I crept to my sliver of a bed, and cried, and cried, and sobbed the +whole weary, hot night through. Next day I simply could not rise, and so +for weeks I dragged heavily up and down the stairs, loathing the very +sight of the dining-room, and driven half wild with that never-sleeping +craving for ice-cream. + +It was purgatory, it was the very tragedy of littleness. And that was my +first theatrical vacation. + + + + +CHAPTER NINTH + + The Season Reopens--I meet the Yellow Breeches and become a Utility + Man--Mr. Murdock Escapes Fits and my "Luck" Proves to be Extra Work. + + +The exuberance of my joy over the opening of the new season was somewhat +modified by my close relations with a certain pair of knee-breeches--and +I wish to say right here that when Gail Hamilton declared inanimate +things were endowed with powers of malice and general mischievousness, +she was not exaggerating, but speaking strictly by the card. + +Some men think her charge was made solely against collar-buttons, whose +conduct the world admits is detrimental to good morals; but they are +wrong; she included many things in her charge. Consider the +innocent-looking rocking-chair, for instance. When it strikes does not +the rocker always find your ankle-joint? In darkness or in light did it +ever miss that exact spot? Never! And then how gently it will sway, while +you rear and stamp, and, with briny eyes, say--well, things you should +not say, things you would not say but for the malice of an inanimate +thing. + +Perhaps the quickest way to win your sympathy is to tell you at once that +those knee-breeches were made of yellow plush, bright yellow--I thought +that would move you! There was a coat, too--yes, things can always be +worse, you see; and when I was crowded into that awful livery I felt like +hopping about in a search for hemp-seed, I looked so like an enormous +canary that had outgrown its cage. + +Had Gail Hamilton known those breeches she would have said: "Here is +total depravity in yellow plush!" + +You see, the way they got their grip on me originally was this. There had +been two utility men engaged for the company, but one of them was taken +sick and could not come to the city at all, and the other one made the +manager sick, and was discharged for utter incompetency, and that very +night there was required a male servant who could in the first act summon +the star to the presence of his employer, with a name hard to pronounce; +and in the last act, when the star had become the boss of the whole +affair, could announce the coming of his carriage. + +"Could I do those two lines?" + +"Oh, yes!" I joyfully announced my ability and my willingness; "but I had +no clothes." + +And then, instead of turning the part into a girl attendant, in an evil +moment the manager bethought himself of some wardrobe he had purchased +from a broken up or down opera manager, and search discovered the +yellow-plush breeches, coat, and white wig. I put them on--the canary was +hatched! + +I played the part of two announcements; I walked out clear from the hip, +like a boy--and I became the utility man of the company, and the +tormented victim of the yellow breeches. + +I was a patient young person and willing to endure much for art's sake, +but that wig was too much. Built of white horse-hair mounted upon linen, +its heat and weight were fearful. It had evidently been constructed for a +big, round, perfectly bumpless head. It came down to my very eyebrows on +top, and at the sides, instead of terminating just at the hair-line above +the ear, it swallowed up my ears, covered my temples, and extended clear +to my eyes, giving me the appearance of being harnessed up in large white +blinders--like a shying horse. In common humanity the manager released me +from the wig and let me wear powder, but the clutch of the yellow +breeches remained unbroken. + +As in their opera days (I don't know what they sang, but they were +probably in the chorus) they had wandered through the world, knowing all +continental Europe and the South Americas, so now they wandered through +dramatic literature. One night accompanying me on to deliver a note to +Madame de Pompadour, the next night those same yellow breeches and I +skipped back to Louis XIV., and admitted many lords and ladies, with +tongue-tying names, to that monarch's presence, only to skip forward +again, in a few days, to bring in mail-bags to snuffy rural gentry, under +almost any of the Georges. Though the lace ruffles and jabots of the +French period might give place to a plain red waistcoat for the Georgian +English household, the canary breeches were always there, ready to burst +into song at any moment, to basely fire off a button or break a buckle +just at the moment of my entrance-cue, treacherously suggesting, by their +easy wrinkling while I stood, that I might just as well sit down and rest +my tired feet, and the moment I attempted to lower myself to a chair, +beginning such a mad cracking and snapping in every seam as brought me +upright with a bound and the settled conviction that weariness was +preferable to public shame. + +I am glad to this day that the stage-door was always kept locked, for, +had it been open, heaven only knows where those cosmopolitan breeches +might have taken me--they were such experienced travellers that a trip to +Havana or to the City of Mexico would have struck them as a nice little +jaunt. + +My pleasantest moments as utility man came to me when, in a very brief +white cotton Roman shirt and sandals, I led the shouts for the _supers_, +who are proverbially dumb creatures before the audience, though noisy +enough behind the scenes. So all the furious and destructive mobs of that +season were led on by a little whipper-snapper who yelled like a demon +with a copper-lined throat and then stood about afterward peacefully +making tatting. + +It must not be thought that I had in the first place a monopoly of the +small parts; far from it, but the company being rather short of utility +people, if the ballet-girls could play speaking servants, it not only +saved a salary or two to the manager, but it was of immense advantage to +the girls themselves. Then, too, Mr. Ellsler was particularly anxious to +avoid any charge of favoritism; so in the earliest days these little +parts were given out turn and turn about, without choice or +favor--indeed, two or three times my short dress caused me to be passed +over in favor of long dresses and done-up hair. But a few disasters, +caused by failure of memory or loss of nerve on the part of these +competitors, gave the _pas_ to me, and it must be remembered that these +lapses and mishaps, though amusing to recall, were absolutely disastrous +at the time, ruining, as they did, the scene, if not the entire act, in +which they occurred. + +With special vividness I recall the first one of these happenings. "Romeo +and Juliet" was the play, and _Balthazar_ the part. I longed for it +because, aside from his fine speech, he was really quite important and +had to show tenderness, anxiety, and determination during the time +_Romeo_ addressed him. I pleaded with my eyes, but I could not, dared not +speak up and ask for the part, as did Annie, who was older than I. The +star and prompter exchanged a few low-spoken sentences. I caught the +condemnatory word "child," and knew my fate was sealed--long skirts and +turned-up hair had won. However, my wound was salved when the page to +_Paris_ was given me with two lines to speak. + +Now there is no one but _Romeo_ on the stage when _Balthazar_ enters, +which, of course, gives him great prominence. His first speech, of some +fifty or fifty-six words, is simply expressed, not at all involved, yet +from the moment Annie received the part she became a broken, +terror-stricken creature. Many people when nervous bite their nails, but +Annie, in that state of mind, had a funny habit of putting her hand to +the nape of her neck and rubbing her hair upward. She had a pretty dress +of her own, but she had to borrow a wig, and, like all borrowed wigs, it +failed to fit; it was too small, and at last, when the best had been +done, its wobbly insecurity must have been terrifying. + +The girl's figure was charming, and as she stood in the entrance in her +boy's costume, I remarked: "You look lovely, Annie!" + +Silently she turned her glassy, unseeing eyes toward me, while she +shifted her weight swiftly from one foot to the other, opening and +shutting her hands spasmodically. _Romeo_ was on, and he joyously +declared: + + "My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne!" + +He then described his happy dream--I heard the words: + + "When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!" + +And there Annie staggered forward on to the stage. + + "News from Verona!" cried _Romeo_: "How now, Balthazar?" + +Oh, well might he ask "How now?" for, shifting from foot to foot, this +stricken _Balthazar_ was already feeling at the nape of her neck, and +instead of answering the questions of _Romeo_ about _Juliet_ with the +words: + + "Then she is well, and nothing can be ill, + Her body sleeps in Capets' monument, + And her immortal part with angels lives; + I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault, + And presently took post to tell it you: + O pardon me for bringing these ill news, + Since you did leave it for my office, sir," + +these were the startling statements he made in gulps and gasps: + + "O-Oh, y-yes! Sh-e's very well--and nothing's wrong; + +[titter from audience, and amazement on _Romeo's_ face] + + H-her immortal parts are in a vault, + I--I saw them laid there, and come to tell you!" + +Perhaps she would have got to the right words at last, but just there the +wig, pushed too hard, lurched over on one side, giving such a piratical +look to the troubled face that a very gale of laughter filled the house, +and she retired then and there, though in the next speech she should have +refused to leave _Romeo_: + + "Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus: + Your looks are pale and wild," + +yet now, because his looks were red and wild, she left without +permission, and the enraged instead of grieving _Romeo_ had no one to +receive his order: + + "----get me ink and paper, + And hire post horses." + +So when, in his confusion, he went on continuing his lines as they were +written, and, addressing empty space, fiercely bade _Balthazar_: + + "----get thee gone!" + +and in unintentionally suggestive tones promised: + + "----I'll be with thee straight!" + +the audience laughed openly and heartily at the star himself. + +"Yes, sir," he snorted later on to Mr. Ellsler, "by heaven, sir! they +laughed at me--AT ME! I have been made ridiculous by your measly little +_Balthazar_--who should have been a man, sir! Yes, sir, a man, whom I +could have chastised for making a fool of himself, sir! and a d----d +fool of me, sir!" + +For the real tragedy of that night lay in the wound given to the dignity +of Mr. F. B. Conway, who played a measured and stately _Romeo_ to the +handsome and mature _Juliet_ of his wife. + +We had no young _Juliets_ just then, they were all rather advanced, +rather settled in character for the reckless child of Verona. But every +lady who played the part declared at rehearsal that Shakespeare had been +foolish to make _Juliet_ so young--that no woman had learned enough to +understand and play her before middle age at least. + +Mrs. Bradshaw, one day, said laughingly to me: "By your looks you seemed +to disagree with Mrs. Ellsler's remarks this morning. She, too, thinks a +woman is not fit for _Juliet_ until she has learned much of nature and +the world." + +"But," I objected, lamely, "while they are learning so much about the +world they are forgetting such a lot about girlhood!" + +Her laughter confused and distressed me. "I can't say it!" I cried, "but +you know how very forward _Juliet_ is in speech? If she _knew_, that +would become brazen boldness! It isn't what she _knows_, but what she +_feels_ without knowing that makes the tragedy!" And what Mrs. Bradshaw +meant by muttering, "Babes and sucklings--from the mouths of babes and +sucklings," I could not make out; perhaps, however, I should say that my +mate Annie played few blankverse parts after _Balthazar_. + +Then, one Saturday night, we were all corralled by the prompter before we +could depart for home, and were gravely addressed by the manager--the +whole thing being ludicrously suggestive of the reading of the riot act; +but after reminding us that Mr. James E. Murdoch would begin his +engagement on Monday night, that the rehearsals would be long and +important, he proceeded to poison the very source of our Sunday's rest +and comfort by fell suggestions of some dire mishap threatening the +gentleman through us. We exchanged wondering and troubled glances. What +could this mean? + +Mr. Ellsler went on: "You all know how precise Mr. Murdoch has always +been about your readings; how exacting about where you should stand at +this word or at that; how quickly his impatience of stupidity has burst +into anger; but you probably do not know that since his serious sickness +he is more exacting than ever, and has acquired the habit, when much +annoyed, of--of--er--well, of having a fit." + +"O-h!" it was unanimous, the groan that broke from our oppressed chests. +Stars who _gave us_ fits we were used to, but the star who went into fits +himself--good heavens! good heavens! + +Rather anxiously, Mr. Ellsler continued: "These fits, for all I know, may +spell apoplexy--anyway, he is too frail a man to safely indulge in them; +so, for heaven's sake, do nothing to cross him; be on time, be +perfect--dead letter-perfect in your parts; write out all his directions +if necessary; grin and bear anything, so long as he doesn't have a fit! +Good-night." + +The riot act had been read, the mob dispersed, but the nerve of the most +experienced was shaken by the prospect of acting a whole week with a +gentleman who, at any moment, might get mad enough to have a fit. + +Think, then, what must have been the state of mind of my other +ballet-mate, Hattie, who, in her regular turn, had received a small part, +but of real importance, and who had to address her lines to Mr. Murdoch +himself. Poor girl, always nervous, this new terror made her doubly so. +She roused the star's wrath, even at rehearsal. + +"Speak louder!" (imperatively). "_Will_ you speak louder?" (furiously). +"Perhaps, in the interest of those who will be in front to-night, I may +suggest that you speak loud enough to be heard by--say--the first row!" +(satirically). Now a calmly controlled body is generally the property of +a trained actress, not of a raw ballet-girl, and Hattie's restless +shifting about and wriggling drove him into such a rage that, to the +rest of us, he seemed to be trembling with inchoate fits, and I saw the +property man get his hat and take his stand by the stage-door, ready to +fly for the doctor, or, as he called him, "the fit sharp." + +She, too, was to appear as a page. She was to enter hurriedly--always a +difficult thing for a beginner to do. She was to address Mr. Murdoch in +blank verse--a _more_ difficult thing--and implore him to come swiftly to +prevent bloodshed, as a hostile meeting was taking place between young +Count So-and-so and "your nephew, sir!" + +This news was to shock the uncle so that he would stand dazed for a +moment, when the page, looking off the stage, should cry: + + "Ah, you are too late, sir, already their blades are out! + See how the foils writhe," etc. + +With a cry, the uncle should recover himself, and furiously order the +page to + + "----call the watch!" + +Alas! and alas! when the night, the play, the act, the cue came, Hattie, +as handsome a boy as you could wish to see, went bravely on, as quickly, +too, as her terror-chilled legs could carry her, but when she got there +had no word to say--no, not one! + +In a sort of icy rage, Mr. Murdoch gave her her line, speaking very low, +of course: + + "My lord--my lord! I do beseech you haste, + Else here is murder done!" + +But the poor girl, past prompting properly, only caught wildly at the +_sense_ of the speech, and gasped out: + + "Come on, quick!" + +She saw his foot tapping with rage--thought his fits might begin that +way, and madly cried, at the top of her voice: + + "Be quick--see--see! publicly they cross their _financiers_!" + +then, through the laughter, rushed from the stage, crying, with streaming +tears: "I don't care if he has a dozen fits! He has just scared the words +out of my head with them!" + +And truly, when Mr. Murdoch, trembling with weakness, excitement, and +anger, staggered backward, clasping his brow, everyone thought the +dreaded fit had arrived. + +Next day he reproachfully informed Mr. Ellsler that he could not yet see +blank verse and the King's English (so he termed it) murdered without +suffering physically as well as mentally from the shocking spectacle. +That he was an old man now, and should not be exposed to such tests of +temper. + +Yes, as he spoke, he was an old man--pallid, lined, weary-faced; but that +same night he was young _Mirabel_--in spirit, voice, eye, and movement. +Fluttering through the play, "Wine Works Wonders," in his satins and his +laces--young to the heart--young with the immortal youth of the true +artist. + +Both these girls spoke plain prose well enough, and always had their +share of the parts in modern plays; but, as all was grist to my +individual mill, most of the blankverse and Shakespearean small +characters came to me. Nor was I the lucky girl they believed me; there +was no luck about it. My small success can be explained in two +words--extra work. When they studied their parts they were contented if +they could repeat their lines perfectly in the quiet of their rooms, and +made no allowance for possible accidents or annoyances with power to +confuse the mind and so cause loss of memory and ensuing shame. But I was +a careful young person, and would not trust even my own memory without +first taking every possible precaution. Therefore the repeating of my +lines correctly in my room was but the beginning of my study of them. In +crossing the crowded street I suddenly demanded of myself my lines. At +the table, when all were chatting, I again made sudden demand for the +same. If on either occasion my heart gave a jump and my memory failed to +present the exact word, I knew I was not yet perfect, and I would repeat +those lines until, had the very roof blown off the theatre at night, I +should not have missed one. Then only could I turn my attention to the +acting of them--oh, bless you, yes! I quite thought I was acting, and at +all events I was doing the next best thing, which was trying to act. + +But a change was coming to me, an experience was approaching which I +cannot explain to myself, neither has anyone else explained it for me; +but I mention it because it made such a different thing of dramatic life +for me. Aye, such a difficult thing as well. Looking back to that time I +see that all my childhood, all my youth, was crowded into that first year +on the stage. There I first knew liberty of speech, freedom of motion. +There I shared in the general brightness and seemed to live by right +divine, not by the grudging permission of some task-mistress of my +mother. I had had no youth before, for in what should have been babyhood +I had been a troubled little woman, most wise in misery. In freedom my +crushed spirits rose with a bound. The mimicry, the adaptability of +childhood asserted themselves--I pranced about the stage happily but +thoughtlessly. + +It seems to me I was like a blind puppy, born into warmth and comfort and +enjoying both, without any fear of the things it could not see. As I have +said before, I knew no fear, I had no ambition, I was just happy, blindly +happy; and now, all suddenly, I was to exchange this freedom of +unconsciousness for the slavery of consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER TENTH + + With Mr. Dan. Setchell I Win Applause--A Strange Experience Comes to + Me--I Know Both Fear and Ambition--The Actress is Born at Last + + +My manager considered me to have a real gift of comedy, and he several +times declared that my being a girl was a distinct loss to the profession +of a fine low comedian. + +It was in playing a broad comedy bit that my odd experience came to me. +Mr. Dan. Setchell was the star. He was an extravagantly funny comedian, +and the laziest man I ever saw--too lazy even properly to rehearse his +most important scenes. He would sit on the prompt table--a table placed +near the footlights at rehearsal, holding the manuscript, writing +materials, etc., with a chair at either end, one for the star, the other +for the prompter or stage manager--and with his short legs dangling he +would doze a little through people's scenes, rousing himself reluctantly +for his own, but instead of rising, taking his place upon the stage, and +rehearsing properly, he would kick his legs back and forth, and, smiling +pleasantly, would lazily repeat his lines where he was, adding: "I'll be +on your right hand when I say that, Herbert. Oh, at your exit, Ellsler, +you'll leave me in the centre, but when you come back you'll find me down +left." + +After telling James Lewis several times at what places he would find him +at night, Lewis remarked, in despair: "Well, God knows where you'll find +_me_ at night!" + +"Oh, never mind, old man," answered the ever-smiling, steadily kicking +Setchell, "if you're there, all right; if you're not there, no matter!" +which was not exactly flattering. + +Of course such rehearsals led to many errors at night, but Mr. Setchell +cleverly covered them up from the knowledge of the laughing audience. + +It is hard to imagine that lazy, smiling presence in the midst of awful +disaster, but he was one of the victims of a dreadful shipwreck while +making the voyage to Australia. Bat-blind to the future, he at that time +laughed and comfortably shirked his work in the day-time, and made others +laugh when he did his work at night. + +In one of his plays I did a small part with him--I was his wife, a former +old maid of crabbed temper. I had asked Mr. Ellsler to make up my face +for me as an old and ugly woman. I wore corkscrew side curls and an awful +wrapper. I was a fearful object, and when Mr. Setchell first saw me he +stood silent a moment, then, after rubbing his stomach hard, and +grimacing, he took both my hands, exclaiming: "Oh, you hideous jewel! you +positively gave me a cramp at just sight of you! Go in, little girl, for +all you're worth! and do just what you please--you deserve the liberty +for that make-up!" + +And goodness knows I took him at his word, and did anything that came +into my giddy head. Even then I possessed that curious sixth sense of the +born actress, and as a doctor with the aid of his stethoscope can hear +sounds of grim warning or of kindly promise, while there is but the +silence to the stander-by, so an actress, with that stethoscopic sixth +sense, detects even the _forming_ emotions of her audience, feeling +incipient dissatisfaction before it becomes open disapproval, or +thrilling at the intense stillness that ever precedes a burst of +approbation. + +And that night, meeting with a tiny mishap, which seemed to amuse the +audience, I seized upon it, elaborating it to its limit, and making it my +own, after the manner of an experienced actor. + +There was no elegant comedy of manners in the scene, understand, it was +just the broadest farce, and it consisted of the desperate effort of a +hen-pecked husband to assert himself and grasp the reins of home +government, which resolved itself at last into a scolding-match, in +which each tried to talk the other down--with what result you will know +without the telling. + +The stage was set for a morning-room, with a table in the centre, spread +with breakfast for two; a chair at either side and, as it happened, a +footstool by mine. His high silk hat and some papers, also, were upon the +table. For some unexplainable cause the silk hat has always been +recognized, both by auditor and actor, as a legitimate object of +fun-making, so when I, absent-mindedly, dropped all my toast-crusts into +that shining receptacle, the audience expressed its approval in laughter, +and so started me on my downward way, for that was my own idea and not a +rehearsed one. When my husband mournfully asked if "There was not even +one hot biscuit to be had?" I deliberately tried each one with the back +of my knuckles, and remarking, "Yes, here is just one," which was the +correct line in the play, I took it myself, which was not in the play, +and so went on till the scolding-match was reached. + +In my first noisy speech I meant to stamp my foot, but by accident I +brought it down upon the footstool. The people laughed, I saw a point--I +lifted the other foot and stood upon the stool. By the twinkle in Mr. +Setchell's eye, as well as by the laughter in front, I knew I was on the +right track. + +He roared--he lifted his arms above his head, and in my reply, as I +raised my voice, I mounted from the stool to the seat of the chair. He +seized his hat, and with the toast-crusts falling about his face and +ears, jammed it on his head, while in my last speech, with my voice at +its highest screech, I lifted my foot and firmly planted it upon the very +breakfast-table. + +It was enough--the storm broke from laughter to applause. Mr. Setchell +had another speech--one of resigned acceptance of second place, but as +the applause continued, he knew it would be an anti-climax, and he +signalled the prompter to ring down the curtain. + +But I--I knew he ought to speak. I was frightened, tears filled my eyes. +"What is it?" I whispered, as I started to get down. + +"Stand still," he sharply answered, then added: "It's you, you funny +little idiot! you've made a hit--that's all!" and the curtain fell +between us and the laughing crowd in front. + +The prompter started for me instantly from his corner, exclaiming, in his +anger: "Well, of all the cheeky devilment I ever heard or saw--" But Mr. +Setchell had him by the arm in a second, crying: "Hold on, old man! I +gave her leave--she had my permission! Oh, good Lord! did you see that +ascent of stool, chair, and table? eh? ha! ha! ha!" + +I stood trembling like a jelly in a hot day. Mr. Setchell said: "Don't be +frightened, my girl! that applause was for you! You won't be fined or +scolded--you've made a hit, that's all!" and he patted me kindly on the +shoulder and broke again into fat laughter. + +I went to my room, I sat down with my head in my hands. Great drops of +sweat came out on my temples. My hands were icy cold, my mouth was dry, +that applause rang in my ears. A cold terror seized upon me--a terror of +what, the public? + +Ah, a tender mouth was bitted and bridled at last! the reins were in the +hands of the public, and it would drive me--where? + +The public! the public! I had never feared it before, because I had never +realized its power. If I pleased, well and good. If I displeased it, I +should be driven forth from the dramatic Eden I loved, in which I hoped +to learn so many things theatrical and to become very wise, and I should +wander all my life in the stony places of poverty and disappointment! I +clenched my hands and writhed in misery at the thought. I seemed again to +hear that applause, which had been for me--my very self! and I thrilled +at its wild sweetness. Ah, the public! it could make or it could mar my +whole life. Mighty monster, without mercy! The great many-headed +creature, all jewelled over with fierce, bright eyes, with countless ears +a-strain for error of any kind! That beat the perfumed air with its +myriad hands when pleased--when pleased! A strange, great stillness +seemed to close about me; something murmured: "In the future, in the +_dim_ future, a woman may cause this many-headed monster you fear to +think as one mind, to feel as one heart! _Then_ the bit and bridle will +be changed--that woman will hold the reins and will drive the public!" At +which I broke into shrill laughter, in spite of flowing tears. Two women +came in, one said: "Why, what on earth's the matter? Have they blown you +up for your didoes to-night? What need you care, you pleased the +audience?" But another said, quietly: "Just get a glass of water for her, +she has a touch of hysteria--I wonder who caused it?" + +But I only thought of that woman of the dim future, who was to conquer +the public--who was she? + +Why that round of applause should have so shattered my happy confidence I +cannot understand, but the fact remains that from that night I never +faced a new audience, or attempted a new part, without suffering a +nervous terror that sometimes but narrowly escaped collapse. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVENTH + + My Promiscuous Reading wins me a Glass of Soda--The Stage takes up my + Education and Leads me through Many Pleasant Places. + +I suppose it sounds absurd to say that during those first seasons, with +choruses, dances, and small parts to learn, with rehearsals every day and +appearances every night, I was getting an education. + +But that depends upon your definition of the word. If it means to you +schooling, special instruction, and formal training, then my claim is +absurd; but if it means information, cultivation of the intellectual +powers, enlightenment, why then my claim holds good, my statement stands, +I was getting an education. And let me say the stage is a delightful +teacher; she never wearies you with sameness or drives you to frenzy with +iteration. No deadly-dull text-book stupefies you with lists of bare, +bald dates, dryly informing you that someone was born in 1208, mounted +the throne in 1220, died in 1258, and was succeeded by someone or other +who reigned awhile--really you can't remember how long, and don't much +care. There's nothing in figures for the memory to cling to. But no one +can forget that Edward V. was born in 1470, because he is such a tragic +little figure, only thirteen years old and of scant two months reign, +because there was the Tower and there the crafty, usurping Duke of +Gloster eager for his crown. + +Perhaps people would remember that Edward III. was born in 1312 and was +succeeded by his grandson, Richard, if they were told at the same moment +that he was father to that superb Black Prince, beloved alike of poet, +painter, and historian. + +Now, to be a good actress and do intelligent work, one should thoroughly +understand the play and its period in history, as the mainspring of its +action is often political. To be able to do that requires a large fund of +general information. That I had from my very babyhood been a reckless +reader, came about from necessity--I had no choice, I simply read every +single thing in print that my greedy hands closed upon; the results of +this promiscuous reading, ranging from dime novels to Cowper, were +sometimes amusing. One day, I remember, an actress was giving a very +excited account of a street accident she had witnessed. Her colors were +lurid, and some of her hearers received her tale coldly. "Oh!" she cried, +"such an awful crowd--a mob, you know--a perfect mob!" + +"Oh, nonsense!" contradicted another, "there couldn't have been a mob, +there are not people enough in that street to make a mob!" + +Then I mildly but firmly remarked: "Oh, yes, there are, for you know that +legally three's a mob and two's a crowd." + +A shout of laughter followed this bit of information. "How utterly +absurd!" cried one. "Well, of all the ridiculous ideas I ever heard!" +laughed another. And then, suddenly, dear old Uncle Dick (Mr. Richard +Stevens and player of old men, to be correct) came to my support, and, +with the authority of a one-time barrister, declared my statement to be +perfectly correct. + +"But where, in the name of Heaven, did you get your information?" + +"Oh," I vaguely replied, "I just read it somewhere." + +"That's a rather broad statement," remarked Uncle Dick; "you don't give +your authority, page and line, I observe. Well, see here, now, Clara +_mia_, in whatever field you found that one odd fact, you certainly +gleaned others there, so if you can produce, at once, three other legal +statements, I will treat you to soda-water after rehearsal." + +Oh, the delicious word was scarcely over his lips when I was wildly +searching my memory, and presently, very doubtfully, offered the +statement: "It is a fraud to conceal a fraud." + +But Uncle Dick gravely and readily accepted it. Another search, and then +joyfully I announced: "Contracts made with minors, lunatics, or drunkards +are void." + +A shout of laughter broke from the kind old man's lips, but he accepted +that, too. Oh, almost I could hear the cool hiss of the soda--but now not +another thing could I find. My face fell, my heart sank. Hitherto I had +been thinking of papers, now I frantically ran through stories. Suddenly +I cried: "A lead-pencil signature stands in law." + +But, alas! Uncle Dick hesitated--my authority was worthless. Oh, dear! +oh, dear! was I to lose my treat, just for lack of a little legal +knowledge? Sadly I remarked, "I guess I'll have to give it up, +unless--unless you'll take: 'Principals are responsible for their +agents,'" and, with pleasure beaming in his kind old eyes, he accepted +it. + +Ah, I can taste that vanilla soda yet--and, what is more, the old +gentleman took the trouble to find out about the legality of the +lead-pencil signature; and, as my statement had been correct, he took +great pains to make the fact known to all who had heard him question it, +and he added to my little store of knowledge, "that a contract made on +Sunday would not stand," which, by the way, later on, saved me from a +probably painful experience. + +I mention this to show that even my unadvised reading had not been +absolutely useless, I had learned a little about a variety of things; but +now, plays continually presented new subjects to me to think and read +about; thus "Venice Preserved" set me wild to find out what a _Doge_ was, +and why Venice was so adored by her sons, and I straightway obtained a +book about the wonderful city--whose commerce, power of mart and +merchant may have departed, but whose mournful beauty is but hallowed by +her weakness. + +So many plays were produced, representing so many periods, so many +countries, I don't know how I should have satisfied my craving for the +books they led me to had not the Public Library opened just then. I was +so proud and happy the day my mother surprised me with half the price of +a membership, and happier yet when I had the right to enter there and +browse right and left, up and down, nibbling here, feeding long and +contentedly there. Oh, the delight of reading one book, with two or three +others in my lap; 'twas the pleasure of plenty, new to one who could have +spelled "economy" in her sleep. + +Then, again, if it is the Stage that is making you read, you have to keep +your eyes wide open and take note of many things. Some girls read just +for the sake of the story, they heed nothing but that, they are even +guilty of the impertinence of "skipping," "to get to the story more +quickly, you know." But if you are on the stage you understand, for +instance, that different kinds of furniture are used for different +periods and for different countries; so even the beginner knows, when she +sees the heavy old Flemish pieces of furniture standing on the stage in +the morning, that no modern play is on that night, and is equally sure +that the bringing out of the high tile-stove means a German interior is +in preparation. Therefore, if you read for the stage, you watch +carefully, not only Sir Thomas's doings, but his surroundings. If his +chair or desk or sideboard is described, you make a note of the "heavily +carved wood," or the "inlaid wood," or the "boule," or whatever it may +be, and then you note the date of the story, and you say to yourself: +"Ah, such and such furniture belongs to such a date and country." + +I once heard the company expressing their shocked amazement over the +velvet robes of some _Macbeth_. I could not venture to ask them why it +was so dreadful, but later I found some paper stating that velvet was +first known in the fifteenth century, and was confined to the use of the +priests or high ecclesiastical authorities--and my mind instantly grasped +the horror of the older actors at seeing _Macbeth_ swathed in velvet in +the grim, almost barbaric Scotland of about 1012; for surely it was a +dreadful thing for an actor to wear velvet four hundred years ahead of +its invention. + +You never know just where the Stage is going to lead you in your search +for an education; only one thing you may be sure of, it will not keep you +very long to any one straight road, but will branch off in this direction +or in that, taking up some side issue, as it seems, like this matter of +furniture, and lo, you presently find it is becoming a most important and +interesting subject, well worth careful study. You come to believe you +could recognize the workmanship of the great cabinet-makers at sight. You +learn to shrink from misapplied ornament, you learn what gave rise to the +"veneering reign-of-terror," you bow at the name of Chippendale, and are +filled with wonder by the _cinque-cento_ extravagance of beauty. You find +yourself tracing the rise and fall of dynasties through the chaste beauty +or the over-ornamentation of their cabinet work. If all that Sir Henry +Irving knows on this subject could be crowded into a single volume, the +book would have at least one fault--'twould be of most unwieldy size. + +Then holding you by the hand the Stage may next lead you through the +green and bosky places that the poets loved, and, having had your eyes +opened to natural beauties, lo! you go down another lane, and you are +learning about costumes, and suddenly you discover that "sumptuary laws" +once existed, confining the use of furs, velvets, laces, etc., to the +nobility. Fine woollens and linens, and gold and silver ornaments being +also reserved for the privileged orders. That the extravagant young maids +and beaux of the lower class who indulged in yellow starched-ruff, furred +mantle, or silver chain were made to pay a cruel price for their folly +in aping their betters. So it was well for me to make a note of the date +of the "sumptuary law," that I might not some day outrageously overdress +a character. + +It is a delightful study, that of costume--to learn how to drape the +toga, how to hang the peplum; to understand the meaning of a bit of +ribbon in the hair, whether as arranged in the three-banded fillet of the +Grecian girl or as the snood of the Scottish lassie; to know enough of +the cestus and the law governing its wearing, not to humiliate yourself +in adopting it on improper occasions; to have at least a bowing +acquaintance with all foot-gear, from sandals down to an Oxford tie; to +be able to scatter your puffed, slashed, or hanging sleeves over the +centuries, with their correct accompanying, small-close, large-round, or +square-upstanding ruffs. Why the mere detail of girdles and hanging +pouches, from distant queens down to "Faust's" _Gretchen_, was a joy in +itself. + +Then a girl who played pages, and other young boys, was naturally anxious +to know all about doublets, trunks, and hose, as well as Scottish +"philibeg and sporran." And wigs? I used to wonder if anyone could ever +learn all about wigs--and I'm wondering yet. + +But as one studies the coming and going of past fashions in garments, it +is amusing to note their influence upon the cabinet-makers, as it is +expressed in the changing shape of their chairs. For instance: when +panniers developed into farthingale and monstrous hoop, chairs, high and +narrow, widened, lowered their arms--dropped them entirely, making indeed +a fair start toward our own great easy-chair of to-day. + +I remember well what a jump my heart gave when in rooting about among +materials--their weaves and dyes--I came upon the term "samite." It's a +word that always thrills me, "samite, mystic, wonderful." Almost I was +afraid to read what might follow; but I need not have hesitated, since +the statement was that "samite" was supposed to have been a delicate web +of silk and gold or silver thread. How beautiful such a combination must +have been--white silk woven with threads of silver might well become +"mystic, wonderful," when wrapped about the chill, high beauty of an +Arthur's face. + +But hie and away, to armor and arms! for she would be but a poorly +equipped actress who had no knowledge of sword and buckler, of solid +armor, chain-mail, rings of metal on velvet, or of plain leather +jerkin--of scimitar, sword, broadsword, foil, dagger, dirk, stiletto, +creese. + +Oh, no! don't pull your hand away if the Stage wants to lead you among +arms and armor for a little while; be patient, for by and by it will take +you up, up into the high, clear place where Shakespeare dwells, and there +you may try your wings and marvel at the pleasure of each short upward +flight, for the loving student of Shakespeare always rises--never sinks. +Your power of insight grows clearer, stronger, and as you are lifted +higher and higher on the wings of imagination, more and more widely opens +the wonderful land beneath, more and more clearly the voices of its +people reach you. You catch their words and you treasure them, and by and +by, through much loving thought, you comprehend them, after which you can +no longer be an uneducated woman, since no man's wisdom is superior to +Shakespeare's, and no one gives of his wisdom more lavishly than he. + +Therefore, while a regular school-education is a thing to be thankful +for, the actress who has been denied it need not despair. If she be +willing to work, the Stage will educate her--nor will it curtly turn her +away at the end of a few years, telling her her "term" is ended. I clung +tightly to its hand for many a year, and was taken a little way through +music's halls, loitered for a time before the easel, and even made a +little rush at a foreign language to help me to the proper pronunciation +of names upon the stage; and no man, no woman all that time rose up to +call me ignorant. So I give all thanks and all honor to the profession +that not only fed and clothed me, but educated me too! + + + + +CHAPTER TWELFTH + + The Peter Richings' Engagement brings me my First Taste of + Slander--Anent the Splendor of my Wardrobe, also my First Newspaper + Notice. + + +I remember particularly that second season, because it brought to me the +first taste of slander, my first newspaper notice, and my first proposal +of marriage. The latter being, according to my belief, the natural result +of lengthening my skirts and putting up my hair--at all events, it was a +part of my education. + +Of course the question of wardrobe was a most important one still. I had +done very well, so far as peasant dresses of various nationalities were +concerned; I had even acquired a page's dress of my own, but I had no +ball-dress, nothing but a plain, skimpy white muslin gown, which I had +outgrown; for I had gained surprisingly in height with the passing year. +And, lo! the report went about that Mr. Peter Richings and his daughter +Caroline were coming in a fortnight, and they would surely do their play +"Fashion," in which everyone was on in a dance; and I knew everyone would +bring out her best for that attraction, for you must know that actresses +in a stock company grade their costumes by the stars, and only bring out +the very treasures of their wardrobes on state occasions. I was in great +distress; one of my mates had a genuine silk dress, the other owned a +bunch of artificial gold grapes, horribly unbecoming, stiff things, but, +mercy, gold grapes! who cared whether they were becoming or not? Were +they not gorgeous (a lady star had given them to her)? And I would have +to drag about, heavy-footed, in a skimpy muslin! + +But in the company there was a lady who had three charming little +children. She was the singing soubrette (by name Mrs. James Dickson). One +of her babies became sick, and I sometimes did small bits of shopping or +other errands for her, thus permitting her to go at once from rehearsal +to her beloved babies. Entering her room from one of these errands, I +found her much vexed and excited over the destruction of one of a set of +fine new lace curtains. The nursemaid had carelessly set it on fire. Of +course Mrs. Dickson would have to buy two more curtains to replace them; +and now, with the odd one in her hand, she started toward her trunk, +paused doubtfully, and finally said to me: "Could you use this curtain +for some small window or something, Clara?" + +At her very first word a dazzling possibility presented itself to my +mind. With burning cheeks, I answered: "Oh, yes, ma'am, I--I can use it, +but not at a window, I'm afraid." Her bonnie face flashed into smiles. + +"All right; take it along, then!" she cried, "and do what you like with +it. It's only been up two days, and has not a mark on it." + +I fairly flew from the house. I sang, as I made my way uptown to buy +several yards of rose-pink paper cambric and a half garland of +American-made artificial roses. Then I sped home and, behind locked +doors, measured and cut and snipped, and, regardless of possible +accident, held about a gill of pins in my mouth while I hummed over my +work. All my fears were gone, they had fled before the waving white +curtain, which fortunately for me was of fine meshed net, carrying for +design unusually small garlands of roses and daisies. And when the great +night came, I appeared as one of the ball guests in a pink under-slip, +with white lace overdress, whose low waist was garlanded with wild roses. +So, happy at heart and light of foot, I danced with the rest, my pink and +white gown ballooning about me in the courtesies with as much rustle and +glow of color as though it had been silk. + +But, alas! the imitation was too good a one! The pretty, cheap little +gown I was so happy over attracted the attention of a woman whose whisper +meant scandal, whose lifted brow was an innuendo, whose drooped lid was +an accusation. Like a carrion bird she fed best upon corruption. Thank +Heaven! this cruel creature, hated by the men, feared by the women, was +not an actress, but through mistaken kindness she had been made wardrobe +woman, where, as Mr. Ellsler once declared, she spent her time in ripping +up and destroying the reputation of his actors instead of making and +repairing their wardrobes. + +That nothing was too small to catch her pale, cold eye is proved by the +fact that even a ballet-girl's dress received her attention. Next day, +after the play "Fashion" had been done, this woman was saying: "That +girl's mother had better be looking after her conduct, I think!" + +"Why, what on earth has Clara done?" asked her listener. + +"Done!" she cried, "didn't you see her flaunting herself around the stage +last night in silks and laces no honest girl could own? Where did the +money come from that paid for such finery?" + +A few days later a woman who boarded in the house favored by the +mischief-maker happened to meet Mrs. Dickson, happily for me, and said, +_en passant_: "Which one of your ballet-girls is it who has taken to +dressing with so much wicked extravagance? I wonder Mrs. Ellsler don't +notice it." + +Now Mrs. Dickson was Scotch, generous, and "unco" quick-tempered, and +after she had put the inquiring friend right, she visited her wrath upon +the originator of the slander in person, and verily the Scottish burr was +on her tongue, and her "r's" rolled famously while she explained the +component parts of that extravagant costume: window curtain--her +gift--and paper cambric and artificial flowers to the cost of one dollar +and seventy-five cents; "and you'll admit," she cried, "that even the +purse of a 'gude lass' can stand sic a strain as that; and what's mair, +you wicked woman, had the girl been worse dressed than the others, you +would ha' been the first to call attention to her as slovenly and +careless." + +This was the first drop of scandal expressed especially for me, and I not +only found the taste bitter--very bitter--but learned that it had +wonderful powers of expansion, and that the odor it gives off is rather +pleasant in the nostrils of everyone save its object. + +Mrs. Dickson, who, by the way, is still doing good work professionally, +has doubtless forgotten the entire incident, curtain and all, but she +never will forget the bonnie baby-girl she lost that summer, and she will +remember me because I loved the little one--that's a mother's way. + +Mr. Peter B. Richings was that joy of the actor's heart--a character. He +had been accounted a very fine actor in his day, but he was a very old +man when I saw him, and his powers were much impaired. Six feet tall, +high-featured, Roman-nosed, elegantly dressed; a term from bygone +days--and not disrespectfully used--describes him perfectly: he was an +"old Buck!" + +His immeasurable pride made him hide a stiffening of the joints under the +forced jauntiness of his step, while a trembling of the head became in +him only a sort of debonair senility at worst. Arrogant, short-tempered, +and a veritable martinet, he nevertheless possessed an unbending dignity +and a certain crabbed courtliness of manner very suggestive of the +snuff-box and ruffle period of a hundred years before. + +His daughter, by adoption, was the object of his unqualified worship--no +other word can possibly express his attitude toward her. No heavenly +choir could have charmed him as she did when she sang, while her +intellectual head and marble-cold face seemed beautiful beyond compare in +his eyes. Really it was worth going far to see him walk through a +quadrille with her. His bow was a thing for young actors to dream of, +while with trembling head, held high in air, he advanced and retreated, +executing antiquated "steps" with a grace that deprived them of +comicality, while his air of arrogant superiority changed instantly to +profound homage whenever in the movement of the figures he met his +daughter. + +His pronunciation of her name was as a flourish of trumpets--Car-o-line! +Each syllable distinct, the "C" given with great fulness, and the +emphasis on the first syllable when pleased, but heavily placed upon the +last when he was annoyed. + +He was unconscionably vain of his likeness to Washington, and there were +few Friday nights, this being considered the fashionable evening of the +week, that he failed to present his allegorical picture of Washington +receiving the homage of the States, while Miss Richings, as _Columbia_, +sang the "Star-Spangled Banner," the States joining in the chorus. + +In this tableau the circular opening in the flat, backed by a sky-drop +and with blue clouds hanging about the opening, represented heaven. And +here, at an elevation, Washington stood at the right, with _Columbia_ and +her flag on his left, while the States, represented by the ladies of the +company, stood in lines up and down the stage, quite outside of heaven. + +Now a most ridiculous story anent Mr. Richings and this heaven of his was +circulating through the entire profession. Some of our company refused to +believe it, declaring it a mere spiteful skit against his well-known +exclusiveness; but that gentleman who had wished to send me for an +"Ibid," being an earnest seeker after knowledge, determined to test the +truth of the story. Therefore, after we had been carefully rehearsed in +the music and had been informed by the star that only Car-O-line and +himself were to stand back of that skylike opening, this "inquiring" +person gave one of the extra girls fifty cents to go at night before the +curtain rose and take her stand on the forbidden spot. She took the money +and followed directions exactly, and when Mr. Richings, as _Washington_, +made his pompous way to the stage, he stood a moment in speechless wrath, +and then, trembling with anger, he stamped his foot, and waving his arm, +cried: "Go a-way! Go a-way! you very presuming young person; this is +heaven, and I told you this morning that only my daughter Car-O-line and +I could possibly stand in heaven!" + +It was enough; the "inquiring one" was rolling about with joy at his +work. He had taken a rise out of the old gentleman and proved the truth +of the story which had gone abroad in the land as to this claim of all +heaven for himself and his Car-O-line. + +I naturally remember these stars with great clearness, since it was for a +small part in one of their plays that I received my first newspaper +notice. Imagine my incredulous joy when I was told of this journalistic +feat--unheard of before--of praising the work of a ballet-girl. +Suspecting a joke, I did not obtain a paper until late in the day, and +after I had several times been told of it. Then I ventured forth, bought +a copy of the _Herald_, and lo, before my dazzled eyes appeared my own +name. Ah, few critics, with their best efforts, have thrown as rosy a +light upon the world as did Mr. Jake Sage with his trite ten-word +statement: "Clara Morris played the small part allotted to her well." + +My heart throbbed hard, I seemed to catch a glimpse, through the rosy +light, of a far-away Temple of Fame, and this notice was like a petal +blown to me from the roses that wreathed its portals. Could I ever, ever +reach them! + +"Played the small part allotted to her well." "Oh," I cried aloud, "I +will try to do everything well--I will, indeed!" and then I cut the +notice out and folded it in a sheet of paper, and put both in an envelope +and pinned that fast to my pocket, that I might take it to my mother, who +was very properly impressed, and was a long time reading its few words, +and was more than a trifle misty about the eyes when she gave it back to +me. Looking at them now, the words seem rather dry and scant, but then +they had all the sweetness, life, and color of a June rose--the most +perfect thing of God's bounteous giving. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEENTH + + Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as "That Young Woman," to My Great Joy--I + Issue the "Clara Code"--I Receive my First Offer of Marriage. + + +My mother, moved at last by my highly colored accounts of the +humiliations brought upon me by the shortness of my skirts, consented to +their lengthening, and though I knew she had meant them to stop at my +shoe-tops, I basely allowed a misunderstanding to arise with the +dress-maker, through which my new dress came home the full length of the +grown-ups, and though my conscience worried me a bit, I still snatched a +fearful joy from my stolen dignity, and many a day I walked clear up to +Superior Street that I might slowly pass the big show-windows and enjoy +the reflection therein of my long dress-skirt. Of course I could not +continue to wear my hair _à la_ pigtail, and that went up in the then +fashionable chignon. + +Few circumstances in my life have given me such unalloyed satisfaction as +did my first proposal of marriage. I should, however, be more exact if I +spoke of an "attempted proposal," for it was not merely interrupted, but +was simply mangled out of all likeness to sentiment or romance. The party +of the first part in this case was Mr. Frank Murdoch, who later on became +the author of "Davy Crockett," the play that did so much toward the +making and the unmaking of the reputation of that brilliant actor, the +late Frank Mayo. He was the adoring elder brother of that successful +young Harry Murdoch who was to meet such an awful fate in the Brooklyn +Theatre fire. Neither of them, by the way, were born to the name of +Murdoch; they were the sons of James E.'s sister, and when, in spite of +his advice and warning, they decided to become actors, they added insult +to injury, as it were, by demanding of him the use of his name--their own +being a particularly unattractive one for a play-bill. He let them plead +long and hard before he yielded and allowed them to take for life the +name of Murdoch--which as a trade-mark, and quite aside from sentiment, +had a real commercial value to these young fellows who had yet to prove +their individual personal worth. + +Frank was very young--indeed, our united ages would have barely reached +thirty-six. He had good height, a good figure, and an air of gentle +breeding; otherwise he was unattractive, and yet he bore a striking +resemblance to his uncle, James Murdoch, who had a fine head and most +regular features. But through some caprice of nature in the nephew those +same features received a touch of exaggeration here, or a slight twist +there, with the odd result of keeping the resemblance to the uncle +intact, while losing all his beauty. Frank had a quixotic sense of honor +and a warm and generous heart, but being extremely sensitive as to his +personal defects he was often led into bursts of temper, during which he +frequently indulged in the most childish follies. These outbreaks were +always brief, and ever followed by deep contrition, so that he was +generally regarded as a very clever, spoiled child. + +Poor boy! his life was as sad as it was short. There may be few who +remember him now, but a woman never forgets the man who first pays a +compliment to her eyes, nor can I forget the first man who handed me a +chair and opened and closed doors for me, just as for any grown-up. + +He joined the company in about the middle of that season in which I acted +principally as utility man. He was to play singing parts and young +lovers, and, to his amusement, I criticized his reading of one of +_Cassio's_ speeches. Our wrangle over Shakespeare made friends of us at +once. He had a veritable passion for poetry, and with me he felt free to +bring out his beautiful hobby to mount and ride and ride, with some of +the great poets up behind and me for applauding audience. When he wanted +me to know some special poem he bought it for me if he could; but if he +was short of money, he carefully copied out its every line, tied the +manuscript neatly up with ribbon, and presented the poem in that form. I +came across a copy of "Maud Muller" the other day in Frank's clear, even +handwriting. The paper was yellow, the ribbon faded. Frank is gone, +Whittier is gone, but "Maud Muller" lives on in her immortal youth and +pain. + +But the morning when he first brought and offered me a chair was nothing +less than an epoch in my life. At first I regarded the act as an +aspersion on my strength--a doubt cast upon my ability to obtain a seat +for myself. Then, as I glanced frowningly into his face, I suddenly +realized that it was meant as a mark of consideration--the courtesy a man +shows a woman. A glow of satisfaction spread through my being. I hated to +rise, I was so afraid the thing might never happen to me again. I need +not have worried, however, as I was soon to receive a more impressive +proof of his consideration for my welfare. + +One of the most unpleasant experiences in the life of a young actress is +her frightened lonely rush through the city streets at twelve o'clock at +night to reach her boarding-house and claim sanctuary. I doubt if even a +Una and her lion could pass unmolested through those streets dotted with +all-night "free and easys," where, by the way, nothing is free but the +poisonous air, and nothing easy but the language. At all events from my +own varied and unpleasant experiences, and from the stories of others, I +had first drawn certain deductions, then I had proceeded to establish +certain rules for the guidance and direction of any girl who was so +unfortunate as to be forced to walk abroad unattended at night. These +rules became known as "Clara's Code," and were highly approved, +especially by those girls who "couldn't think," as they declared, but +stood stock-still, "too frightened to move," when some wanderer of the +night unceremoniously addressed them. + +I cannot remember all those rules now, since for these many years God has +granted me a protector, but from the few I can recall I am convinced that +their principal object was to gain plenty of leeway for the persecuted +girl's escape. No. 3 sternly forbade her ever, _ever_ to pass between two +advancing men--at night, of course, be it understood--lest they might +seize hold of and so frighten her to death. She was advised never to +permit herself to take the inside of the walk when meeting a stranger, +who might thus crowd her against the house and cut off her chance to run. +Never to pass the opening to an alley-way without placing the entire +width of the walk between her and it, and always to keep her eyes on it +as she crossed. Never to let any man pass her from behind on the outside +was insisted on, indeed she should take to the street itself first. She +was not to answer a drunken man, no matter what might be the nature of +his speech. She was not to scream--if she could help it--for fear of +public humiliation, but if the worst came and some hideous prowler of the +night passed from speech to actual attack, then she was to forget her +ladyhood and remembering only the tenderness of the male shin and her +right of self-defence, to kick like a colt till help came or she was +released. + +Other portions of the code I have forgotten, but I do distinctly remember +that it wound up with the really Hoyle-like observation, "When in doubt, +take to the centre of the street." + +We all know the magic power of the moonlight--have seen it transmute the +commonest ugliness into perfect beauty and change a world-worn woman into +the veriest lily-maid, but how few know the dread power exerted over man +by the street gaslight after midnight. The kindest old drake of the +farm-pond, the most pompously harmless gobbler of the buckwheat-field +becomes a vulture beneath the midnight street-light. A man who would +shoot for being called a blackguard between seven o'clock in the morning +and twelve at night, often becomes one after midnight. It is frequently +said that "words break no bones," but let a young girl pass alone through +the city streets a few nights and she will probably hear words that, +drowning her in shamed blushes, will go far toward breaking her pride, if +not her bones. Men seem to be creatures of very narrow margin--they so +narrowly escape being gods, and they so much more narrowly escape being +animals. Under the sunlight, man, made in the image of God, lifts his +face heavenward and walks erect; under the street-lamps of midnight he is +stealthy, he prowls, he is a visible destruction! You think I exaggerate +the matter? Do not; I speak from experience. And, what is more, at that +time I had not yet learned what the streets of New York could produce +after midnight. + +But on the night after the chair episode, Frank Murdoch heard one of the +girls say she had used the Clara Code very successfully the night before, +when two drunken men had reeled out of an alley, who would have collided +with her had she not followed the rule and kept the whole sidewalk +between them. He stood at the door as I came down-stairs, and as soon as +I reached him he asked, sharply: "Do you go home alone of nights?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"Good God!" he muttered. + +After a pause I looked up at him, and met his eyes shining wet and blue +through two tears. "Oh," I hastily added, "there's nothing to be afraid +of." + +"I wish I could agree with you," he answered. "Tell me," he went on, +"have you ever been annoyed by anyone?" + +My eyes fell, I knew I was growing red. + +"Good God!" he said again, then, suddenly, he ordered: "Give me that +bag--you'll not go through these streets alone again while I am here! +Never mind the distance. I don't see why you can't take my arm." + +And thus I found myself for the first time escorted by a gentleman, and +after my hot embarrassment wore off a bit, I held my head very high and +languidly allowed my skirt to trail in the dust, and said to myself: +"This is like a real grown-up--surely they can't call me 'child' much +longer now." + +The star playing with us just then was a tragedian, but he was a very +little man, whose air of alertness, even of aggressiveness, had won for +him the title of "Cocky" Roberts. He wore enormously high heels, he had +thick cork soles on the outside and thick extra soles on the inside of +all his boots and shoes. His wigs were slightly padded at their +tops--everything possible was done for a gain in height, while all the +time he was sputtering and swearing at what he called "this cursed cult +of legs!" + +"Look at 'em!" he snorted--for he did snort like a horse when he was +angry, as he often was, at the theatre at least. "Look at 'em, Ellsler; +there's Murdoch, Proctor, Davenport, all gone to legs, damn 'em, and +calling themselves actors! You don't look for brains in a man's legs, do +you? No! no! it's the cranium that tells! Yes, blast 'em! Let 'em come +here and match craniums with me, that they think it smart to call +'Cocky'! They're a lot of theatrical tongs--all legs and no heads!" + +And yet the poor, fuming little man, with his exaggerated strut, would +have given anything short of his life, to have added even a few inches to +his anatomy, the brevity of which was quite forgotten by the public when +he gave his really brilliant and pathetic performance of "Belphegor," one +of the earliest of the so-called "emotional" plays. + +I have a very kindly remembrance of that fretful little star, because +when they were discussing the cast of a play, one of those tormenting +parts turned up that are of great importance to the piece, but of no +importance themselves. Capable actresses refuse to play them, and +incapable ones create havoc in them. This one had already been refused, +when Mr. Roberts suddenly exclaimed: "Who was it made those announcements +last night? She spoke with beautiful distinctness; let _that_ young woman +have the part, she'll do it all right." + +Oh, dear Mr. Roberts! never "Cocky" to me! Oh, wise little judge! how I +did honor him for those precious words: "Let that young woman have the +part." That "_young woman_!" I could have embraced him for very +gratitude--a part _and_ the term "young woman," and since, as my old +washerwoman used to say, "it never rains but it pours," while these two +words were still making music in my ears, by some flash of intuition I +realized that I was being courted by Frank. The discovery filled me with +the utmost satisfaction. I gave no thought to him, in a sentimental way, +either then or ever; quite selfishly I thought only of my own gain in +dignity and importance, for I started out in life with the old-fashioned +idea that a man honored a woman by his courtship, and I knew naught of +the lover who "loves and rides away." Yet in a few days the curious +cat-like instinct of the unconscious coquette awakened in me, and I began +very gently to try my claws. + +I wished very much to know if he were jealous, as I had been told that +real lovers were always so; and, naturally, I did not wish mine to fall +short of any of the time-honored attributes of loverdom. Therefore I, one +morning, selected for experimental use a man whose volume of speech was a +terror to all. Had he been put to the sword, he would have talked to the +swordsman till the final blow cut his speech. He was most unattractive, +too, in appearance, being one of those actors who get shaved after +rehearsal instead of before it, thus gaining a reputation for untidiness +that facts may not always justify--but he served my purpose all the +better for that. + +I deliberately placed myself at his side; I was only a ballet-girl, but I +had two good ears--I was welcome. Conversation, or rather the monologue, +burst forth. Standing at the side of the stage, with rehearsal going on, +he of course spoke low. I watched for Frank's arrival. He came, I heard +his cheery "Good-morning, ladies! good-morning, gentlemen!" and then he +started toward me, but I heard nothing, saw nothing of _him_. My upraised +eyes, as wide as I possibly could make them, were fixed upon the face of +the talker. Yet, with a jump of the heart, I knew the brightness had gone +from Frank's face, the spring from his step. I smiled as sweetly as I +knew how; I seemed to hang upon the words of the untidy one, and oh! if +Frank could only have known what those words were; how I was being +assured that he, the speaker, had that very morning succeeded in stopping +a leaky hole in his shoe by melting a piece of india-rubber over and on +it, and that not a drop of water had penetrated when he had walked +through the rain-puddles; and right there, like music, there came to my +listening ear a word of four letters--a forbidden word, but one full of +consolation to the distressed male; a word beginning with "d," and for +fear that you may think it was "dear," why, I will be explicit and say +that it was "damn!" and that it was from the anger-whitened lips of +Frank, who during the morning gave not only to me, but to all lookers-on, +most convincing proof of his jealousy, and that was the beginning of my +experiments. + +I did this, to see if it would make him angry. I did that, to see if it +would please him. Sometimes I scratched him with my investigating claws, +then I was sorry--truly sorry, because I was grateful always for his +gentle goodness to me, and never meant to hurt him. But he represented +the entire sex to me, and I was learning all I could, thinking, as I once +told him, that the knowledge might be useful on the stage some time, and +I wondered at the very fury my words provoked in him. + +We quarrelled sometimes like spiteful children, as when I, startled into +laughter by hearing his voice break in a speech, unfortunately excused +myself by saying: "It was just like a young rooster, you know!" and he, +white with anger, cried: "You're a solid mass of rudeness, to laugh at a +misfortune; you have no breeding!" + +This brought from me the rejoinder: "I know it, but you would have shown +better breeding yourself had you not told me of it!" + +And then he was on his knee in the entrance, begging forgiveness, and +saying his "cursed, cracking voice made a madman of him!" + +As it really did, for he often accused people of guying him if they did +but clear their own throats. And so we went on till something in his +manner--his increased efforts to find me alone at rehearsal, for as I was +without a room-mate in Columbus, I could not receive him at home, and I +truly think he would have kept silence forever rather than have urged me +to break any conventional rule of propriety--this something gave me the +idea that Frank was going to be--well--explicit, that--that--I was going +to be proposed to according to established form. + +Now, though a proposal of marriage is a thing to look forward to with +desire, to look back upon with pride, it is also a thing to avoid when it +is in the immediate future, and I so successfully evaded his efforts to +find me alone, at the theatre or at some friend's house, that he was +forced at last to speak at night, while escorting me home. + +I lodged in a quiet little street, opening out of the busier, more noisy +Kinsman Street. In our front yard there lived a large, greedy old tree, +which had planted its foot firmly in the very middle of the path, thus +forcing everyone to _chassé_ around it who wished to enter the house. Its +newly donned summer greenery extended far over the gate, and as the moon +shone full and fair the "set" was certainly appropriate. + +We reached the gate, and I held out my hand for my bag--that small +catch-all of a bag that, in the hand of the actress, is the outward and +visible sign of her profession; but he let the bag slip to the walk and +caught my hand in his. The street was deserted. Leaning against the gate +beneath the sheltering boughs of the old tree, the midnight silence all +about us, he began to speak earnestly. + +I made a frantic search through my mind for something to say presently, +when my turn would come to speak. I rejected instantly the ancient wail +of "suddenness." Frank's temper did not encourage an offer of +"sisterhood." I was just catching joyously at the idea of hiding behind +the purely imaginary opposition of my mother, when Frank's words: "Then, +too, dear heart! I could protect you, and--" were interrupted by a yowl, +so long, so piercing, it seemed to rise like a rocket of anguish into the +summer sky. + +"Oh!" I thought, "that's one-eared Jim from next door, and if our Simmons +hears him--and he'd have to be dead not to hear--he will come out to +fight him!" I clenched my teeth, I dropped my eyes that Frank might not +see the threatening laughter there. I noted how much whiter his hand was +than mine, as they were clasped in the moonlight. The pause had been +long; then, very gently, he started again: "Mignonne!" + +Distinctly I heard the thump of Simmons's body dropping from the +porch-roof. "Mignonne, look up! you big-eyed child, and tell me that I +may go to your mother with your promise!" + +"Mi-au! Mi-au! Wow! Spit! Spit! Wow!" Four balls of fire glowed for a +moment beneath the tree, then two dark forms became one dark form, that +whirled and bounded through space, emitting awful sounds. The cats were +too much for me, I threw back my head and laughed. + +My laugh was too much for Frank. His temper broke, he flung my hand away, +crying out: "Laugh, you little idiot! You're worse than the animals, for +they at least know no better! Laugh till morning, if you like!" and then +I'm sorry to say it, but he kicked my bag, the precious insignia of my +profession, and rushed down the street, leaving me standing there amid +the débris of the wrecked proposal. + +Next night he frigidly presented himself to escort me home, and when I +coldly declined his company, he turned silently and left me. Truth to +tell, I did not enjoy my walk alone, through the market-place in +particular, and I planned to unbend a little the next evening; but I was +much piqued to find myself without an excuse for unbending, since on the +next evening he did not offer his company. The third night there was a +big lump in my throat, and the tears would have fallen had they not been +suddenly dried in my eyes by the sight of a familiar light-gray suit +slipping along close to the houses on the other side of the way. +Petulant, irritable, loyal-hearted boy! he had safe-guarded me both those +nights when I thought I was alone! My heart was warm with gratitude +toward him, and when I reached my gate, and passed inside, I called +across the street: "Thank you, Frank! Good-night!" + +And he laughed and answered: "Good-night, Mignonne!" + +And so it came about that Frank's wooing, being of the strict and stately +order, I gradually came to be Miss Morris to others beside himself. I saw +my advance in dignity, and if I did not love him I gave him profound +gratitude, and we were true friends his short and honorable life +through. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEENTH + +Mr. Wilkes Booth comes to us, the whole Sex Loves him--Mr. Ellsler +Compares him to his Great Father--Our Grief and Horror over the Awful +Tragedy at Washington. + + +In glancing back over those two crowded and busy seasons one figure +stands out with such clearness and beauty that I cannot resist the +impulse to speak of him, rather than of my own inconsequential self. In +his case only (so far as my personal knowledge goes) there was nothing +derogatory to dignity or to manhood in being called beautiful, for he was +that bud of splendid promise, blasted to the core before its full +triumphant blooming--known to the world as a madman and an assassin--but +to the profession as "that unhappy boy," John Wilkes Booth. + +He was so young, so bright, so gay, so kind. I could not have known him +well. Of course, too, there are two or three different people in every +man's skin, yet when we remember that stars are not generally in the +habit of showing their brightest, their best side to the company at +rehearsal, we cannot help feeling both respect and liking for the one who +does. + +There are not many men who can receive a gash over the eye in a scene at +night without at least a momentary outburst of temper, but when the +combat between _Richard_ and _Richmond_ was being rehearsed, Mr. Booth +had again and again urged Mr. McCollom (that six-foot tall and handsome +leading man, who entrusted me with the care of his watch during such +encounters) to "Come on hard! Come on hot! Hot, old fellow! +Harder--faster!" He'd take the chance of a blow, if only they could make +a hot fight of it. + +And Mr. McCollom, who was a cold man, at night became nervous in his +effort to act like a fiery one. He forgot he had struck the full number +of head blows, and when Booth was pantingly expecting a thrust, McCollom, +wielding his sword with both hands, brought it down with awful force fair +across Booth's forehead. A cry of horror rose, for in one moment his face +was masked in blood, one eyebrow being cut cleanly through. There came, +simultaneously, one deep groan from _Richard_, and the exclamation: "Oh, +good God! good God!" from _Richmond_, who stood shaking like a leaf and +staring at his work. Then Booth, flinging the blood from his eyes with +his left hand, said, as genially as man could speak: "That's all right, +old man! never mind me--only come on hard, for God's sake, and save the +fight!" + +Which he resumed at once, and though he was perceptibly weakened, it +required the sharp order of Mr. Ellsler to "ring the first curtain bell," +to force him to bring the fight to a close, a single blow shorter than +usual. Then there was a running to and fro, with ice and vinegar paper +and raw steak and raw oysters. When the doctor had placed a few stitches +where they were most required, he laughingly declared there was provision +enough in the room to start a restaurant. Mr. McCollom came to try to +apologize, to explain, but Booth would have none of it; he had out his +hand, crying: "Why, old fellow, you look as if _you_ had lost the blood. +Don't worry. Now if my eye had gone, that _would_ have been bad!" And so, +with light words, he tried to set the unfortunate man at ease, and though +he must have suffered much mortification as well as pain from the eye, +that in spite of all endeavors would blacken, he never made a sign. + +He was, like his great elder brother, rather lacking in height, but his +head and throat, and the manner of its rising from his shoulders, were +truly beautiful. His coloring was unusual, the ivory pallor of his skin, +the inky blackness of his densely thick hair, the heavy lids of his +glowing eyes, were all Oriental, and they gave a touch of mystery to his +face when it fell into gravity; but there was generally a flash of white +teeth behind his silky mustache, and a laugh in his eyes. + +One thing I shall never cease to admire him for. When a man has placed a +clean and honest name in his wife's care for life, about the most +stupidly wicked use she can make of it is as a signature to a burst of +amatory flattery, addressed to an unknown actor, who will despise her for +her trouble. Some women may shrivel as though attacked with "peach-leaf +curl" when they hear how these silly letters are sometimes passed about +and laughed at. "No gentleman would so betray a confidence!" Of course +not; but once when I made that remark to an actor, who was then flaunting +the food his vanity fed upon, he roughly answered: "And no _lady_ would +so address an unknown man. She cast away her right to respectful +consideration when she thrust that letter in the box." That was brutal; +but there are those who think like him this very day, and oh, foolish +tamperers with fire, who act like him! + +Now it is scarcely an exaggeration to say the sex was in love with John +Booth, the name Wilkes being apparently unknown to his family and close +friends. At depot restaurants those fiercely unwilling maiden-slammers of +plates and shooters of coffee-cups made to him swift and gentle offerings +of hot steaks, hot biscuits, hot coffee, crowding round him like doves +about a grain basket, leaving other travellers to wait upon themselves or +go without refreshment. At the hotels, maids had been known to enter his +room and tear asunder the already made-up bed, that the "turn-over" might +be broader by a thread or two, and both pillows slant at the perfectly +correct angle. At the theatre, good heaven! as the sunflowers turn upon +their stalks to follow the beloved sun, so old or young, our faces +smiling, turned to him. Yes, old or young, for the little daughter of the +manager, who played but the _Duke of York_ in "Richard III.," came to +the theatre each day, each night of the engagement, arrayed in her best +gowns, and turned on him fervid eyes that might well have served for +_Juliet_. The manager's wife, whose sternly aggressive virtue no one +could doubt or question, with the aid of art waved and fluffed her hair, +and softened thus her too hard line of brow, and let her keen black eyes +fill with friendly sparkles for us all--yet, 'twas because of him. And +when the old woman made to threaten him with her finger, and he caught +her lifted hand, and uncovering his bonnie head, stooped and kissed it, +then came the wanton blood up in her cheek as she had been a girl again. + +His letters then from flirtatious women, and, alas! girls, you may well +believe were legion. A cloud used to gather upon his face at sight of +them. I have of course no faintest idea that he lived the godly, +righteous, and sober life that is enjoined upon us all, but I do remember +with respect that this idolized man, when the letters were many and +rehearsal already on, would carefully cut off every signature and utterly +destroy them, then pile the unread letters up, and, I don't know what +their final end was, but he remarked with knit brows, as he caught me +watching him at his work one morning: "They," pointing to the pile of +mutilated letters, "they are harmless now, little one; their sting lies +in the tail!" and when a certain free and easy actor, laughingly picked +up a very elegantly written note, and said: "I can read it, can't I, now +the signature is gone?" He answered, shortly: "The woman's folly is no +excuse for our knavery--lay the letter down, please!" + +I played the _Player-Queen_ to my great joy, and in the "Marble Heart" I +was one of the group of three statues in the first act. We were supposed +to represent _Lais_, _Aspasia_, and _Phryne_, and when we read the cast, +I glanced at the other girls (we were not strikingly handsome), and +remarked, gravely: "Well, it's a comfort to know that we look so like the +three beautiful Grecians." + +A laugh at our backs brought us around suddenly to face Mr. Booth, who +said to me: "You satirical little wretch, how do you come to know these +Grecian ladies? Perhaps you have the advantage of them in being +all-beautiful within?" + +"I wish it would strike outward, then," I answered; "you know it's always +best to have things come to the surface!" + +"I know some very precious things are hidden from common sight, and I +know, too, you caught my meaning in the first place; good-night." And he +left us. + +We had been told to descend to the stage at night with our white robes +hanging free and straight, that Mr. Booth himself might drape them as we +stood upon the pedestal. It really is a charming picture, that of the +statues in the first act. Against a backing of black velvet, the three +white figures, carefully posed, strongly lighted, stand out so +marble-like, that when they slowly turn their faces and point to their +chosen master, the effect is uncanny enough to chill the looker-on. + +Well, with white wigs, white tights, and white robes, and half strangled +with the powder we had inhaled in our efforts to make our lips stay +white, we cautiously descended the stairs. We dared not talk, we dared +not blink our eyes, for fear of disturbing the coat of powder; we were +lifted to the pedestal and took our places as we expected to stand. Then +Mr. Booth came, such a picture in his Greek garments as made even the men +exclaim at him, and began to pose us. It happened that one of us had very +good limbs, one medium good, and the third had apparently walked on +broom-sticks. When Mr. Booth slightly raised the drapery of No. 3, his +features gave a twist as though he had suddenly tasted lemon-juice, but, +quick as a flash, he said: "I believe I'll advance you to the centre, for +the stately and wise _Aspasia_." The central figure wore her draperies +hanging straight to her feet, hence the "advance" and consequent +concealment of the unlovely limbs. It was quickly and kindly done, for +the girl was not only spared mortification, but in the word "advance" +she saw a compliment, and was happy accordingly. Then my turn came; my +arm was placed about _Aspasia_, my head bent and turned and twisted, my +right hand curved upon my breast, so that the forefinger touched my chin; +I felt I was a personified simper, but I was silent and patient until the +arrangement of my draperies began--then I squirmed anxiously. + +"Take care, take care!" he cautioned, "you will sway the others if you +move!" But, in spite of the risk of my marble make-up, I faintly groaned: +"Oh, dear! must it be like that?" + +Regardless of the pins in the corner of his mouth, he burst into +laughter, and taking a photograph from the bosom of his Greek shirt, he +said: "I expected a protest from you, miss, so I came prepared; don't +move your head, but just look at this." + +He held the picture of a group of statuary up to me: "This is you on the +right; it's not so dreadful, now, is it?" and I cautiously murmured, that +if I wasn't any worse than that I wouldn't mind. + +And so we were all satisfied and our statue scene was very successful. + +Next morning I saw Mr. Booth come running out of the theatre on his way +to the telegraph office at the corner, and right in the middle of the +walk, staring about him, stood a child--a small roamer of the stony +streets, who had evidently got far enough beyond his native ward to +arouse misgivings as to his personal safety, and at the very moment he +stopped to consider matters, Mr. Booth dashed out of the stage-door and +added to his bewilderment by capsizing him completely. + +"Oh, good Lord! Baby, are you hurt?" exclaimed Mr. Booth, pausing +instantly to pick up the dirty, touselled, small heap and stand it on its +bandy legs again. + +"Don't cry, little chap!" and the aforesaid little chap not only ceased +to cry but gave him a damp and grimy smile, at which the actor bent +toward him quickly, but paused, took out his handkerchief, and first +carefully wiping the dirty little nose and mouth, stooped and kissed him +heartily, put some change in each freckled paw, and continued his run to +the telegraph office. + +He knew of no witness to the act. To kiss a pretty, clean child under the +approving eyes of mamma might mean nothing but politeness, but surely it +required the prompting of a warm and tender heart to make a young and +thoughtless man feel for and caress such a dirty, forlorn bit of babyhood +as that. + +Of his work, I suppose I was too young and too ignorant to judge +correctly, but I remember well hearing the older members of the company +express their opinions. Mr. Ellsler, who had been on terms of friendship +with the elder Booth, was delighted with the promise of his work. He +greatly admired Edwin's intellectual power, his artistic care, but +"John," he cried, "has more of the old man's power in one performance +than Edwin can show in a year. He has the fire, the dash, the touch of +_strangeness_. He often produces unstudied effects at night. I question +him, 'Did you rehearse that business to-day, John?' he answers: 'No, I +didn't rehearse it, it just came to me in the scene, and I couldn't help +doing it; but it went all right, didn't it?' Full of impulse, just now, +like a colt, his heels are in the air, nearly as often as his head, but +wait a year or two till he gets used to the harness, and quiets down a +bit, and you will see as great an actor as America can produce!" + +And, by the way, speaking of Mr. Ellsler and the elder Booth, I am +reminded that I have in my possession a letter from the latter to the +former. It is written in a rather cramped hand, that carries the address +and the marks of the red wafers, as that was before the appearance of +envelopes, and it informs Mr. Ellsler that he, "Junius Brutus Booth, will +play a star engagement of one week for the sum of--" how many dollars? if +it were not unguessable, I should insist upon your guessing, but that +would not be fair, so here it is--"for the sum of three hundred +dollars," and wants to know how many and what plays he is desired to do, +that he may select his wardrobe. + +Think of it--the mighty father of our Edwin asking but $300 for a week of +such acting as he could do, which, if this bright, light-hearted boy was +so much like him, must have been brilliant indeed. + +One morning, going on the stage where a group were talking with John +Wilkes, I heard him say: "No! no, no! there's but one _Hamlet_ to my +mind, that's my brother Edwin. You see, between ourselves, he _is +Hamlet_, melancholy and all!" + +That was an awful time when the dread news came to us. We were in +Columbus. We had been horrified by the great crime at Washington. My +room-mate and I had from our small earnings bought some black cotton, at +a tripled price, as all the black material in the city was not sufficient +to meet the demand, and as we tacked it about our one window, a man, +passing, told us the assassin had been discovered, and that he was the +actor Booth. Hattie laughed so she nearly swallowed the tack that, +girl-like, she held between her lips, and I, after a laugh, told him it +was a poor subject for a jest, and we went in. There was no store in +Columbus then where playbooks were sold, and as Mr. Ellsler had a very +large and complete stage library, he frequently lent his books to us, and +we would hurriedly copy out our lines and return the book for his own +use. On that occasion he was going to study his part first and then leave +the play with us as he passed going home. We heard his knock; I was busy +pressing a bit of stage finery. Hattie opened the door, and then I heard +her exclaiming: "Why--why--what?" I turned quickly. Mr. Ellsler was +coming slowly into the room. He is a very dark man, but he was perfectly +livid then, his lips even were blanched to the whiteness of his cheeks. +His eyes were dreadful, they were so glassy and seemed so unseeing. He +was devoted to his children, and all I could think of as likely to bring +such a look upon his face was disaster to one of them, and I cried, as I +drew a chair to him, "What is it? Oh, what has happened to them?" + +He sank down, he wiped his brow, he looked almost stupidly at me, then, +very faintly, he said: "You--haven't--heard--anything?" + +Like a flash Hattie's eyes and mine met; we thought of the supposed +ill-timed jest of the stranger--my lips moved wordlessly. Hattie +stammered: "A man, he lied though, said that Wilkes Booth--but he did +lie--didn't he?" and in the same faint voice Mr. Ellsler answered, +slowly: "No--no! he did not lie--it's too true!" + +Down fell our heads and the waves of shame and sorrow seemed fairly to +o'erwhelm us, and while our sobs filled the little room, Mr. Ellsler rose +and laid two playbooks on the table. Then, while standing there, staring +into space, I heard his far, faint voice, saying: "So great, so good a +man destroyed, and by the hand of that unhappy boy! my God! my God!" He +wiped his brow again and slowly left the house, apparently unconscious of +our presence. + +When we resumed our work--the theatre had closed because of the national +calamity--many a painted cheek showed runnels made by bitter tears, and +one old actress, with quivering lips, exclaimed: "One woe doth tread upon +another's heel, so fast they follow!" but with no thought of quoting, and +God knows the words expressed the situation perfectly. + +Mrs. Ellsler, whom I never saw shed a tear for any sickness, sorrow, or +trouble of her own, shed tears for the mad boy who had suddenly become +the assassin of God's anointed--the great, the blameless Lincoln! + +We crept about, quietly, everyone winced at the sound of the overture; it +was as if one dead lay within the walls, one who belonged to us. + +When the rumors about Booth being the murderer proved to be authentic, +the police feared a possible outbreak of mob-feeling, and a +demonstration against the theatre building, or against the actors +individually; but we had been a decent, law-abiding, well-behaved people, +liked and respected, so we were not made to suffer for the awful act of +one of our number. Still, when the mass-meeting was held in front of the +Capitol, there was much anxiety on the subject, and Mr. Ellsler urged all +the company to keep away from it, lest their presence might arouse some +ill-feeling. The crowd was immense; the sun had gloomed over, and the +Capitol building, draped in black, loomed up with stern severity and that +massive dignity only obtained by heavily columned buildings. The people +surged like waves about the speakers' stand, and the policemen glanced +anxiously toward the new theatre, not far away, and prayed that some +bombastic, revengeful ruffian might not crop up from this mixed crowd of +excited humanity to stir them to violence. + +Three speakers, however, in their addresses had confined themselves to +eulogizing the great dead. In life, Mr. Lincoln had been abused by many; +in death, he was worshipped by all, and these speakers found their words +of love and sorrow eagerly listened to, and made no harsh allusions to +the profession from which the assassin sprang. And then an unknown man +clambered up from the crowd to the portico platform and began to speak, +without asking anyone's permission. He had a far-reaching voice--he had +fire and "go." + +"Here's the fellow to look out for!" said the policeman, and, sure +enough, suddenly the dread word "theatre" was tossed into the air, and +everyone was still in a moment, waiting for--what? I don't know what they +hoped for, I do know what many feared; but this is what he said: "Yes, +look over at our theatre and think of the little body of men and women +there, who are to-day sore-hearted and cast down, who feel that they are +looked at askant, because one of their number has committed that hideous +crime! Think of what they have to bear of shame and horror, and spare +for them, too, a little pity!" + +He paused; it had been a bold thing to do--to appeal for consideration +for actors at such a time. The crowd swayed for a moment to and fro, a +curious growling came from it, and then all heads turned toward the +theatre. A faint cheer was given, and after that there was not the +slightest allusion made to us--and verily we were grateful. + +That the homely, tender-hearted "Father Abraham," rare combination of +courage, justice, and humanity, died at an actor's hand will be a grief, +a horror, and a shame to the profession forever--yet I cannot believe +that John Wilkes Booth was "the leader of a band of bloody conspirators!" + +Who shall draw a line and say: here genius ends and madness begins? There +was that touch of "strangeness." In Edwin Booth it was a profound +melancholy; in John it was an exaggeration of spirit, almost a wildness. +There was the natural vanity of the actor, too, who craves a dramatic +situation in real life. There was his passionate love and sympathy for +the South--why, he was "easier to be played on than a pipe!" + +Undoubtedly he conspired to kidnap the President--that would appeal to +him, but after that I truly believe he was a tool, certainly he was no +leader. Those who led him knew his courage, his belief in fate, his +loyalty to his friends; and because they knew these things, he drew the +lot, as it was meant he should from the first. Then, half mad, he +accepted the part Fate cast him for--committed the monstrous crime and +paid the awful price. + +And since, + + "God moves in a mysterious way + His wonders to perform," + +we venture to pray for His mercy upon the guilty soul! who may have +repented and confessed his manifold sins and offences during those awful +hours of suffering before the end came. + +And "God shutteth not up His mercies forever in displeasure!" We can only +shiver and turn our thoughts away from the bright light that went out in +such utter darkness. Poor, guilty, unhappy John Wilkes Booth! + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEENTH + + Mr. R. E. J. Miles--His two Horses, and our Woful Experience with the + Substitute "Wild Horse of Tartary." + + +But there, just as I start to speak of my third season, I seem to look +into a pair of big, mild eyes that say: "Can it be that you mean to pass +me by? Do you forget that 'twas I who turned the great sensation scene of +a play into a side-splitting farce?" And I shake my head and answer, +truthfully: "I cannot forget, I shall never forget your work that night +in Columbus, when you appeared as the 'fiery, untamed steed' (may Heaven +forgive you) in 'Mazeppa.'" + +Mr. Robert E. J. Miles, or "All the Alphabet Miles," as he was frequently +called, was starring at that time in the Horse Drama, doing such plays as +"The Cataract of the Ganges," "Mazeppa," "Sixteen-String Jack," etc. +"Mazeppa" was the favorite in Columbus, and both the star and manager +regretted they had billed the other plays in advance, as there would have +been more money in "Mazeppa" alone. Mr. Miles carried with him two +horses; the one for the "Wild Horse of Tartary" was an exquisitely +formed, satin-coated creature, who looked wickedly at you from the tail +of her blazing eye, who bared her teeth savagely, and struck out with her +fore-feet, as well as lashed out with the hind ones. When she came +rearing, plunging, biting, snapping, whirling, and kicking her way on to +the stage, the scarlet lining of her dilating nostrils and the foam +flying from her mouth made our screams very natural ones, and the women +in front used to huddle close to their companions, or even cover their +faces. + +One creature only did this beautiful vixen love--R. E. J. Miles. She +fawned upon him like a dog; she did tricks like a dog for him, but she +was a terror to the rest of mankind, and really it was a thrilling scene +when _Mazeppa_ was stripped and bound, his head tail-ward, his feet +mane-ward, to the back of that maddened beast. She seemed to bite and +tear at him, and when set free she stood straight up for a dreadful +moment, in which she really endangered his life, then, with a wild neigh, +she tore up the "runs," as if fiends pursued her, with the man stretched +helplessly along her inky back. The curtain used to go up again and +again--it was so very effective. + +For a horse to get from the level stage clear above the "flies," under +the very roof, the platforms or runs he mounts on have to zig-zag across +the mountain background. + +At each angle, out of sight of the audience, there is a railed platform, +large enough for the horse to turn upon and make the next upward rush. + +The other horse travelling with Mr. Miles was an entirely different +proposition. He would have been described, according to the State he +happened to be in, as a pie-bald, a skew-bald, a pinto, or a calico +horse. He was very large, mostly of a satiny white, with big, absurdly +shaped markings of bright bay. He was one of the breed of horses that in +livery stables are always known as "Doctor" or "Judge." Benevolence +beamed from his large, clear eyes, and he looked so mildly wise, one half +expected to see him put on spectacles. The boy at the stable said one +day, as he fed him: "I wouldn't wunder if this ol' parson of 'er a hoss +asked a blessin' on them there oats--I wouldn't!" + +I don't know whether old Bob--as he was called--had any speed or not, but +if he had it was useless to him, for, alas! he was never allowed to reach +the goal under any circumstances. He was always ridden by the villain, +and therefore had to be overtaken, and besides that he generally had to +carry double, as the desperado usually fled holding the fainting heroine +before him. Though old Bob successfully leaped chasms thus heavily +handicapped--for truly he was a mighty jumper--nevertheless he was +compelled to accept defeat, as Mr. Miles always came rushing up on the +black horse to the rescue. He was very lucky indeed, if he didn't have to +roll about and die, and he was a very impatient dead horse, often amusing +the audience by lifting his head to see if the curtain was not down yet, +and then dropping dead again with a sigh the whole house could hear. + +By the way, "the house" is a theatrical term, meaning, on an actor's +lips, "the audience." "The house did thus or so," "the house is behaving +beautifully," "it's the most refined house you ever saw," "what a cold +house"; and so on. I have but rarely heard either actor or actress refer +to the "audience"--and after steadily using any term for years it is very +hard to lay it aside, and I shall long remember the grim moment that +followed on my remarking to my rector, "What a good house you had +yesterday--it must have been a pleasure to pla--to, to--er, er, to +address such an audi--er, that is, I mean congregation!" There was a +moment of icy silence, then, being a human being as well as a wearer of +the priestly collar, he set back his head and laughed a laugh that was +good to hear. + +Anyway, being continually pushed back into second place and compelled to +listen to the unearned applause bestowed upon the beautiful black seemed +to rob old Bob of all ambition professionally, and he simply became a +_gourmet_ and a glutton. He lived to eat. A woman in his eyes was a sort +of perambulating store-house of cake, crackers, apples, sugar, etc.; only +his love for children was disinterested. The moment he was loose he went +off in search for children, no matter whose, so long as he found some; +then down he would go on his knees, and wait to be pulled and patted. His +silvery tail provided hundreds of horse-hair rings--and his habit of +gathering very small people up by their back breadths and carrying them a +little way before dropping them, only filled the air with wild shrieks of +laughter. In the theatre he walked sedately about before rehearsal began, +and though we knew his attentions were entirely selfish, he was so +urbane, so complaisant in his manner of going through us, that we could +not resist his advances, and each day and night we packed our pockets and +our muffs with such provender as women seldom carry about in their +clothes. All our gloves smelled as though we worked at a cider-mill. +While the play was going on old Bob spent a great part of his time +standing on the first of those railed platforms, and as he was on the +same side of the stage that the ladies' dressing-rooms were on, everyone +of us had to pass him on our way to dress, and he demanded toll of all. +Fruits, domestic or foreign, were received with gentle eagerness. Cake, +crackers, and sugar, the velvety nose snuffed at them approvingly, and if +a girl, believing herself late, tried to pass him swiftly by, his look of +amazement was comical to behold, and in an instant his iron-shod foot was +playing a veritable devil's tattoo on the resounding board platform, and +if that failed to win attention, following her with his eyes, he lifted +up his voice in a full-chested "neigh--hay--hay--_ha-ay_!" that brought +her back in a hurry with her toll of sugar. And that pie-bald hypocrite +would scrunch it with such a piteously ravenous air that the girl quite +forgot the basilisk glare and satirical words the landlady directed +against her recently-acquired sweet-tooth. My own landlady had, as early +as Wednesday, covered the sugar-bowl and locked the pantry, but she left +the salt-bag open, and I took on a full cargo of it twice a day, and old +Bob showed such an absolute carnality of enjoyment in the eating of it +that Mr. Miles became convinced that it had long been denied to him at +the stables. + +Then, late in the week, there came that dreadful night of disaster. I +don't recall the name of the play, but in that one piece the beautiful, +high-spirited black mare had to carry double up the runs. John Carroll +and Miss Lucy Cutler were the riders. Mr. Carroll claimed he could ride a +little, and though he was afraid he was ashamed to say so. Mr. Miles said +in the morning: "Now, if you are the least bit timid, Mr. Carroll, say +so, and I will fasten the bridle-reins to the saddle-pommel and the Queen +will carry you up as true as a die and as safe as a rock of her own +accord; but if you are going to hold the bridle, for God's sake be +careful! If it was old Bob, you could saw him as much as you liked and he +would pay no attention, and hug the run for dear life; but the Queen, who +has a tender mouth, is besides half mad with excitement at night, and a +very slight pressure on the wrong rein will mean a forty or fifty-foot +fall for you all!" + +Miss Cutler expressed great fear, when Mr. Miles, surprisedly, said: +"Why, you have ridden with me twice this week without a sign of fear?" +"Oh, yes," she answered, "but _you_ know what you are doing--you are a +horseman." + +It was an unfortunate speech, and in face of it Mr. Carroll's vanity +would not allow him to admit his anxiety. "He could ride well enough--and +he would handle the reins himself," he declared. + +During the day his fears grew upon him. Foolishly and wickedly he +resorted to spirits to try to build up some Dutch courage; and then, when +the scene came on, half blind with fear and the liquor, which he was not +used to, as he felt the fierce creature beneath them rushing furiously up +the steep incline, a sort of madness came upon him. Without rhyme or +reason he pulled desperately at the nigh rein and in the same breath +their three bodies were hurling downward, like thunderbolts. + +It was an awful sight! I looked at them as they descended, and for the +fraction of a second they seemed to be suspended in the air. They were +all upside down. They all, without turning or twisting, fell straight as +plummets--the horse, the same as the man and woman, had its feet straight +in the air. Ugh! the striking--ugh!--never mind details! The curtain had +been rushed down. Miss Cutler had been picked up, dazed, stunned, but +without a mark. Mr. Carroll had crept away unaided amid the confusion, +the sorrow, and tears, for the splendid Queen was doomed and done for! +Though Mr. Miles had risked his own life in an awful leap to save her +from falling through a trap, he could not save her life, and the almost +human groan with which she dropped her lovely head upon her master's +shoulder, and his streaming eyes as he tenderly wiped the blood from her +velvety nostrils, made even the scene-shifters rub their eyes upon the +backs of their hands. While the Queen was half carried and half crept to +the fire-engine house next door (her stable was so far away), someone was +going before the curtain, assuring the audience that the accident was +very slight, and the lady and gentleman would both be before them +presently, and the audience applauded in a rather doubtful manner, for +several ladies had fainted, and the carrying out of a helpless person +from a place of amusement always has a depressing effect upon the +lookers-on. Meantime Mr. Carroll was getting his wrist bandaged and a cut +on his face strapped up, while a basket of sawdust was hurriedly procured +that certain cruel stains might be concealed. The orchestra played +briskly and the play went on. That's the one thing we can be sure of in +this world--that the play will go on. That night, late, the beautiful +Queen died with her head resting on her master's knee. + +Now "Mazeppa" was billed for the next night, and there were many +consultations held in the office and on the stage. "The wild horse of +Tartary" was gone. It was impossible to find a new horse in one day. + +"Change the bill!" said Mr. Miles. + +"And have an empty house," answered Mr. Ellsler. + +"But what can I do for a horse?" asked R. E. J. M. + +"Use old Bob," answered Mr. Ellsler. + +"Good Lord!" groaned Bob's master. They argued long, but neither wanted +to lose the good house, so the bill was allowed to stand, and "Mazeppa" +was performed with old white Bob as the "Wild Horse of Tartary." Think of +it, that ingratiating old Bob! That follower of women and playmate of +children! Why, even the great bay blotches on his white old hide made one +think of the circus, paper hoops, and _training_, rather than of +wildness. Meaning to make him at least impatient and restless, he had +been deprived of his supper, and the result was a settled gloom, an air +of melancholy that made Mr. Miles swear under his breath every time he +looked at him. There was a ring, known I believe as a Spanish ring, made +with a sharp little spike attachment, and used sometimes by circus-men to +stir up horses to a show of violence or of high spirits, and when a whip +was not permissible. It could be resorted to without arousing any +suspicion of cruelty, since the spike was on the under side and so out of +sight. The man with the ring on his finger would stand by a horse, and +resting his hand on the animal's neck, just at the most sensitive spot of +his whole anatomy--the root or end of his mane--would close the hand +suddenly, thus driving the spike into the flesh. It must have caused +exquisite pain, and naturally the tormented animal rears and plunges. +Sometimes they get effect enough by pricking the creatures on the +shoulder only. On that night, Mr. Miles, after gazing at the mild and +melancholy features of his new "Wild Horse of Tartary," went to his room +and dug up from some trunk a Spanish ring. Calling one of the men who +used to be dragged and thrashed about the stage by the black wild horse, +he explained to him its use, ending with: "I hate to hurt the old fellow, +so try him on the shoulder first, and if he dances about pretty lively, +as I think he will, you need not prick his mane at all." + +The play moved along nicely, the house was large, and seemed pleased. +_Mazeppa_ fell into his enemy's hands, the sentence was pronounced, and +the order followed: "Bring forth the fiery, untamed steed!" + +The women began to draw close to their escorts; many of them remembered +the biting, kicking entrance of the black, and were frightened +beforehand. The orchestra responded with incidental creepy music, +but--that was all. Over in the entrance, old Bob, surrounded by the four +men who were supposed to restrain him, stood calmly. But those who sat in +the left box heard "get-ups!" and "go-ons!" and the cluckings of many +tongues. The mighty Khan of Tartary (who could not see that entrance) +thought he had not been heard, and roared again: "Bring forth the fiery, +untamed steed!" Another pause, the house tittered, then some one hit old +Bob a crack across the rump with a whip, at which he gave a switch of his +tail and gently ambled on the stage, stopping of his own accord at +centre, and, lowering his head, he stretched his neck and sniffed at the +leader of the orchestra, precisely as a dog sniffs at a stranger. It was +deliciously ridiculous. We girls were supposed to scream with terror at +the "wild horse," and, alas! we were only too obedient, crowding down at +right, clinging together in attitudes of extremest fright, we shrieked +and screeched until old Bob cocked up his ears and looked so astonished +at our conduct that the audience simply rocked back and forth with +laughter, and all the time _Mazeppa_ was saying things that did not seem +to be like prayers. Finally he gave orders for the men to surround Bob, +which they did, and then the ring was used--the ring that was to make him +dance about pretty lively. It pricked him on the shoulder, and the "wild +horse" stood and switched his tail. It pricked him again--he switched his +tail again. The men had by that time grown careless, and when the ring +was finally used at his mane, he suddenly kicked one of them clear off +the stage, and then resumed his unruffled calm. The public thought it was +having fun all this time, but pretty soon it knew it. Nothing under +heaven could disturb the gentle serenity of that dog-like old horse. But +when _Mazeppa_ was brought forward to be bound upon his back, instead of +pulling away, rearing, and fighting against the burden, his one and only +quick movement was his violent effort to break away from his tormentors +to welcome _Mazeppa_ joyously. + +"Oh!" groaned Miles, "kill him, somebody, before he kills me!" + +While he was being bound on the wild horse's back, our instructions were +to scream, therefore we screamed as before, and being on the verge of +insanity, _Mazeppa_ lifted his head from the horse's back, and said: "Oh, +shut up--do!" The audience heard, and--well, it laughed some more, and +then it discovered, when the men sprang away and left the horse free to +dash madly up the mountain, that _Mazeppa_ had kept one foot unbound to +kick his horse with--and truly it did seem that the audience was going +into convulsions. Such laughter, pierced every now and then by the shrill +scream of hysteria. Then old Bob ambled up the first run all right, but, +alas! for poor _Mazeppa_, as he reached the first turn-table, a woman +passed on the way to her room, and hungry Bob instantly stopped to +negotiate a loan in sugar. Oh, it was dreadful, the wait, and when +finally he reappeared, trotting--yes, trotting up the next run, Mr. +Miles's foot could be plainly seen, kicking with the regularity of a +piston-rod, while his remarks were--well, they were irregular in the +extreme. + +Of course the play was hopelessly ruined; the audience laughed at the +slightest mention of the "wild horse," and when, broken and exhausted, +the shepherds find them both lying at the foot of the mountain, the house +seemed to shake with laughter. + +When the play was at last over, old white Bob walked over to his master +and mumbled his hand. Mr. Miles pushed him away with pretended anger, +crying: "You infernal old idiot, I'd sell you for a three-cent stamp with +gum on it!" + +Bob looked hard at him a moment, then he calmly crossed behind him and +mumbled his other hand, and Mr. Miles pulled his ears, and said that "he +himself was the idiot for expecting an untrained, unrehearsed horse to +play such a part," and old Bob agreeing with him perfectly, they were, as +always, at peace with each other. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEENTH + + I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study _King Charles_ in One Afternoon + and Play Without a Rehearsal--Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd Revelation. + + +Already in that third season my position had become an anomalous one, +from that occasion when, because of sickness, I had in one afternoon +studied, letter perfect, the part of _King Charles_ in "Faint Heart Never +Won Fair Lady," and played it in borrowed clothes and without any +rehearsal whatever, other than finding the situations plainly marked in +the book. It was an astonishing thing to do, and nearly everyone had a +kind word for me. The stage manager, or rather the prompter, for Mr. +Ellsler was his own stage manager, patted me on the shoulder and said: +"'Pon my soul, girl, you're a wonder! I think pretty well of my own +study, but you can beat me. You never missed a word, and besides that +I've seen the part played worse many a time. I don't know what to say to +you, my dear, but a girl that can do that can do most anything." + +Ah, yes! and that was just what the powers that were seemed to +think--that I could do almost anything, for from that day I became a sort +of dramatic scape-goat, to play the parts of the sick, the halt, the +cross, the tricky, for whenever an actor or actress turns up with a +remarkable study--the ability to learn almost any part in a given +time--he or she is bound to be "put upon." Sickness will increase, +tempers will get shorter, airs of superiority will be assumed, all +because there is someone ready to play the obnoxious part, someone ready +to rush into the breach and prevent the changing of the "bill." + +So often was I playing parts, thus leaving only two in the ballet, that +another girl was engaged. Thus to Hattie, Annie, and Clara there was +added Mary. And lo! in this young woman I recognized a friend of my +youth. I had known her but two days, but I could never forget the only +child I had ever had a play with. She had parted from me in wrath +because, after playing house-keeping all morning in the yard, I had +refused to eat a clay dumpling she had made, with a nice green +clover-leaf in its middle. She threw the dumpling at me, roaring like a +little bull calf, and twisting a dirty small fist into each dry eye, she +waddled off home, leaving me, finger in mouth, gazing in pained amazement +after her, until my fat little legs suddenly gave way, as was their wont +in moments of great emotion, and sat me unwillingly but flatly down upon +the ground, where I remained, looking gravely at them and wondering what +they did it for--and now here we were together again. + +Of course this playing of many parts was, in a certain way, an advantage +to me, and I appreciated it; but there can be too much even of a good +thing. That I got little pay for all this work was nothing to me, I was +glad to do it for the experience it gave me, but when I was forced to +appear ridiculous through my inability to dress the parts correctly I +suffered cruelly. Once in a while, as in the case of _King Charles_, I +could get a costume from the theatre wardrobe, where the yellow plush +breeches lived when not engaged in desolating my young life, but, alas! +here, as everywhere, the man is the favored party, and the theatre +wardrobe contains only masculine garments; the women must provide +everything for themselves. Then, too, one is never too young or too +insignificant to feel an injustice. + +I recall, very distinctly, having to go on for _Lady Anne_ in "Richard +III.," with a rather unimportant star. Now had I "held a position," as +the term goes, that part would, out of courtesy, have belonged to me for +the rest of the season, unless I chose to offer it back to the woman I +had obliged; but being only a ballet-girl I did well enough for the _Lady +Anne_ of an unimportant star, but when a more popular _Richard_ appeared +upon the scene, _Lady Anne_ was immediately reclaimed, and I traipsed +again behind the coffin, and with the rest of the ballet was witness to +that most savage fling of Shakespeare against a vain, inconsequential +womanhood as personified in _Lady Anne_, who, standing by her coffined, +murdered dead, eagerly drinks in the flattery offered by the murderer's +self. It is a courtship all dagger-pierced and reeking with innocent +blood--monstrous and revolting! One would like to know who the woman was +whose incredible vanity and levity so worked upon the master's mind that +he produced this tragic caricature. Who was the woman who inspired great +Shakespeare's one unnatural scene? Come, antiquaries, _cherchez la +femme_! + +I suffered most when I had to play some lady of quality, for what, in +heaven's name, had I to dress a lady in? Five dollars a week to live on, +to dress myself on, and to provide stage wardrobe! Many a bitter tear I +shed. And then there was the surprise of the stars, when after playing an +important part one night, they suddenly recognized me the next standing +in the crowd of peasants or seated at _Macbeth's_ disheartening banquet. + +Their comments used to be very caustic sometimes, and they almost, +without exception, advised me to rebel, to go and demand freedom from the +ballet, or at least salary enough to dress the parts given me to play. +But those long years of childish thraldom had left their mark--I could +not assert myself, an overwhelming shame came upon me, even at the +thought of asking to be advanced. So I went on playing boys and second +old women, singing songs when forced to it, going on for poor leading +parts even, for the leading lady being the manager's wife rarely played +parts with women stars, and then between times dropping back into the +ballet and standing about in crowds or taking part in a village dance. + +It was a queer position and no mistake. Many stars had grown to know me, +and often on Monday morning he or she would come over to our group and +shake hands kindly, to my great pleasure. One morning, while we were +rehearsing "Lady Audley's Secret," Mrs. Bowers, whom I greatly admired, +came over to me, and remarked: "You hard-hearted little wretch! I've been +watching you; you are treating that boy shamefully! Don't you know +Murdoch is a gentleman?" + +I was surprised, and rather quickly answered: "Well, have I treated him +as if he were not a gentleman?" + +She was called just then, but when the act was over she came to me again, +and taking my hand in her right, she began beating it up and down upon +her left: "You are not vexed, are you?" she asked. "Don't be; I only +wonder how you can do it, and you are so young! Why," she sighed, from +her very soul it seemed to me, "Why," she went on, "ever since I was +fourteen years old I have been loving some man who has not loved me!" +Tears rose thickly into her eyes. "I am always laying my heart down for +some man to trample on!" She glanced toward Mr. McCollom (he who was six +feet tall and handsome), a little smile trembled on her lips. I caught +her fingers on a swift impulse and squeezed them, she squeezed back +answeringly; we understood each other, she was casting her heart down +again, unasked. Her eyes came back to me. "Yours is the best way, but I'm +too old to learn now, I shall have to go on seeking--always seeking!" + +"And finding, surely finding!" I answered, honestly, for I could not +imagine anyone resisting her. + +"Do you think so?" she said, eagerly; then, rather sadly, she added: +"Still it would be nice to be sought once, instead of always seeking." + +Poor woman! Charming actress as she was, she did not exaggerate in +declaring she was always casting her heart before someone. She married +Mr. McCollom, and lived with him in adoring affection till death took +him. + +The last time I saw her she was my guest here at "The Pines," and as I +fastened a great hibiscus flower above her ear, in Spanish fashion, she +remarked: + +"How little you have changed in all these years! I'll wager your heart is +without a scar, while if you could only see mine," she laughed, "it's +like an old bit of tinware--so battered, and bent, and dented!" + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH + + Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my Reputation--I Own a Baby + on Shares--Miss Western's Pathetic Speech. + + +I had at that time a friend--a rare possession that. "The ideal of +friendship," says Madame Switchine, "is to feel as one while remaining +two," which is a precise description of the condition of mind and feeling +of Mrs. Mollie Ogden and myself. She did not act, but her husband did, +and I saw her every night, nearly every morning, and when work permitted +we visited one another in the afternoons. There was but one kind of cake +on the market that I liked, and that cake, with coffee, was always +offered for my refreshment when I was her guest. When she was mine the +festal board was furnished forth with green tea, of which she was +inordinately fond, and oysters stewed in their own can and served in two +mugs; the one announcing, in ostentatious gold letters, that I was "a +good girl," was naturally at the service of my guest, while the plain +stone-china affair, from the toilet-table, answered my purposes. With +what happy eagerness we prepared for those absurd banquets, which we +heartily enjoyed, since we were boarders, and always hungry--and how we +talked! Of what? Why, good heaven! did I not hold a membership in the +library, and were we not both lightning-quick readers? Why, we had the +whole library to talk over; besides, there was the country to save! and +as Mollie didn't really know one party from the other, she felt herself +particularly fitted for the task of settling public questions. + +Then, suddenly, she began to expect another visitor--a _wee_ visitor, +whom we hoped would remain permanently, and, goodness mercy! I nearly +lost my reputation through the chambermaid finding in my work-basket some +half-embroidered, tiny, tiny jackets. Whereupon she announced to the +servants, in full assembly, that I had too soft a tongue, and was deeper +than the sea, but _she_ had her eyes open, and, judging from what she +found in my work-basket, I was either going to buy a monkey for a pet, or +I had thrown away my character completely. + +Mrs. Ogden was with me when the landlady, stony-eyed and rattling with +starch and rectitude, came to inquire into the contents of my +work-basket. Her call was brief, but satisfactory, and shortly after her +exit we heard her, at the top of her lungs, giving me a clean bill of +health--morally speaking--and denouncing the prying curiosity of the +maids. But we had had a scare, and Mollie implored me either not to help +her any more or to lock up my work-basket. + +"Oh, no," I said, "I'll rest my head upon the chambermaid's breast and +confide all my intentions to her, then surely my character will be safe." + +However, when the _wee_ stranger arrived, she might well have wondered +whom she belonged to. At all events she "goo-gooed and gurgled," and +smiled her funny three-cornered smile at me as readily as at her mother, +and my friendly rights in her were so far recognized by others that +questions about her were often put to me in her mother's very presence, +who laughingly declared that only in bed with the light out did she feel +absolutely sure that the baby was hers. + +Mollie used to say the only really foolish thing she ever caught me in +was "Protestantism." It was a great grief to us all that I could not be +godmother, but though baby had a Protestant father, the Church flatly +refused to wink at a godmother of that forsaken race. + +When, in God's good time, a tiny sister came to baby, she was called +Clara, but my friend had made a solemn vow before the altar, at the ripe +age of seven years, to name her first child Genevieve, and she, to quote +her husband, "being a Roman Catholic as well as a little idiot," +faithfully kept her vow, and our partnership's baby was loaded up with a +name that each year proved more unsuitable, for a more un-Genevieve-like +Genevieve never lived. All of which goes to prove how unwise it is to +assume family cares and duties before the arrival of the family. + +Miss Lucille Western was playing an engagement in Cleveland when "our +baby" was a few months old. My friend and I were both her ardent +admirers. I don't know why it has arisen, this fashion to sneer more or +less openly at Miss Western's work. If a woman who charms the eye can +also thrill you, repel you, touch you to tears, provoke you to laughter +by her acting, she surely merits the term "great actress." Well, now, who +can deny that she did all these things? Why else did the people pack her +houses season after season? It was not her looks, for if the perfect and +unblemished beauty of her lovely sister Helen could not draw a big house, +what could you expect from the inspired irregularity of Lucille's face? +How alive she was! She was not quite tall enough for the amount of fine +firm flesh her frame then carried--but she laced, and she was grace +personified. + +She was a born actress; she knew nothing else in all the world. There is +a certain tang of wildness in all things natural. Dear gods! Think what +the wild strawberry loses in cultivation! Half the fascination of the +adorable Jacqueminot rose comes from the wild scent of thorn and earth +plainly underlying the rose _attar_ above. And this actress, with all her +lack of polish, knew how to interpret a woman's heart, even if she missed +her best manner. For in all she did there was just a touch of +extravagance--a hint of lawless, unrestrained passion. There was +something tropical about her, she always suggested the scarlet tanager, +the jeweled dragon-fly, the pomegranate flower, or the scentless splendor +of our wild marshmallow. + +In "Lucretia Borgia" she presented the most perfect picture of opulent, +insolent beauty that I ever saw, while her "Leah, the Forsaken" was +absolutely Hebraic; and in the first scene, where she was pursued and +brought to bay by the Christian mob, her attitude, as she silently eyed +her foes, her face filled both with wild terror and fierce contempt, was +a thing to thrill any audience, and always received hearty applause. + +So far as looks went, she was seen to least advantage in her greatest +money-maker, "East Lynne." Oh, dear! oh, dear! the tears that were shed +over that dreadful play, and how many I contributed myself! I would stand +looking on from the entrance, after my short part was over, and when she +cried out: "Oh, why don't I die! My God! why _don't_ I die?" I would lay +my head against the nearest scene and simply howl like a broken-hearted +young puppy. I couldn't help it, neither could those in front help +weeping--more decorously perhaps, because they were older and had their +good clothes on. + +Now this brilliant and successful actress was not very happy--few are, +for one reason or another--but she worked much harder than most women, +and naturally liked to have some return for her work; therefore she must +have found it depressing, at least, when her husband formed the habit of +counting up the house by eye (he could come to within $5 of the money +contents of the house any night in this way), and then going out and +losing the full amount of her share in gambling. It was cruel, and it was +but one of the degradations put upon her. Lucille did not know how to +bear her troubles. She wept and used herself up. Then, to get through her +heavy night's work, she took a stimulant. Oh, poor soul! poor soul! +though the audience knew nothing, the people about her knew she was not +her best self; and she knew they knew it, and was made sore ashamed and +miserable. Her husband, on one occasion, had gambled away every cent of +three nights' work. On the fourth she had had resource to a stimulant, +and on the fifth she was cast down, silent, miserable, and humiliated. + +That night "our baby" came to the theatre. She was one of those +aggressively sociable infants, who will reach out and grasp a strange +whisker rather than remain unnoticed. She had pretty little, straight +features and small, bright eyes that were fairly purply blue. I had +her--of course in so public a place it was my right to have her--she was +over my shoulder. I was standing near the star-room. The door opened and +next moment I heard a long, low, "O-o-h!" and then again, "O-o-h! +a--baby, and awake! and the peace of heaven yet in its eyes!" + +I turned my head to look at Miss Western, and her face quickened my +heart. Her glowing eyes were fastened upon "baby," with just the rapt, +uplifted look one sees at times before some Roman Catholic altar. It was +beautiful! She gave a little start and exclaimed, as at a wonder: "Its +hand! oh, its tiny, tiny hand!" Just with the very tip of her forefinger +she touched it, and "baby" promptly grasped the finger and gurgled +cordially. Her face flushed red, she gave a gasp: "Good God!" she cried, +"it's touching me, me! It _is_, see--_see_!" Sudden tears slipped down +her cheeks. "Blessed God!" she cried, "if you had but sent me such a one, +all would have been different! I could never bring disgrace or shame on a +precious thing like this!" + +As she raised the tiny morsel of a hand to her lips the prompter sharply +called: "The stage waits, Miss Western!" and she was gone. + +Poor, ill-guided, unhappy woman! it was always and only the stage that +waited Miss Western. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH + + Mr. Charles W. Couldock--His Daughter Eliza and his Many Peculiarities. + + +There was one star who came to us every season with the regularity and +certainty of the equinoctial storm, and when they arrived together, as +they frequently did, we all felt the conjunction to be peculiarly +appropriate. He was neither young nor good-looking, yet no one could +truthfully assert that his engagements were lacking in interest--indeed, +some actors found him lively in the extreme. Charles W. Couldock was an +Englishman by birth, and had come to this country with the great Cushman. +He was a man of unquestionable integrity--honorable, truthful, +warm-hearted; but being of a naturally quick and irritable temper, +instead of trying to control it, he yielded himself up to every impulse +of vexation or annoyance, while with ever-growing violence he made +mountains out of mole-hills, and when he had just cause for anger he +burst into paroxysms of rage, even of ferocity, that, had they not been +half unconscious acting, must have landed him in a mad-house out of +consideration for the safety of others; while, worst of all, like too +many of his great nation, he was profane almost beyond belief; and +profanity, always painfully repellent and shocking, is doubly so when it +comes from the lips of one whose silvering hair shows his days have +already been long in the land of the God whom he is defying. And yet when +Mr. Couldock ceased to use plain, every-day oaths, and brought forth some +home-made ones, they were oaths of such intricate construction, such +grotesque termination, that they wrung a startled laugh from the most +unwilling lip. + +In personal appearance he was the beau-ideal wealthy farmer. He was +squarely, solidly built, of medium height--never fat. His square, +deeply-lined, even-furrowed face was clean shaven. His head, a little +bald on top, had a thin covering of curly gray hair, which he wore a +trifle long; while his suit of black cloth--always a size or two too +large for him--and his never-changing big hat of black felt were excuse +enough for any man's asking him about the state of the crops--which they +often did, and were generally urgently invited to go to the hottest Hades +for their pains. + +On his brow there was a deep and permanent scowl that seemed cut there to +the very bone. Two deep, heavy lines ran from the sides of his nose to +the corners of his lips, where they suddenly became deeper before +continuing down toward his chin, while a strong cast in one of his +steely-blue eyes gave a touch of malevolence to the severity of his face. + +The strong point of his acting was in the expression of intense +emotion--particularly grief or frenzied rage. He was utterly lacking in +dignity, courtliness, or subtlety. He was best as a rustic, and he was +the only creature I ever saw who could "snuffle" without being absurd or +offensive. + +Generally, if anything went wrong, Mr. Couldock's rage broke forth on the +instant, but he had been known to keep a rod in pickle for a day or more, +as in the case of a friend of mine--at least it was the husband of my +friend Mollie. He had played _Salanio_ in "The Merchant of Venice," and +in some way had offended the star, who cursed him _sotto voce_ at the +moment of the offence, and then seemed to forget all about the matter. +Next morning, at rehearsal, nothing was said till its close, when Mr. +Couldock quite quietly asked my friend to look in at his dressing-room +that evening before the play began. + +Poor John was uneasy all the afternoon, still he drew some comfort from +the calmness of Mr. Couldock's manner. Evening came, John was before the +bar. The star seemed particularly gentle--he removed his coat leisurely +and said: + +"You played _Salanio_ last night?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And your name is--er?" + +"Ogden, sir," replied John. + +"Ah, yes, Ogden. Well, how long have you been at it, Ogden?" + +"About three years," answered the now confident and composed prisoner at +the bar. + +"Three years? huh! Well, will you let me give you a bit of advice, +Ogden?" + +"Why, yes, sir, I shall be glad to listen to any advice from you," +earnestly protested the infatuated one. + +"Well," snapped the star, rather sharply, "I want you to _follow it_ as +well as to listen to it. Now you take some money--you _have_ some money +saved, I suppose?" + +"Oh, yes, sir!" answered John. + +"Well, then," he turned his queer eye on him, he took a long, full +breath, "well, then, you just get some of that money, and you go to a +hardware store," his rage was rising visibly, "and you buy a good sharp +hatchet, and then I want you to take it home and chop your d----d fool +head off!" and ripping off his vest he made a furious charge upon the +almost paralyzed Ogden, clouting him from the room, while roaring like a +bull. + +He had played one set of plays so long he had lost the power to study +quickly, and he was so ill-advised once as to attempt a new part, on +rather short notice. The play was a miserable jumble of impossible +situations and strained, high-flown language; and, of all absurd things, +Mr. Couldock attempted to play a young Irish hero, with a love-scene--in +fact he was supposed to represent the young Emmet. Dear heaven! what a +sight he was, in those buckskin riding breeches (his legs were not beyond +suspicion as to their straightness), that cutaway green coat, and the +dinky little conical hat, looking so maliciously "larky," perched over +his fiercest eye. He forgot all his lines, but he never forgot his +profanity, and that night it took on a wild originality that was simply +convulsing. In one scene he had to promise to save his beloved Ireland. +He quite forgot the speech, and being reminded of it by the prompter, he +roared at the top of his voice: "I don't care! what the devil's Ireland +to me! d----n Ireland! I wish it and the man that wrote this play were +both at the bottom of the sea, with cock-eyed sharks eatin' 'em!" Then he +suddenly pulled out his part and began to search wildly for his next +scene, that he might try to recall his lines; at this he continued till +he was called to go upon the stage, then he made a rush, and in a moment +the house was laughing. + +"Oh, dear! what was it?" Everyone ran to peep on the stage. Mr. Couldock +had discovered they were laughing at him, and was becoming recklessly +furious. Mr. Ellsler, fearing he would insult the people, hastily rang +down the curtain. Then Mr. Couldock, as _Emmet_, faced round to us, and +the laughter was explained. When he was reading over his part he had put +on a big pair of spectacles, and when he hurried on he simply pushed them +up and left them there. A young lover with big, old-fashioned spectacles +on his forehead and a perky little conical hat looking down on them was +certainly an unusual sight and an amusing one. + +One of Mr. Couldock's most marked characteristics was the amazingly high +pitch of his voice in speaking. Anyone who has heard two men trying to +converse across a large open field has had a good illustration of his +style of intonation, which anger raised to a perfect shriek. The most +shocking exhibition of rage I ever saw came from him during a performance +of "Louis XI." Annie and I, as pages, were standing each side of the +throne, holding large red cushions against our stomachs. My cushion +supported a big gilded key, until, in my fright, I actually shook it off, +for when Mr. Couldock's passion came upon him on the stage his violence +created sad havoc in the memories of the actors. The audience, too, +could hear many of his jibes and oaths, and Mr. Ellsler was very angry +about it, for in spite of his affection for the man, he drew the line at +the insulting of the audience; therefore, when the curtain fell, Mr. +Ellsler said: "Charley, this won't do! you _must_ control yourself in the +presence of the public!" + +The interference seemed to drive him mad. A volley of oaths, +inconceivably blasphemous, came from his lips, and then, with a bound, he +seized the manuscript (it was not a published play then, and the +manuscript was valuable) and tore it right down the centre. Mr. Ellsler +and the prompter caught his right hand, trying to save the play, but +while they held that he lifted the rest of the manuscript and tore it to +pieces with his teeth, growling and snarling like a savage animal. Then +he broke away and rushed frantically up-stairs to Mr. Ellsler's +dressing-room, where he locked himself in. When it was time to call the +next act he gave no answer to their knocking, though he could be heard +swearing and raving within. Mr. Ellsler finally burst open the door, and +there stood _Louis XI._ in his under-garments, and his clothing--where? +It was a tiny room, nevertheless no velvet costume could be found. The +window, a long French one, was nailed up for winter--the clothes had not +been thrown out. There was no stove yet, they had not been burned; where +then were they? Another overture was played. Some of Mr. Ellsler's +clothes were hastily brought--a nondescript covering for his royal +nakedness was found, and he went on to finish the performance somehow, +while the prompter guessed at the ringing down of the curtain, for there +was no manuscript to guide him. + +Truly it had been a most humiliating spectacle. Many weeks later, when +stoves were going up, the men discovered that someone had torn away the +tin protector from the stove-pipe hole in Mr. Ellsler's room, and when +they were replacing it they found, crammed tightly into a narrow space +between the lath and plastering of the two rooms, the velvet garments of +_Louis XI._, even to the cap with the leaden images. How he had +discovered the place no one knows, and when his rage had passed he could +not remember what he had done, but he could play _Louis_ no more that +season. + +We were always pleased when Mr. Couldock was accompanied by his daughter. +Eliza Couldock, bearing an absurdly marked resemblance to her father, of +course could not be pretty. The thin, curly hair, the fixed frown, the +deep lines of nose and mouth, the square, flat figure, all made of her a +slightly softened _replica_ of the old gentleman. Her teeth were pretty, +though, and her hazel eyes were very brilliant. She was well read, +clever, and witty, and her affectionate devotion to her father knew no +bounds; yet as she had a keen sense of the ridiculous, no eccentricity, +no _grotesquerie_ of his escaped her laughing, hawk-keen eye, and +sometimes when talking to old friends, like Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler, she +would tell tales of "poor pa" that were exceedingly funny. + +They went to California--a great undertaking then, as the Pacific +Railroad was not completed, and they were most unsuccessful during their +entire stay here. Eliza told one day of how a certain school-principal in +'Frisco had met her father after a performance to a miserable house, and +with frightful bad taste had asked Mr. Couldock how he accounted for the +failure of his engagement, and that gentleman snarled out: "I don't try +to account for it at all! I leave that work for the people who ask fool +questions. If I only have one d----n cent in my pocket I don't try to +account for not having another d----n cent to rub against it!" And Eliza +added, in pained tones: "that principal had meant to ask 'poor pa' to +come and speak to the dear little boys in his school, but after that he +didn't--wasn't it odd?" + +As Mr. Couldock was heard approaching that morning, his daughter quickly +whispered to Mrs. Ellsler: "Ask pa how he liked California?" + +And after "good-mornings" were exchanged, the question was put, and +incidentally the red rag brought the mad bull into action. + +"I wouldn't give a d----n for the whole d----d State!" roared Mr. +Couldock, while his daughter pushed his hair behind his ears, and mildly +said: "Pa's always so emphatic about California." + +"Yes!" shouted the old man, "and so would you be if you wore breeches +and dared to speak the truth! You see," he went on, "no one ever gave me +even a hint, and it was just my cursed luck to go overland, risking my +own d----n skin and Eliza's too, and it seems that those God-forsaken +duffers look upon anyone coming to them by the overland route as a sort +of outcast tramp. In fact, that's entering by the back-kitchen door to +San Francisco. You ought to go by sea, and come in at the front door of +their blasted, stuck-up little city if you're to put any of their money +in your purse or be allowed to keep any of your own." + +One morning we girls were boasting among ourselves of our abilities as +packers. Hattie, my room-mate, thought she could pack a trunk the +quickest, while I claimed I could pack one with the least injury to the +contents. Miss Couldock, hearing us, exclaimed, laughingly: "Oh, girls, +poor pa could give you all points at that work, while his manner of +_un_packing is so original, so swift, and so thorough, I think I should +explain it to you. First, I must tell you, that that slight bow to pa's +legs is an annoyance to him on every occasion of life, save that of +unpacking his trunks, then it is of great convenience. You see, the +trunks are brought up and dumped in the room. They don't have any locks, +because 'poor pa,' always losing the keys, has to kick the locks off +during the first week that he owns them. Next they are unstrapped and +opened, then pa yanks off the top spread from the bed and lays it open on +the middle of the floor; then he takes his place before the first trunk, +straddles his feet well apart (see, now, how useful that bow becomes), +and fires every single garment the trunk contains between his legs and +on to the quilt. Having emptied the trunks with lightning swiftness, he +claps down their covers for the rest of the week. Whenever he wants +anything for the theatre, he straddles the pile on the quilt, and paws it +wildly, but rapidly over, pulling out a shoulder-cape here, a doublet +yonder, one boot from the top and its mate from the bottom--all these he +pitches into the theatre-basket, and is happy for _that_ day. When the +week is over, pa dumps into the nearest trunk all it will hold, and +what's left over is pitched _en masse_ into the next one. If there is any +difficulty in closing the trunks he don't waste time in trying to +re-arrange the things. There is such beautiful simplicity in all pa's +actions, he just gets up and walks--well, perhaps stamps a little on the +contents, until the lid closes quite nicely, for he is a very quick +packer, is pa, though it's just possible that his method in some degree +may explain his generally rumpled appearance on the stage. What should +_you_ think about it, girls?" + +The old gentleman was always very kind to me and had the oddest pet name +for me I ever heard. He used to hail me with: "Where's my crummie girl? +Well, Crummy, how are you?" + +In answer to my amazed look, he explained one day that it was a Yorkshire +term, and meant "plump or round faced." The only time he ever cursed me +was when he gave me the cue in the wrong place, as he openly admitted, +and I went on too soon in consequence. Aside, he swore so the air seemed +blue--my legs shook under me. I did not know whether to speak or not. He +rose, and putting his arm about me, he led me off the stage (I was +playing his daughter), and as we crossed the stage, this is what he +said--the words in parentheses being asides to me, the other words being +aloud for the audience: + +"(What in h--ll!) My little one! (you double d----n fool!) My bird, what +brings you here? (Yes, what the blankety, blankety, blanknation does +bring you here, crummie girl?) Get back to your nest, dearie! (and stay +there, d----n you!)" as he gently pushed me off the stage. Next day when +the prompter showed him his error he admitted it at once. + +He knew much sorrow and trouble, and before that last long streak of good +fortune came to him, in New York, in "Hazel Kirke," he knew a time of +bitter poverty. Eliza had died--a sweet and noble woman--and the loss was +terrible to him. I was just winning success in the East when I was +dumfounded one day at seeing Mr. Couldock standing, bowed and broken, +before me, asking me for help. + +A star--dear God! could such things happen to a star? I was so hurt for +him, for his broken pride. When I could speak, I simply told him my +salary, and that two (my mother and myself) were trying to live on it. +"Oh!" he cried, "crummie girl, why don't you demand your rights; your +name is on everyone's lips, yet you are hungry! Shall I speak for you?" + +Poor old gentleman, I could not let him go empty away. I took one-half of +my rent-money and handed it to him. I dared not ask my landlady to favor +me further than that. His face lighted up radiantly--it might have been +hundreds from his look. "Dearie!" he said, "I'll pay this back to the +penny. You can ill spare it, I see that, crummie girl, but, oh, my lass, +it's worse to see another hungry than it is to hunger yourself. I'll pay +it back!" His eyes filled, he paused long, then he said, pathetically: +"Some time, crummie girl, some time!" + +My landlady granted me grace. Months passed away--many of them--waves +went over me sometimes, but they receded before my breath was quite gone. +Things were bettering a little, and then one day, when I came home from +work, a man had called in my absence--an old man, who had left this +little packet, and, oh! he had been so anxious for its safety! + +I opened it to find $25, all in bills of ones and twos. Such a pathetic +story those small bills told--they were for the crummie girl, "With the +thanks of the obliged, Charles W. Couldock." + +He had kept his word; he was the only man in this profession who ever +repaid me one dollar of borrowed money. Mr. Couldock was like some +late-ripening fruit that requires a touch of frost for its sweetening. In +his old age he mellowed, he became chaste of speech, his acting of +strong, lovable old men was admirable. He was honored by his profession +in life and honestly mourned in death--he would not have asked more. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEENTH + + I Come to a Turning-Point in my Dramatic Life--I play my First Crying + Part with Miss Sallie St. Clair. + + +We were in Columbus; things were moving along smoothly and quietly, when +suddenly that incident occurred which had the power to change completely +my dramatic prospects, while at the same time it convinced the people +about me, in theatrical parlance, my head was "well screwed on," meaning +it was not to be turned by praise. + +Miss Sallie St. Clair was the star of the week, and she was billed to +appear on Friday and Saturday nights in an adaptation of "La Maison +Rouge." I am not certain as to the title she gave it, but I think it was +"The Lone House on the Bridge." She was to play the dual characters--a +count and a gypsy boy. The leading female part Mrs. Ellsler declined, +because she would not play second to a woman. The young lady who had been +engaged for the juvenile business (which comes between leading parts and +walking ladies) had a very poor study, and tearfully declared she simply +_could_ not study the part in time--"No--no! she co--co--could not, so +now!" + +There, then, was Blanche's chance. The part was sentimental, tearful, and +declamatory at the last, a good part--indeed, what is vulgarly known +to-day as a "fat" part, "fat" meaning lines sure to provoke applause. + +Mrs. Bradshaw, who was herself ever ready to oblige her manager, could +not serve him in this instance, as the part was that of a very young +heroine, but she gladly offered her daughter's services in the emergency. +So sending for her to come to the theatre, the mother awaited her +arrival. She was very ambitious for Blanche, who had absolutely no +ambition for herself, outside of music, and here was the double +opportunity of playing a leading part, next to the star, and of obliging +the manager just at the time when contracts for the next season were in +order of consideration. No girl could help grasping at it eagerly, and +while Blanche studied the part, she, the mother, would baste up some +breadths of satin she had by her into a court dress. As she thus happily +planned it all Blanche sauntered in to inform her mother and her manager +that she would not do the part. _Would_ not, mind you; she did not +condescend to claim she _could_ not. Poor Mrs. Bradshaw drew her heavy +veil over her face with a shaking hand and moved silently away, only +waiting to reach the friendly privacy of her own room before yielding to +the tears caused by this cruel indifference to her wishes and to their +mutual welfare. + +Mr. Ellsler then tried, in vain, to induce Blanche to undertake the part. +He tried to bribe her, promising certain gifts. He tried to arouse her +pride--he absolutely commanded her to take the part. + +"Oh, very well, if you like," she answered, "but I'll spoil the play if I +do, you know!" And indeed he did "know" what she was capable of in the +line of mischief; and, knowing, gave her up in angry despair. There was +then but one chance left for the production of the play, to give the part +to one of the ballet-girls. + +And Mr. Ellsler, who felt a strong friendship for the brave, +hard-working, much-enduring Miss St. Clair and her devoted if eccentric +husband, said, gently: "I'm sorry, Sallie, but it's no fault of mine; you +know I can't give memories to these two women, who say they can't study +the part. The girl I want to offer it to now will speak the words +perfectly to the last letter, and that's all we can expect of her, but +that's better than changing the bill." + +Then I was called. I adored Miss St. Clair, as everyone else did. I +heard, I saw the long part, but instead of the instant smiling assent Mr. +Ellsler expected, I shook my head silently. Miss St. Clair groaned, Mr. +Barras snuffled loudly, and stammered: "W--what did you expect, if the +others can't study it, how can she?" + +"Oh," I answered, "I can study the lines, Mr. Barras, but," big tears +came into my eyes, I was so sorry to disappoint the lovely blond star, +"it's--it's a crying part--a great lady and a crying part! I--I--oh, if +you please, I can't cry. I can laugh and dance and sing and scold, but I +don't know how to cry; and look here," I caught up the part and fluttered +over the leaves and pointed to the oft-repeated word "weeps--weeps," +"and, Miss St. Clair," I excitedly finished, "I can't weep, and I won't +have a stitch of clothes for her back either!" + +All three hearers burst out laughing. Miss St. Clair was in radiant +good-humor in an instant. She dried my eyes, and said: "Child, if you +really can study that long part, and just walk through it after only one +rehearsal, you will be a very clever little girl. You need not try to +act, just give me the lines and hold a handkerchief to your eyes when +tears are called for. You shall have one of my prettiest dresses for the +court scene, and I guess you have a white muslin of your own for the +garden scene, have not you?" + +I had, yes, and so I went home, heavy-hearted, to undertake the study of +my first crying part. + +Good heavens! In spite of this memory, I catch myself wondering was there +ever a _first one_--did I ever do anything else. For it seems to me I +have cried steadily through all the years of my dramatic life. Tears +gentle, regretful; tears petulant, fretful; tears stormy, passionate; +tears slow, despairing; with a light patter, now and then, of my own +particular brand, kept for the expression of my own personal +troubles--very bitter, briny tears they are, and I find that a very few +answer my purpose nicely. + +Miss St. Clair, who was tall as well as fair, had measured the length of +my skirt in front, so that she might have one of her dresses shortened +for me during the afternoon, thus leaving me all the time possible for +study. After I had learned the words by heart, I began to study out the +character. It was an excellent acting part, very sweet and tenderly +pathetic in the first act, very passionate and fierce in the second, and +the better I understood the requirements of the part, the greater became +my terror of it. My room-mate tried to comfort me. "Think," she cried, +"of wearing one of Miss St. Clair's own dresses! I'll wager it will be an +awful nice one, too, since you are obliging her, and she is always kind, +anyway." + +But that leaden weight at my heart was too great for gratified vanity to +lift. "Bother the tears," she added; "I heard Mr. Barras say the tears of +all actresses were in their handkerchiefs." + +"Oh, yes, I heard him, too," I answered, "but he was just talking for +effect. There must be something else, something more. You can't move +anyone's heart by showing a handkerchief." + +"Well," she exclaimed, a bit impatiently, "what do you _want_ to do? You +don't expect to shed real tears, do you?" + +"N-n-no!" I hesitated, "not exactly that, but there's a tone--a--Hattie, +last Wednesday, when you quarrelled with young Fleming--I was not +present, you know--but that night, a half-hour after our light was out, +you spoke to me in the darkness, and I instantly asked you why you were +crying and if you had been quarrelling, though you had not even reached +the sobbing stage yet. Now how did I know you were crying?" + +"I don't know--anyway I had no handkerchief," she laughed; "you heard it +maybe in my voice." + +"Yes," I answered, eagerly, "that was it. That curious veiling of the +voice. Oh, Hattie, if I could only get that tone, but I can't, I've tried +and tried!" + +"Why," she exclaimed, "you've got it now--this very moment!" + +"Yes," I broke in impatiently, and turning to her a pair of reproachful, +tear-filled eyes, "yes, but why? because I'm really crying, with the +worry and the disappointment, and, oh, Hattie, the fright!" + +And the landlady, a person who always lost one shoe when coming +up-stairs, announced dinner, and I shuddered and turned my face away. +Hattie went down, however, and bringing all her blandishments to bear +upon the head of the establishment, secured for me a cup of coffee--that +being my staff in all times of trouble or of need, and then we were off +to the theatre, Hattie kindly keeping at my side for companionship or +help, as need might be. + +I did not appear in the first act, so I had plenty of time to receive my +borrowed finery--to try it on, and then to dress in my own white muslin, +ready for my first attempt at a crying part. It was a moonlit scene. Miss +St. Clair, tall, slender, elegant, looked the young French gallant to the +life in her black velvet court dress. I had to enter down some steps from +a great stone doorway. I stood, ready to go on. I wore a mantilla with my +muslin. I held a closed fan in my hand. My heart seemed to suffocate +me--I thought, stupidly, "Why don't I pray?" but I could not think of a +single word. I heard the faint music that preceded my entrance--a mad +panic seized me. I turned and dashed toward the street-door. Mr. Ellsler, +who had just made his exit, caught me by the skirts. "Are you mad, girl?" +he cried; "go back--quick--quick! I tell you--there's your cue!" + +Next moment, tremulous but smiling, I was descending the steps to meet +the counterfeit lover awaiting me. My head was on his breast and my arm +stealing slowly about his neck before I knew that the closed fan in my +hand was crushed into fragments and marks of blood showing between my +clinched fingers. My first lines were simply recited, without meaning, +then the tender words and courtly manners aroused my imagination. The +glamour of the stage was upon me. The frightened actress ceased to +exist--I was the Spanish girl whose long-mourned lover had returned to +her; and there was something lacking in the greeting, some tone of the +voice, some glance of the eye seemed strange, alien. There was more of +ardor, less of tenderness than before. My lips trembled; suddenly I heard +the veiled, pathetic tone I had all day striven for in vain, and +curiously enough it never struck me that it was my voice--no! it was the +Spanish girl who spoke. My heart leaped up in my throat with a great +pity, tears rushed to my eyes, fell upon my cheeks. There was +applause--of course, was not Miss St. Clair there? Suspicion arose in my +mind--grew. I bethought me of the saving of my life on that stolen day +passed in the forest long ago. I took my lover's hand and with pretty +wiles drew him into the moonlight. Then swiftly stripping up the lace +ruffles, showed his arm smooth and unblemished by any scar, and with the +cry: "You are not Pascal de la Garde!" stood horror-stricken. + +The moment the curtain fell Miss St. Clair sprang to me, and taking my +face between her hands, she cried: "You would move a heart of stone!" She +wiped her eyes, and turning to her husband, said: "Good God! she's a +marvel!" + +"No, no!" he snuffled, "not yet, Sallie; but she's a marvel in embryo!" +He patted me on the shoulder. "You have a fortune somewhere between your +throat and your eyes, my girl--you have, indeed!" + +And then I rushed to don my borrowed robes for the next act, and stared +stupidly when Hattie said: "What lovely applause you got, Clara, and you +so frightened; you shook all over when you went on, we could see you." + +But I was too excited over what was yet to be done really to comprehend +her words. When I saw myself in the glass I was delighted. The open robe +of pale blue satin, brocaded with silver, was lifted at the sides with +big bunches of blush and deep-pink roses over a white satin petticoat. I +wore a high Spanish comb, a white mantilla, a pink rose over the ear, +after the national fashion, and a great cluster of roses at my breast, +and for the first time I felt the subtle joy that emanates from beautiful +and becoming garments. The fine softness of the rich fabric was pleasant +to my touch--its silken rustle was music to my ear. Miss St. Clair had +lent me of her best, and as I saw it all reflected there, I thought how +easy it must be for the rich to be good and happy, never dreaming that +the wealthy, who to escape _ennui_ and absolute idleness sometimes did +wrong simply because there was nothing else to do, might think in turn, +ah! how easy it must be for the poor to be good and happy. + +But the overture ended abruptly. I gathered up my precious draperies and +ran to the entrance to be ready for my cue. The first speeches were cold, +haughty, and satirical. The gypsy who was personating my dead lover had +deceived everyone else, even the half-blind old mother had accepted him +as her son, though declaring him greatly changed in temper and in manner. +But I, the sweetheart, was not convinced, and ignoring the advice of the +highest at the court, was fighting the adventurer with the courage of +despair. + +As the scene went on, the stage hands (carpenters, gas-men, +scene-shifters, etc.) began to gather in the entrances, always a sign of +something unusual going on. I saw them--an ugly thought sprang up in my +mind. Ah, yes, they are there waiting to see the ballet-girl fail in a +leading part! An unworthy suspicion, I am sure, but it acted as a spur +would have done upon an already excited horse, and with the same result, +loss of self-control. + +In the denunciation of the adventurer as a murderer and a personator of +his own victim my passion rose to a perfect fury. I swept the stage, +storming, raging, fearing nothing under heaven but the possible escape of +the wretch I hated! Vaguely I noted the manager reaching far over a +balcony to see me--I didn't care even for the manager. The audience burst +into tremendous applause; I didn't care for that either, I only wanted +to see a rapier through the heart of the pale, sneering man before me. It +was momentary madness. People were startled--the star twice forgot her +lines. It was not correct, it was not artistic work. She, the part, was a +great lady, and even her passion should have been partially restrained; +but I, who played her, a ballet-girl, earning $5 a week, what could you +expect, pray, for the price? Certainly not polish or refinement. But the +genuine feeling, the absolute sincerity, and the crude power lavished +upon the scene delighted the audience and created a very real sensation. + +The curtain fell. Miss St. Clair took me into her kind arms and, without +a word, kissed me heartily. The applause went on and on. She caught my +hand and said, "Come!" As she led me to the curtain, I suddenly realized +her intention, and a very agony of bashfulness seized upon me. I +struggled frantically. "Oh, don't!" I begged. "Oh, please, I'm nobody, +they won't like it, Miss St. Clair." + +She motioned the men to pull back the curtain, and she dragged me out +before it with her. The applause redoubled. Shamed and stupid, I stood +there, my chin on my breast. Then I heard the laugh I so admired (Miss +St. Clair had a laugh that the word merry describes perfectly), her arm +went about my neck, while her fingers beneath my chin lifted my face till +I met her smiling glance and smiled back at her. Then the audience burst +into a great laugh, and bowing awkwardly to them and to her, I backed +off, out of sight, as quickly as I could; she, bowing like a young +prince, followed me. But again they called, and again the generous woman +took me with her. + +And that was the first time I ever experienced the honor of going before +the curtain with a star. I supposed I had received the highest possible +reward for my night's work; I forgot there were such things as newspapers +in the town, but I was reminded of their existence the next day. + +Never, never was I so astonished. Such notices as were given of the +performance, and what was particularly dwelt upon, think you? Why, the +tears. "Real tears--tears that left streaks on the girl's cheeks!" said +one paper. "Who is she--have you seen her--the wonderful Columbus +ballet-girl, who wins tears with tears, real ones, too?" asked another. + +I was ashamed. I was afraid people would make fun of me at the theatre. +At the box-office window that day many people were asking: "That girl +that made the hit last night, is she really one of the ballet, or is it +just a story, for effect?" + +Some women asked, anxiously: "Will that girl cry to-night, do you think?" + +It was very strange. One paper had a quieter article; it spoke of a rough +diamond--of an earnest, honest method of addressing speeches directly to +the character, instead of to the audience, as did many of the older +actors. It claimed a future, a fair, bright future for the girl who could +so thoroughly put herself in another's place, and declared it would watch +with interest the movements of so remarkable a ballet-girl. + +Now see how oddly we human dice are shaken about, and in what groups we +fall, again and again. Among the honorable gentlemen sitting at that time +in the Ohio Legislature was Colonel Donn Piatt, with the fever of the +Southern marshes yet in his blood as a souvenir of his services through +the war. He had gone languidly enough to the theatre that night, because +there was nothing else for him to do--unless he swapped stories of the +war in the hotel corridor with other ex-soldiers, and he was sick to +death of that, and he was so surprised by what he saw that he was moved +to write the article from which the last quotation is taken. Stopping in +the same hotel, but quite unknown to him, was a young man, hardly out of +boyhood, whose only lie, I honestly believe, was the one he told and +swore to in order to raise his age to the proper military height that +would admit him into the army. Bright, energetic, almost attaining +perpetual motion in his own person, ambitious John A. Cockerill just then +served in the double capacity of a messenger in the House and reporter on +a paper. Diphtheria, which was almost epidemic that winter, visited the +staff of the paper he was on, and in consequence he was temporarily +assigned to its dramatic work--thus he wrote another of the notices of my +first venture in the tearful drama. Every day these two men were in the +State-house--every day I walked through its grounds on my way to and from +the theater--each quite unconscious of the others. + +But old Time shakes the box and casts the dice so many, many times, +groupings must repeat themselves now and again, so it came about that +after years filled with hard work and fair dreams, another shake of the +box cast us down upon the table of Life, grouped together again--but each +man knew and served me now faithfully, loyally; each giving me a hand to +pull me up a step higher. They hated each other bitterly, vindictively, +as journalists have been known to do occasionally; and as I knew the +noble qualities of both, what better reward could I give for their +goodness to me than to clasp their hands together and make them friends? +It was not an easy task, it required _finesse_ as well as courage, but +that was the kind of task a woman loves--if she succeeds, and I +succeeded. + +They became friends, strong, earnest friends for the rest of their lives. +Death severed the bond, if it is severed; I do not know, and they may not +return to tell me--I only know that in the years that were to come, when +each man headed a famous paper, Colonel John A. Cockerill, of the New +York _World_, who wrote many a high word of praise for me when victory +had at last perched on my banner, and Colonel Piatt, who with his +brilliant wife made me known to many famous men and women in their +hospitable Washington home, loved to recall that night in Columbus when, +all unconsciously, we three came so near to each other, only to drift +apart for years and come together again. + +And once I said, "like motes," and Donn Piatt swiftly added, "and a +sunbeam," and both men lifted their glasses and, nodding laughingly at +me, cried: "To the sunbeam!" while Mrs. Piatt declared, "That's a very +pretty compliment," but to me the unanimity of thought between those +erstwhile enemies was the prettiest thing about it. + +But even so small a success as that had its attendant shadows, as I soon +found. Though I was then boarding, with Hattie McKee for my room-mate, I +felt I still owed a certain duty and respect to Mrs. Bradshaw. Therefore, +when this wonderful thing happened to me, I thought I ought to go and +tell her all about it. I went; she gave me a polite, unsmiling +good-morning and pointed to a chair. I felt chilled. Presently she +remarked, with a small, forced laugh: "You have become so great a person, +I scarcely expected to see you here to-day." + +I looked reproachfully at her, as I quietly answered: "But you see I am +here;" then added, "I did not think you would make fun of me, Mrs. +Bradshaw, I only tried to do my best." + +"Oh," she replied, "one does not make fun of very successful people." + +I turned away to hide my filling eyes, as I remarked: "Perhaps I'd better +go away now." + +I moved toward the door, wounded to the heart. I had thought she would be +so pleased--you see, I was young yet, and sometimes very stupid--I forgot +she had a daughter. But suddenly she called to me in the old, kindly +voice I was so used to: "Come back Clara," she cried, "come back! It's +mean to punish you for another's fault. My dear, I congratulate you; you +have only proved what I have long believed, that you have in you the +making of a fine actress. But when I think who had that same chance, and +that it was deliberately thrown away," her lips trembled, "I--well, it's +hard to bear. Even all this to-do about you in the part does not make +her regret what she has done." + +Poor mother! I felt so sorry for her. I wished to go away then, I thought +my presence was unpleasant, but she made me tell her all about the +evening, and describe Miss St. Clair's dress, and what everyone said and +did. Loyal soul! I think that was a self-inflicted penance for a +momentary unkindness. + +Blanche gave me her usual kind greeting, and added the words: "Say, if I +hadn't given you the chance, you couldn't have been a big gun to-day. You +know Mr. Ellsler won't dare to give you anything, but he would have given +me a nice present if I had done the part for him. So after all I've lost, +I think you might give me a new piece of chewing-gum, mine won't snap or +squeak or stretch out or do anything, it's just in its crumbly old age." + +I gave the new gum; so, now, if that success seems not quite square, if +you think I made an unfair use of my funds in obtaining promotion, do +please remember that I was only an accessory _after_ the act--not before +it. I am the more anxious this should be impressed upon your mind because +that penny was the only one I ever spent in paying for advancement +professionally. + +The second night of the "Lone House" was also the last night of Miss St. +Clair's engagement, and when I carried her blue-brocade gown back to her, +eagerly calling attention to its spotless condition, she stood with her +hand high against the wall and her head resting heavily upon her +outstretched arm. It was an attitude of such utter collapse, there was +such a wanness on her white face that the commonplace words ceased to +bubble over my lips, and, startled, I turned toward her husband. Charles +Barras, gentleman as he was by birth and breeding, and one time officer +in the American navy, was nevertheless in manner and appearance so odd +that the sight or the sound of him provoked instant smiles, but that +night his eyes were a tragedy, filled as they were with an anguish of +helpless love. + +For a sad moment he gazed at her silently--then he was counting drops +from a bottle, holding smelling-salts to her pinched nostrils, removing +her riding-boots, indeed, deftly filling the place not only of nurse, but +dressing-maid, and as the wanness gradually faded from her weary face, +bravely ignoring her own feelings, she made a little joke or two, then +gave me hearty thanks for coming to her rescue, as she called it, praised +my effort at acting, and asked me how I liked a crying part. + +"Oh, I don't like it at all," I answered. + +"Ah," she sighed, "we never like what we do best; that's why I can never +be contented in elegant light comedy, but must strain and fret after +dramatic, tragic, and pathetic parts--and to think that a young, +untrained girl should step out of obscurity and without an effort do what +I have failed in all these years!" + +I stood aghast. "Why--why, Miss St. Clair!" I exclaimed, "you have +applause and applause every night of your life!" + +"Oh," she laughed, "you foolish child, it's not the applause I'm thinking +of, but something finer, rarer. You have won tears, my dear, a thing I +have never done in all my life, and never shall, no, never, I see that +now!" + +"I wish I had not!" I answered, remorsefully and quite honestly, because +I was quite young and unselfish yet, and I loved her, and she understood +and leaned over and kissed my cheek, and told me not to bury my talent, +but to make good use of it by and by when I was older and free to choose +a line of business. "Though," she added, "even here I'll wager it's few +comedy parts that will come your way after to-night, young lady." And +then I left her. + +That same night I heard that a dread disease already abode with her, and +slept and waked and went and came with her, and would not be shaken off, +but clung ever closer and closer; and, oh! poor Charles Barras! money +might have saved her then--money right then might have saved this woman +of his love, and God only knows how desperately he struggled, but the +money came not. Then, worse still, Sallie was herself the bread-winner, +and though Mr. Barras worked hard, doing writing and translating, acting +as agent, as nurse, as maid, playing, too, in a two-act comedy, "The +Hypochondriac," he still felt the sting of living on his wife's earnings, +and she had, too, a mother and an elder sister to support; therefore she +worked on and disease worked with her. + +Charles Barras said, with bitter sarcasm in his voice: "I-I-I always see +m-my wife Sallie with a helpless woman over each shoulder, a-a-and myself +on her back, like the 'old man of the sea,' a-a-a pretty heavy burden +that for a sick woman to carry, my girl! a-a-and a mighty pleasant +picture for a man to have of his wife! A-a-and money--great God, money, +right now, might save her--might save her!" He turned suddenly from me +and walked on to the pitch-dark stage. + +Poor Mr. Barras, I could laugh no more at his heelless boots, his funny +half-stammer, and his ancient wig, not even when I recall the memory of +that blazing Sunday in a Cincinnati Episcopal church, when, the stately +liturgy over, the Reverend Doctor ascended the pulpit and, regardless of +the suffering of his sweltering hearers, droned on endlessly, and Mr. +Barras leaned forward, and drawing a large palm fan from the next pew's +rack, calmly lifted his wig off with one hand while with the other he +alternately fanned his ivory bald head and the steaming interior of his +wig. The action had an electrical effect. In a moment even the sleepers +were alert, awake, a fact which so startled the preacher that he lost +his place--hemmed--h-h-med, and ran down, found the place again, +started, saw Barras fanning his wig, though paying still most decorous +attention to the pulpit, and before they knew it they were all +scrambling to their feet at "Might, Majesty, and Power!"--were +scrabbling for their pockets at "Let your light so shine," for Mr. +Barras had shortened the service with a vengeance; hence the forgiving +glances cast upon him as he carefully replaced his wig and sauntered +forth. + +Several years after that night in Columbus, when I had reached New York +and was rehearsing for my first appearance there, I one morning heard +hasty, shuffling steps following me, and before I could enter the +stage-door, a familiar "Er-er-er Clara, Clara!" stopped me, and I turned +to face the wealthy author of the "Black Crook"--Mr. Charles Barras. +There he stood in apparently the same heelless cloth gaiters, the same +empty-looking black alpaca suit, the clumsy turned-over collar that was +an integral part of the shirt and not separate from it, the big black +satin handkerchief-tie that he had worn years ago, but the face, how +bloodless, shrunken, lined, and sorrowful it looked beneath the +adamantine youthfulness of that chestnut wig! + +"D-d-don't you know me?" he asked. + +"Yes, of course I do," I answered as I took his hand. + +"W-w-well then don't run away--er-er it's against law, r-religion, or +decency to turn your back on a rich man. D-d-dodge the poor, Clara, my +girl! but never turn your back on a man with money!" + +I was pained; probably I looked so. He went on: "I-I-I'm rich now, Clara. +I've got a fine marine villa, and in it are an old, old dog and a dying +old woman. They both belonged to my Sallie, and so I'll keep hold of 'em +as long as I can, for her sake. A-a-after they go!" he turned his head +away, he looked up at the beautiful blue indifference of the sky, his +face seemed to tremble all over, his eyes came back, and he muttered: +"W-w-we'll see--w-w-we'll see what will happen then. But, Clara, you +remember that time when money could have saved her? The money I receive +in one week now, if I could have had it then, she, Sallie, might be over +there on Broadway now buying the frills and furbelows she loved and +needed, too, and couldn't have. The little boots and slippers--you +remember Sallie's instep? Had to have her shoes to order always," he +stopped, he pressed his lips tight together for a moment, then suddenly +he burst out: "By God, when a man struggles hard all his life, it's a +damn rough reward to give him a handsome coffin for his wife!" + +Oh, poor rich man! how my heart ached for him. A tear slipped down my +cheek; he saw it. "D-d-don't!" he said, "d-don't, my girl, she can't come +back, and it hurts her to have anyone grieve. I want you to come and see +me, when you get settled here, a-a-and I wish you a great big success. My +Sallie liked you, she spoke often of you. I-I-I'll let you know how to +get out there, and I-I-I'll show you her dog--old Belle, and you can +stroke her, and er-er sit in Sallie's chair a little while perhaps--and +er--don't, my girl, don't cry, she can't come back, you know," and +shaking my hands he left me, thinking I was crying for Sallie, who was +safe at rest and had no need of tears, while instead they were for +himself--so old, so sad, so lonely, such a poor rich man! Did he know +then how near Death was to him? Some who knew him well believe unto this +day that the fatal fall from the cars was no fall, but a leap--only God +knows. + +I never paid the promised visit--could find no opportunity--and I never +saw him again, that eccentric man, devoted husband, and honest gentleman, +Charles Barras. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTIETH + + I Have to Pass through Bitter Humiliation to Win High Encomiums from + Herr Bandmann; while Edwin Booth's Kindness Fills the Theatre with Pink + Clouds, and I Float Thereon. + + +Occasionally one person united two "lines of business," as in the case of +Mrs. Bradshaw, who played "old women" and "heavy business" both, and when +anything happened to disqualify such a person for work the inconvenience +was of course very great. Mrs. Bradshaw, as I have said before, was very +stout, but her frame was delicate in the extreme, and her slender ankles +were unable to bear her great weight, and one of them broke. Of course +that meant a long lying up in dry-dock for her, and any amount of worry +for ever so many other people. Right in the middle of her imprisonment +came the engagement of the German actor, Herr Daniel Bandmann. He was to +open with "Hamlet," and, gracious Heaven! I was cast for the +_Queen-mother_. It took a good deal in the way of being asked to do +strange parts to startle me, but the _Queen-mother_ did it. I was just +nicely past sixteen, but even I dared not yet lay claim to seventeen, and +I was to go on the stage for the serious Shakespearian mother of a star. + +"Oh, I couldn't!" + +"Can't be helped--no one else," growled Mr. Ellsler. "Just study your +lines, right away, and do the best you can." + +I had been brought up to obey, and I obeyed. We had heard much of Mr. +Bandmann, of his originality, his impetuosity, and I had been very +anxious to see him. After that cast, however, I would gladly have +deferred the pleasure. The dreaded morning came. Mr. Bandmann, a very big +man, to my frightened eyes looked gigantic. He was dark-skinned, he had +crinkly, flowing hair, his eyes were of the curious red-brown color of a +ripe chestnut. He was large of voice, and large of gesture. There was a +greeting, a few introductions, and then rehearsal was on, and soon, oh! +so soon, there came the call for the _Queen_. I came forward. He glanced +down at me, half smiled, waved his arm, and said: "Not you, not the +_Player-Queen_, but _Gertrude_." + +I faintly answered: "I'm sorry, sir, but I have to play _Gertrude_." + +"Oh, no you won't!" he cried, "not with me!" He was furious, he stamped +his feet, he turned to the manager: "What's all this infernal nonsense? I +want a woman for this part! What kind of witches' broth are you serving +me, with an old woman for my _Ophelia_, and an apple-cheeked girl for my +mother! She can't speak these lines! she, dumpling face!" + +Mr. Ellsler said, quietly: "There is sickness in my company. The heavy +woman cannot act; this young girl will not look the part, of course, but +you need have no fear about the lines, she never loses a word." + +"Curse the _words_! It is, that that little girl shall not read with the +sense one line, no, not one line of the Shakespeare!" his English was +fast going in his rage. + +Mr. Ellsler answered: "She will read the part as well as you ever heard +it in your life, Mr. Bandmann." And Mr. Bandmann gave a jeering laugh, +and snapped his fingers loudly. + +It was most insulting, and I felt overwhelmed with humiliation. Mr. +Ellsler said, angrily: "Very well, as I have no one else to offer you, we +will close the theatre for the night!" + +But Mr. Bandmann did not want to close--not he. So, after swearing in +German for a time, he resumed rehearsal, and when my time came to speak I +could scarcely lift my drooping head or conquer the lump in my throat, +but, somehow, I got out the entreating words: + + "Good Hamlet, cast thy Knighted color off, + And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark." + +He lifted his head suddenly--I went on: + + "Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids + Seek for thy noble father in the dust." + +He exclaimed, surprisedly: "So! so!" as I continued my speech. Now in +this country, "So--so!" is a term applied to restless cows at +milking-time, and the devil of ridicule, never long at rest in my mind, +suddenly wakened, so that when I had to say: + + "Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: + I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg." + +and Mr. Bandmann smilingly cried: "So! so!" and I swiftly added the word +"Bossy," and every soul on the stage broke into laughter. He saw he was +laughed at, and it took a whole week's time and an elaborate explanation, +to enable him to grasp the jest--but when he got a good hold of it, he +so! so! bossied and stamped and laughed at a great rate. + +During the rehearsal--which was difficult in the extreme, as his business +(_i.e._, actions or poses accompanying certain words) was very different +from that we were used to--he never found one single fault with my +reading, and made just one suggestion, which I was most careful to +follow--for one taste of his temper had been enough. + +Then came the night--a big house, too, I remember. I wore long and loose +garments to make me look more matronly; but, alas! the drapery _Queen +Gertrude_ wears, passed under her jaws from ear to ear, was particularly +becoming to me, and brought me uncommonly near to prettiness. Mr. +Ellsler groaned, but said nothing, while Mr. Bandmann sneered out an "Ach +Himmel!" shrugged his shoulders, and made me feel real nice and happy. +And when one considers that without me the theatre must have closed or +changed its bill, even while one pities him for the infliction, one feels +he was unnecessarily unkind. + +Well, all went quietly until the closet scene--between _Hamlet_, the +_Queen_, and the _Ghost_. It is a great scene, and he had some very +effective business. I forgot Bandmann in _Hamlet_. I tried hard to show +shame, pride, and terror. The applause was rapturous. The curtain fell, +and--why, what, in the name of heaven, was happening to me? + +I was caught by the arms and lifted high in air; when I came down I was +crushed to _Hamlet's_ bosom, with a crackling sound of breaking +Roman-pearl beads, and in a whirlwind of "Himmels!" "Gotts!" and things, +I was kissed with frenzied wet kisses on either cheek--on my brow--my +eyes. Then disjointed English came forth: "Oh, you so great, you kleine +apple-cheeked girl! you maker of the fraud--you so great nobody! ach! you +are fire--you have pride--you are a _Gertrude_ who have shame!" More +kisses, then suddenly he realized the audience was still +applauding--loudly and heartily. He grasped my hand, he dragged me before +the curtain, he bowed, he waved his hands, he threw one arm about my +shoulders. + +"Good Lord!" I thought, "he isn't going to do it all over again--out +here, is he?" and I began backing out of sight as quickly as possible. + +It was a very comforting plaster to apply to my wounds--such a success as +that, but it would have been so much pleasanter not to have received the +wound in the first place. + +Mr. Bandmann's best work, I think, was done in "Narcisse." His _Hamlet_ +seemed to me too melodramatic--if I may say so. If _Hamlet_ had had all +that tremendous fund of energy, all that love of action, the _Ghost_ +need never have returned to "whet his almost blunted purpose." Nor could +I like his scene with his guilty mother. There was not even a _forced_ +show of respect for her. There was no grief for her wrong-doing--rather, +his whole tone was that of a triumphant detective. And his speeches, +"Such an act!" and "Look upon this picture!" were given with such +unction--such a sneeringly, perfect comprehension of her lust, as to +become themselves lustful. + +His _Shylock_ was much admired, I believe, but _Narcisse_ was a most +artistic piece of work. His appearance was superb; his philosophical +flippancy anent his poverty, his biting contempt of the powerful +_Pompadour_; his passion and madness on discovering his lost wife in the +person of the dying favorite, and his own death, were really great. + +And just one little month after the departure of the impetuous German, +who should be announced but Mr. Edwin Booth. I felt my eyes growing +wider as I read in the cast, "_Queen Gertrude--Miss Morris_." Uncle +Dick, behind me, said: "Would you like me to d----n poor Brad's bones +for you, Clara? It's hard lines on you, and that's a fact!" + +"Oh!" I thought, "why won't her blessed old bones mend themselves! she is +not lazy, but they are! oh, dear! oh, dear!" and miserable tears slid +down my cheeks all the way home, and moistened saltily my supper of +crackers after I got there. + +I had succeeded before, oh, yes; but I could not help recalling just how +hot the ploughshares were over which I had walked to reach that success. +Then, too, all girls have their gods--some have many of them. Some girls +change them often. My gods were few. Sometimes I cast one down, but I +never changed them, and on the highest, whitest pedestal of all, grave +and gentle, stood the god of my professional idolatry--Edwin Booth. I +wiped off cracker-crumbs with one hand and tears with the other. + +It was so humiliating to be forced upon anyone, as I should be forced +upon Mr. Booth, since there was still no one but my "apple-cheeked" self +to go on for the _Queen_; and though I dreaded indignant complaint or +disparaging remarks from him, I was honestly more unhappy over the +annoyance this blemish on the cast would cause him. Well, it could not be +helped, I should have to bear a second cruel mortification, that was all. +I put my four remaining crackers back in their box, brushed up the +crumbs, wiped my eyes, repeated my childish little old-time "Now I lay +me," and went to sleep; only to dream of Mr. Booth holding out a hideous +mask, and pressing me to have the decency to put it on before going on +the stage for _Gertrude_. + +When the dreaded Monday came, lo! a blizzard came with it. The trains +were all late, or stalled entirely. We rehearsed, but there was no Mr. +Booth present. He was held in a drift somewhere on the line, and at +night, therefore, we all went early to the theatre, so that if he came we +would have time to go over the important scenes--or if he did not come +that we might prepare for another play. + +He came. Oh, how my heart sank! This would be worse for him even than it +had been for Mr. Bandmann, for the latter knew of his disappointing +_Queen_ in the morning, and had time to get over the shock, but poor Mr. +Booth was to receive his blow only a few minutes before going on the +stage. At last it came--the call. + +"Mr. Booth would like to see you for a few moments in his room." + +I went, I was cold all over. He was so tired, he would be so angry. I +tapped. I went in. He was dressed for _Hamlet_, but he was adding a touch +to his brows, and snipping a little at his nails--hurriedly. He looked +up, said "Good-evening!" rather absently, then stopped, looked again, +smiled, and waving his hand slightly, said, just in Bandmann's very +words: "No, not you--not the _Player-Queen_--but _Gertrude_." + +Tears rushed to my eyes, my whole heart was in my voice as I gasped: "I'm +so sorry, sir, but _I_ have to do _Queen Gertrude_. You see," I rushed +on, "our heavy woman has a broken leg and can't act." + +A whimsical look, half smile, half frown, came over his face. "That's bad +for the _heavy_ woman," he remarked. + +"Yes," I acquiesced, "but, if you please, I had to do this part with Mr. +Bandmann too, and--and--I'll only worry you with my looks, sir, not about +the words or business." + +He rested his dark, unspeakably melancholy eyes on my face, his brows +raised and then knit themselves in such troubled wise as made me long to +put an arm about his shoulders and assure him I wouldn't be so awfully +bad. + +Then he sighed and said: "Well, it was the closet-scene I wanted to speak +to you about. When the _Ghost_ appears, you are to be--" He stopped, a +faint smile touched his lips, even reached his eyes; he laid down his +scissors, and remarked, "There's no denying it, my girl, I look a great +deal more like your father than you look like my mother--but," he went on +with his directions, and, considerate gentleman that he was, spoke no +single unkind word to me, though my playing of that part must have been a +great annoyance to him, when added to hunger and fatigue. + +When the closet-scene was over, the curtain down, I caught up my petticoats +and made a rapid flight roomward. The applause was filling the theatre. +Mr. Booth, turning, called after me: "You--er--_Gertrude_--er--_Queen_! Oh, +somebody call that child back here," and someone roared: "Clara--Mr. Booth +is calling you!" + +I turned, but stood still. He beckoned, then came to me, took my hand, +and saying: "My dear, we must not keep them waiting _too_ long!" led me +before the curtain with him. I very slightly bent my head to the +audience, whom I felt were applauding _Hamlet_ only, but turned and bowed +myself to the ground to him whose courtesy had brought me there. + +When we came off he smiled amusedly, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: +"My Gertrude, you are very young, but you know how to pay a pretty +compliment--thank you, child!" + +So, whenever you see pictures of nymphs or goddesses floating on pink +clouds, and looking idiotically happy, you can say to yourself: "That's +just how Clara Morris felt when Edwin Booth said she had paid him a +compliment." + +Yes, I floated, and I'll take a solemn oath, if necessary, that the whole +theatre was filled with pink clouds the rest of that night--for girls are +made that way, and they can't help it. + +In after years I knew him better, and I treasure still the little note he +sent me in answer to my congratulation on his escape from the bullet +fired at him from the gallery of the theatre in Chicago. A note that +expressed as much gentle surprise at my "kind thought for him," as though +I only, and not the whole country, was rejoicing at his safety. + +He had a wonderful power to win love from other men--yes, I use the word +advisedly. It was not mere good-fellowship or even affection, but there +was something so fine and true, so strong and sweet in his nature, that +it won the love of those who knew him best. + +It would seem like presumption for me to try to add one little leaf to +the tight-woven laurel crown he wore. Everyone knows the agony of his +"Fool's Revenge," the damnable malice of his _Iago_, the beauty and fire +of _Antony_, and the pure perfection of his _Hamlet_--but how many knew +the slow, cruel martyrdom of his private life! which he bore with such +mute patience that in my heart there is an altar raised to the memory of +that Saint Edwin of many sorrows, who was known and envied by the world +at large--as the great actor, Edwin Booth. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST + + I Digress, but I Return to the Columbus Engagement of Mr. and Mrs. + Charles Kean--Their Peculiarities and Their Work. + + +Before one has "arrived," it is astonishing how precious the simplest +word of encouragement or of praise becomes, if given by one who has +"arrived." Not long ago a lady came up to me and said: "I am Mrs. D----, +which is, of course, Greek to you; but I want to thank you now for your +great goodness to me years ago. I was in the ballet in a Chicago theatre. +You were playing 'Camille.' One day the actress who played _Olympe_ was +sick, and as I was, you said, the tallest and the handsomest of the +girls, you gave the part to me. I was wild with delight until the +nervousness got hold of me. I was not strong--my stomach failed me; the +girls thought that very funny, and guyed me unmercifully. I was surely +breaking down. You came along, ready to go on, and heard them. I could +scarcely stand. You said: 'What's the matter--are you nervous?' I tried +to speak, but only nodded. You took my hand and, stroking it, gently +said, 'Isn't it awful?' then, glancing at my tormentors, added, 'but it's +nothing to be ashamed of, and just as soon as you face the footlights all +your courage will come back to you, and, my dear, comfort yourself with +the knowledge that the perfectly collected, self-satisfied beginner +rarely attains a very high position on the stage.' Oh, if you only knew +how my heart jumped at your words. My fingers grew warmer, my nerves +steadier, and I really did succeed in getting the lines over my lips some +way. But you saved me, you made an actress of me. Ah, don't laugh! don't +shake your head, please! Had I failed that night, don't you see, I should +never have had a chance given me again; while, having got through safely, +it was not long before I was pointed out as the girl who had played +_Olympe_ with Miss Morris, and on the strength of that I was trusted with +another part, and so crept on gradually; and now I want to thank you for +the sympathy and kindness you showed me so long ago"--and though her warm +gratitude touched me deeply, I had then--have now--no recollection +whatever of the incident she referred to, nor of ever having seen before +her very handsome face. And so, no doubt, many of whom I write, who from +their abundance cast _me_ a word of praise or of advice now and again, +will have no memory of the _largesse_ which I have cherished all these +years. + +Among my most treasured memories I find the gentle words and astonishing +prophecy of Mr. Charles Kean. That was the last visit to this country of +Mr. and Mrs. Kean, and his memory was failing him grievously. He had with +him two English actors, each of whom knew every line of all his parts, +and their duty was, when on the stage or off, so long as Mr. Kean was +before the house, to keep their eyes on him, and at the first sign of +hesitancy on his part one of them gave him the needed word. Once or +twice, when he seemed quite bewildered, Mr. Cathcart, turning his back to +the audience, spoke Mr. Kean's entire speech, imitating his nasal tones +to the life. + +But it was off the stage that the ancient couple were most delightful. +Ellen and Charles were like a pair of old, old love-birds--a little dull +of eye, nor quite perfect in the preening of their somewhat rumpled +plumage, but billing and cooing with all the persistency and satisfaction +of their first caging. Their appearance upon the street provoked +amusement--sometimes even excitement. I often saw drivers of drays and +wagons pull up their horses and stop in the crowded street to stare at +them as they made their way toward the theatre. Mrs. Kean lived inside +of the most astounding hoop woman ever carried. Its size, its weight, its +tilting power were awful. Entrances had to be cleared of all chairs or +tables to accommodate Mrs. Kean's hoop. People scrambled or slid sideways +about her on the stage, swearing mentally all the time, while a sudden +gasp from the front row or a groan from Mr. Cathcart announced a tilt and +a revelation of heelless slippers and dead-white stockings, and in spite +of his dignity Charles was not above a joke on Ellen's hoop, for one +rainy day, as she strove to enter a carriage door she stuck fast, and the +hoop--mercy! It was well Mr. Kean was there to hold it down; but as a +troubled voice from within said: "I'm caught somehow--don't you see, +Charles?" With a twinkling eye Charles replied: "Yes, Ellen, my dear, I +do see--and--and I'm trying to keep everyone else from seeing, too!" a +speech verging so closely upon impropriety that, with antique coquetry, +Mrs. Kean punished him by tweaking his ear when he squeezed in beside +her. + +The Kean bonnet was the wonder of the town. It was a large coal-scuttle +of white leghorn and at the back there was a sort of flounce of ribbon +which she called her "bonnet-cape"; draped over it she wore a great, +bright-green barège veil. But she was not half so funny as was her +husband on the street. His short little person buttoned up tightly in a +regular bottle-green "Mantellini" sort of overcoat, loaded with frogs of +heavy cord, and lined, cuffed, and collared with fur of such remarkable +color, quality, and marking as would have puzzled the most experienced +student of natural history to name; while vicious little street boys at +sight of it always put searching questions as to the cost of cat-skins in +London. + +As they came down the street together, Mrs. Kean, majestically towering +above her lord and master, looked like an old-time frigate with every +inch of canvas spread, while at her side Charles puffed and fretted like +a small tug. The street boys were a continual torment to him, but Mrs. +Kean appeared serenely unconscious of their existence, even when her +husband made short rushes at them with his gold-headed cane, and crying: +"Go a-way--you irreverent little brutes--go a-way!" and then puffed +laboriously back to her again as she sailed calmly on. + +One day a citizen caught one of the small savages, and after boxing his +ears soundly, pitched him into the alley-way, when the seemingly enraged +little Englishman said, deprecatingly: "I--I wouldn't hurt the little +beast--he--he hasn't anyone to teach him any better, you know--poor +little beggar!" and then he dropped behind for a moment to pitch a +handful of coppers into the alley before hurrying up to his wife's side +to boast of the jolly good drubbing the little monster had received--from +which I gathered the idea that in a rage Charles would be as fierce as +seething new milk. + +Everyone who knew anything at all of this actor knew of his passionate +love and reverence for his great father. He used always to carry his +miniature in _Hamlet_, using it in the "Look here, upon this picture, +then on this," scene; but I knew nothing of all that when he first +arrived to play engagements both in Cleveland and Columbus, but being +very eager to see all I could of him, I came very early to the theatre, +and as I walked up and down behind the scenes I caught two or three times +a glint of something on the floor, which might have been a bit of tinsel; +but finally I went over to it, touched it with my foot, and then picked +up an oval gold case, with handsome frame enclosing a picture; a bit of +broken ribbon still hung from the ring on top of the frame. I ran with it +to the prompter, who knew nothing of it, but said there would soon be a +hue and cry for it from someone, as it was of value. "Perhaps you'd +better take it to Mr. Kean--it might be his." I hesitated, but the +prompter said he was busy and I was not, so I started toward the +dressing-room the Keans shared together, when suddenly the door was flung +open and Mr. Kean came out in evident excitement. He bumped against me +as he was crying: "I say there--you--have you seen--oh, I--er beg your +pardon!" + +I also apologized, and added: "If you please, sir, does this belong to +you? I found it behind the scenes." + +He caught it from my hand, bent to look at it in the dim light, then, +pressing it to his lips, exclaimed fervently: "Thank the good God!" He +held up a length of broken black ribbon, saying: "Hey, but you have +played me a nice trick!" I understood at once that he used the locket in +"Hamlet," and I ventured: "If you can't wear gold and your ribbon cuts, +could you not have a silver chain oxidized for your 'property' picture, +sir?" He chucked me under the chin, exclaiming: "A good idea +that--I--I'll tell Ellen of that; but, my dear, this is no 'property' +locket--this is one of my greatest earthly treasures--it's the picture +of----" + +He stopped--he looked at me for quite a moment, then he said: "You come +here to the light." I followed him obediently. "Now can you tell me who +that is a miniature of?" and he placed the oval case in my hands. I gave +a glance at the curled hair, the beautiful profile, the broad turned-down +collar, and smilingly exclaimed: "It's Lord Byron!" + +Good gracious, what was the matter with the little old gentleman! "Ha! +ha!" he cried. "Ha! ha! listen to the girl!" He fairly pranced about; he +got clear out on the dark stage and, holding out his hands to the +emptiness, cried again: "Listen to the girl--Lord Byron, says she--at one +glance!" + +"Well," I replied resentfully, "it _does_ look like Byron!" And he "Ha! +ha'd!" some more, and wiped his eyes and said, "I must tell Ellen this. +Come here, my dear, come here!" He took my hand and led me to the +dressing-room, crying: "It's Charles, my dear--it's Charles--and oh, my +dear, my dear, I--I have it--see now!" he held up the locket. + +"Oh, how glad I am! And now, Charles, perhaps you'll give up that +miserable ribbon," and she kissed his cheek in congratulation. + +But on the old gentleman went: "And, Ellen, my dear, look at this girl +here--just look at her. She found him for me, and I said, who is he--and +she up and said--Ellen, are you listening?--said she, 'It's Lord Byron!'" + +"Did she now?" exclaimed Mrs. Kean, with pleased eyes. + +But I was getting mad, and I snapped a bit, I'm afraid, when I said: +"Well, I don't know who it is, but it does look like Byron--I'll leave it +to anyone in the company if it doesn't!" + +"Listen to her, Ellen! Hang me if she's not getting hot about it, too!" +Then he came over to me, and in the gravest, gentlest tone said, "It _is_ +like Byron, my girl, but it is not him--you found the picture of my +beloved and great father, Edmund Kean," and he kissed me gently on the +forehead, and said, "Thank you--thank you!" and as Mrs. Kean came over +and put her arm about me and repeated the kiss and thanks, Charles +snuffled most distinctly from the corner where he was folding his +precious miniature within a silk handkerchief. + +They were both at their very best in the tragedy of "Henry VIII." Mr. +Kean's _Wolsey_ was an impressive piece of work, and to the eye he was as +true a Cardinal as ever shared in an Ecumenical Council in Catholic Rome, +or hastened to private audience at the Vatican with the Pope himself; and +his superb robes, his priestly splendor had nothing about them that was +imitation. Everything was real--the silks, the jewelled cross and ring, +and as to the lace, I gasped for breath with sheer astonishment. Never +had I seen, even in a picture, anything to suggest the exquisite beauty +of that ancient web. Full thirty inches deep, the yellowing wonder fell +over the glowing cardinal-red beneath it. I cannot remember how many +thousands of dollars they had gladly given for it to the sisters of the +tottering old convent in the hills, where it had been created long ago; +and though it seemed so fragily frail and useless a thing, yet had it +proved strong enough to prop up the leaning walls of its old home, and +spread a sound roof above the blessed altar there--so strong sometimes is +beauty's weakness. + +And Mrs. Kean, what a _Catherine_ she was! Surely nothing could have been +taken from the part, nothing added to it, without marring its perfection. +In the earlier acts one seemed to catch a glimpse of that Ellen Tree who +had been a beauty as well as a popular actress when Charles Kean had come +a-wooing. Her clear, strong features, her stately bearing were +beautifully suited to the part of _Queen Catherine_. Her performance of +the court scene was a liberal education for any young actress. Her regal +dignity, her pride, her passion of hatred for _Wolsey_ held in strong +leash, yet now and again springing up fiercely. Her address to the _King_ +was a delight to the ear, even while it moved one to the heart, and +through the deep humility of her speech one saw, as through a veil, the +stupendous pride of the Spanish princess, who knew herself the daughter +of a king, if she were not the wife to one. With most pathetic dignity +she gave her speech beginning: + + "Sir, I desire you do me right and justice;" + +maintaining perfect self-control, until she came to the words: + + "----Sir, call to mind + That I have been your wife in this obedience + Upward of twenty years and,----" + +Her voice faltered, the words trembled on her lips: + + "----have been blest + With many children by you." + +In that painful pause one remembered with a pang that all those babes +were dead in infancy, save only the Princess Mary. Then, controlling her +emotion and lifting her head high, she went on to the challenge--if aught +could be reported against her honor. It was a great act, her passionate +cry to _Wolsey_: + + "----Lord cardinal, + To _you_ I speak." + +thrilled the audience, while to his: + + "----Be patient yet," + +her sarcastic: + + "I will, when you are humble!" + +cut like a knife, and brought quick applause. But best, greatest, +queenliest of all was her exit, when refusing to obey the King's command: + + "----Call her again." + +for years one might remember those ringing words: + + "I will not tarry: no, nor ever more, + Upon this business, my appearance make + In any of their courts." + +It was a noble performance. Mr. Kean's mannerisms were less noticeable +in _Wolsey_ than in other parts, and the scenes between the Queen and +Cardinal were a joy to lovers of Shakespeare. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND + + I Hear Mrs. Kean's Story of Wolsey's Robe--I Laugh at an Extravagantly + Kind Prophecy. + + +From the time I found the miniature and by accident fed Mr. Kean's +innocent vanity in his father's likeness to Byron, he made much of me. +Evening after evening, in Columbus, he would have me come to their +dressing-room, for after the habit of the old-time actor, they came very +early, dressed without flurry, and were ready before the overture was on. +There they would tell me stories, and when Charles had a teasing fit on +him, he would relate with great gusto the awful disaster that once +overtook Ellen in a theatre in Scotland, "when she played a Swiss boy, my +girl--and--and her breeches----" + +"Now, Charles!" remonstrated Mrs. Kean. + +"Knee breeches, you know, my dear----" + +"Charles!" pleadingly. + +"Were of black velvet--yes, black velvet, I remember because, when they +broke from----" + +"C-h-a-r-l-e-s!" and then the stately Mrs. Kean would turn her head away +and give a small sob--when Charles would wink a knowing wink and trot +over and pat the broad shoulder and kiss the rouged cheek, saying: "Why, +why, Ellen, my dear, what a great baby! now, now, but you know those +black breeches did break up before you got across the bridge." + +Then Mrs. Kean turned and drove him into his own corner or out of the +door, after which she would exclaim: "It's just one of his larks, my +dear. I _did_ have an accident, the seam of one leg of my breeches broke +and showed the white lining a bit; but if you'll believe me, I've known +that man to declare that--that--they fell off, my dear; but generally +that's on Christmas or his birthday, when only friends are by." + +Mr. Kean had been the first man to wear an absolutely correct cardinal's +robe on the stage, and very proud he was of that fact, and never failed +in giving his Ellen all the credit of it. Until this time actors had worn +a scarlet "something," that seemed a cross between a king's mantle or a +woman's wrapper. Mr. Kean had been quite carried away with enthusiasm +over his coming production of "Henry VIII.," and his wife, seeing his +disappointment and dissatisfaction over the costumer's best efforts in +the direction of a cardinal's robe, determined, some way or somehow, to +obtain for him an exact copy of the genuine article. + +One night, while "Louis XI." was going on, Mrs. Kean herself told me how +she had at last succeeded. They were in Rome for their holiday; they had +many letters, some to very important personages. In her story Mrs. Kean +gave names and dates and amounts of money expended, but they have passed +from my memory, while the dramatic incident remains. + +From the first she had made known to her most powerful Roman friend her +desire to see the robe of a cardinal--to obtain measurements from it, and +had been treated at first to a great showing of uplifted hands and eyes +and many "impossibles," but later on had received positive promises of +help. Yet days, even weeks passed, and always there was some +excuse--nothing came of the fine promises. + +One day, in her anxiety and disappointment, she mentioned to an English +friend, who had long resided in Rome, her trouble over the +procrastination of her Italian acquaintance, when the Englishwoman asked: +"What have you paid him?" "Paid him?" cried Mrs. Kean. "Do you know you +are speaking of F----, whose high official as well as social position is +such----" + +"Oh," laughed the visitor, "his position has nothing to do with it--his +being your friend has nothing to do with it. The Italian palm is an +itching palm--no wonder time is being wasted. Soothe that palm the next +time he calls, and mention the day on which you are compelled to leave +for home, and he will act quickly enough, though you really are asking +for next to an impossibility, when you, a woman, ask to see and handle a +cardinal's robe." + +"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Kean, "when that stately, gray-haired gentleman +next came, I almost fainted at the thought of putting such an insult upon +him as to offer him money. Indeed I could barely whisper, when clasping +his hand I left some broad gold pieces there, murmuring, 'For the poor, +sir!'--and if you'll believe me, he brightened up and instantly said: +'Keep to the house to-morrow, Madame, and I will notify you what you are +to do, and the effort to get a robe to you here having failed, you will +have to come to the general "audience" his Holiness will grant day after +to-morrow, and, and, hem! you will do well to have some loose _lire_ in +your pouch, and be sure, sure, you carry a smelling-bottle. I suppose, of +course, so famous an actress as yourself can faint at command, if need +be? Then the tailor, an usher or two, possibly even a guard may require a +fee, for they will run great risk in serving you, Madame. A woman within +those sacred passages and chambers!' + +"He held up his hands in horror, but nevertheless he was doing directly +what he had been promising to do for weeks, and all for a few broad +pieces of gold. After he left me I was fairly sick with feverish +excitement. I dared not tell Charles of the arrangement; he would have +left Rome instantly, and here was I preparing to bribe tailor, ushers, +guard--and beyond them, to be still armed with loose _lire_. Oh, to what +depth was I falling! + +"Next day I received a card of admission for the 'audience,' and orders: +'To keep my eyes open--to show no surprise, but to follow _silently_ +wherever a hand beckoned with a single finger. To bring all things +needful for my use--not forgetting the loose _lire_ and the +smelling-bottle.' + +"When I entered the carriage to go to the Vatican, I was so weak with +hope and fear and fright that Charles was quite upset about me, and was +all for going with me; so I had to brace up and pretend the air was +already doing me good. As I looked back at him, I wondered if he would +divorce me, if in my effort to secure the pattern of a cardinal's gown I +should create a tremendous scandal? I wore the regulation black silk, +with black veil, demanded for the occasion, but besides the little pouch +of silk depending from my belt with _lire_, salts, and 'kerchief, I had +beneath my gown a pocket in which were some white Swiss muslin, pins, +pencil, and tablets, and small scissors. + +"There were many carriages--many people. I saw them all as in a dream. In +a magnificent room the ladies were formed in line, waiting to be admitted +to the Holy Father's presence. I was forgetting to keep my eyes +open--there was a stir. A great door was opening down its centre. I heard +a faint, low 'Hem!' The line began to move forward--a little louder that +'Hem!' Suddenly my eyes cleared--I looked. A pair of curtains, a little +ahead, trembled. I drew my smelling-bottle and held it to my nostrils, as +if ill, but no one noticed me--all were intent upon the opening of the +great door. As I came on a line with the curtains, a hand, dream-like, +beckoned. I stepped sidewise between the curtains, that parted, then fell +thick and soft behind me. Another white beckoning hand appeared at the +far side of this chamber. Swiftly I crossed toward it. A whisper of +'Quick! quick!' just reached me--a door opened, and I was in a +passage-way, and for the first time saw a guide. + +"At the foot of the stairs he paused--yet the voice had said 'Quick! +quick!' I thought of the loose _lire_--yes, that was it. I gave him +three, and saw him glide up the stairs with cat-like stealth. Here were +bare walls and floors, and all that cold cleanliness that makes a woman +shrink and shiver. + +"At last I was in a small, bare room, with brick-paved floor. A table +stood in its centre, and a small and wizened man, red-eyed and old, +glided in and laid upon the table--oh, joy--oh, triumph almost +reached!--a glowing-red cardinal's robe. As I laid my hand upon it the +ferret-like custodian gave a sort of whispered groan, 'Oh, the sacrilege! +and the danger! his whole life's occupation risked!' + +"I remembered the 'itching palm,' and as my hand went toward my pocket, +his brown claw was extended, and the glint of gold so warmed his heart +that smiles came about his toothless mouth, and seeing me, woman fashion, +measuring by finger-lengths, he offered me a dirty old tape-measure--then +stole to the second door 'to watch for me.' Oh, yes--to watch like the +cat--while with all the haste possible the good and most high lady would +gain such knowledge as she could, and after all the robe was but an old +one, etc., etc. + +"All whispered, while I with the deft fingers of a skilled seamstress and +the comprehending eye of the actress, well used to strange costumes, was +measuring here and putting down notes, swiftly pinning on a bit of muslin +there, and cutting an exact pattern. And, lo! the piece that crosses the +chest, cape-like, yet without visible opening, came near undoing me. +Tears began to blind me, but--but, ah well, my dear, I thought of +Charles, and it is astonishing what love can do to sharpen the eyes and +clear the brain. Suddenly the thing seemed quite plain to me. I then +turned the hem, and ripping it open an inch or so, I took a few +ravellings of the silk, where it was clean and bright, for a sample for +the dyers to go by--since the silk would have to be prepared especially +if it was to be absolutely correct. + +"I rearranged my veil, crept to the door, and agreeably surprised the +watchers by telling them I was through. The ferrety old man had the robe +in his arms, and was gliding swiftly out of the room in the merest +instant. I followed as softly as possible the other watcher. Once an +unseen man cleared his throat as we passed, and I thought my guide would +have fallen from sheer terror, but we reached in safety the frescoed +corridor again and stood at the door waiting. The guide scratched gently +with his nails on the lower panel--a pause, then the door began to move, +and he disappeared as a ghost might have done. Across the room a hand +appeared between the hangings, beckoning me; I moved swiftly toward it. I +could hear a hum of voices, low and restrained. There was but one room +now between me and the great chamber in which we had waited in line for +'audience.' No further signal came, what should I do? I was nearly +fainting. Then another hand, a hand I knew by the splendid ring on its +middle finger, appeared. I almost staggered to it. A whisper like a +breath came to me, 'smelling-salts,' in an instant the bottle was in my +hand, I was through the curtains, my Italian friend was asking me, was I +not wrong to remain in Rome so late? He hoped my faintness was quite +past, but he must himself see me to my carriage, and so he swept me +forth, under cover of his courteous chatter, and the next day I sent him +money for those who had to be rewarded. + +"And for fear of Charles's rage about the infamy of bribing, said +nothing, till he, in great anxiety about my feverish state, removed me +from Rome. And then, my dear! I threw my arms about his neck and told him +he should have a true and veritable cardinal's robe for his _Wolsey_, and +in outrageous pride I cried: '_Ego hoc feci!_'" At which _I_ gravely +said: "That sounds like 'I have done something,' anyway it's I; but that +'_fetchy_' word bothers me." + +And she laughed and laughed, and said: "It means _I_ did this! And I am +ashamed to have used a Latin term to you, child. You must forgive me for +it, but I _must_ tell Charles that 'fetchy' word that bothered you--I +must indeed, because he does so love his laugh!" + +Then came the night when by chance I played an important part in one of +their plays. My scenes were mostly with Mr. Cathcart, and I only came in +contact with Mr. Kean for a moment in one act. I was as usual frightened +half out of my life, and as I stood in the entrance ready to go on, Mr. +Kean smilingly caught my fingers as he was passing me, but their icy +coldness brought him to a stand-still. "Why, why! bless my soul, what's +the matter? this--this is not nervousness, is it?" he stammered. + +I nodded my head. "Oh, good Lord!" he cried. "I say, Cathcart, here's a +go--this poor child can't even open her mouth now----" + +I tried to tell him I should be all right soon, but there was no time. +The word of entrance came, and a _cue_ takes the _pas_ even in presence +of a star. I went on, and as my lines were delivered clearly and +distinctly, I saw the relieved face of Mr. Kean peering at us, and when +Mr. Cathcart (who enacted my soldierly lover) gave me a sounding kiss +upon the cheek as he embraced me in farewell, we plainly heard the old +gentleman exclaim: "Well, well, really now, James, upon my word, you +_are_ coming on!" and Mr. Cathcart's broad shoulders shook with laughter +rather than grief as he rushed from me. + +When, later on, Mr. Kean took my hand to give it in betrothal to my +lover, he found it so burning hot as to attract his attention. + +Next night I did not play at all, but came to look on, and being invited +to the dressing-room, Mr. Kean suddenly asked me: "Who are you, child?" + +"No one," I promptly answered. + +He laughed a little and nudged his Ellen, then went on: "I mean--who are +your people?" + +"I have none," I said, then quickly corrected, "except my mother." + +"Ah, yes, yes, that's what we want to get at--who is that mother? for I +recognize an inherited talent here--a natural grace and ease, impossible +for one so young to acquire by any amount of effort." + +I was a bit confused--I hesitated. Mrs. Kean asked: "Were both of your +parents actors, child?" + +Suddenly I broke into laughter. The thought of my mother as an actress +filled me with amusement. "Oh, I beg your pardon," I cried, "I have no +father, and my mother just works at sewing or nursing or housekeeping or +anything she can get to do that's honest." + +They looked disappointedly at each other, then Mrs. Kean brightened up +and exclaimed: "Then it's foreign blood, Charles--you can see it in her +use of her hands." + +They turned expectantly to me. I thought of the big, smiling +French-Canadian father, who had been the _bête noire_ of my babyhood. My +head drooped. "He, my father, was bad," I said, "his father and mother +were from the south of France, but he was a horrid Canadian--my mother, +though, is a true American," I proudly ended. + +"That's it!" they exclaimed together, "the French blood!" and Mr. Kean +nodded his head and tapped his brow and said: "You remember, Ellen, what +I told you last night--I said 'temperament'--here it is in this small +nobody; no offence to you, my girl. Here's our dear niece, who can't act +at all, God bless her! our 'blood,' but no temperament. Now listen to me, +you bright child!" + +He pushed my hair back from my forehead, so that I must have looked quite +wild, and went on: "I have seen you watch that dear woman over there, +night after night; you admire her, I know." (I nodded hard.) "You think +her a great, great way from you?" (More nods.) "A lifetime almost?" +(Another nod.) "Then listen to what an old man, but a most experienced +actor, prophesies for you. Without interest in high places, without help +from anyone, except from the Great Helper of us all, you, little girl, +daughter of the true American mother and the bad French father, will, +inside of five years, be acting my wife's parts--and acting them well." + +I could not help it, it seemed so utterly absurd, I laughed aloud. He +smiled indulgently, and said: "It seems so funny--does it? Wait a bit, my +dear, when my prophecy comes true you will no longer laugh, and you will +remember us." + +He gave me his hand in farewell, so did his gracious wife, then with +tears in my eyes I said: "I was only laughing at my own insignificance, +sir, and I shall remember your kindness always, whether I succeed or not, +just as I shall remember your great acting." + +Simultaneously they patted me on the shoulder, and I left them. Then Mr. +Kean put his arm about his wife and kissed her, I know he did, because I +looked back and saw them thus reflected in the looking-glass. But did I +not say they were love-birds? + +Four years from that month I stood trembling and happy before the +audience who generously applauded my "sleep-walking scene" in "Macbeth," +and suddenly I seemed to hear the kind old voice making the astonishing +prophecy, and joyed to think of its fulfilment, with a whole year to the +good. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD + + Mr. E. L. Davenport, his Interference, his Lecture on Stage Business, + his Error of Memory or too Powerful Imagination--Why I Remain a + Dramatic Old Slipper--Contemptuous Words Arouse in Me a Dogged + Determination to Become a Leading Woman before Leaving Cleveland. + + +Just what was the occult power of the ballet over the manager's mind no +one ever explained to me. I found my companions very every-day, +good-natured, kind-hearted girls--pretty to look at, pleasant to be with, +but to Mr. Ellsler they must have been a rare and radiant lot, utterly +unmatchable in this world, or else he knew they had awful powers for evil +and dared not provoke their "hoodoo." Whatever the reason, the fact +remained, he was _afraid_ to advance me one little step in name, even to +utility woman; while, in fact, I was advanced to playing other people's +parts nearly half the time, and the reason for this continued holding +back was "fear of offending the other ballet-girls." Truly a novel +position for a manager. One feels at once there must have been something +unusually precious about such a ballet, and he feared to break the set. +Anyway, before I got out, clear out, this happened: + +A number of stars had spoken to me about my folly in remaining in the +ballet, and when I told them Mr. Ellsler was afraid to advance me for +fear of offending the other girls, they answered variously, and many +advised me to break the "set" myself, saying if I left he would soon be +after me and glad to engage me for first walking lady. But my crushed +childhood had its effect, I shall always lack self-assertion--I stayed +on and this happened. + +There was no regular heavy actress that season, and the old woman was a +tiny little rag of a creature, not bigger than a doll. Mr. E. L. +Davenport was to open in "Othello." Mrs. Effie Ellsler was to play the +young _Desdemona_ and I was to go on for _Emilia_. Mr. Davenport was a +man of most reckless speech, but he was, too, an old friend of the +Ellslers, calling them by their first names and meeting them with hearty +greetings and many jests. So, when in the middle of a story to Mrs. +Ellsler at rehearsal, the call came for _Othello_, _Desdemona_, and +_Iago_, she exclaimed: "Excuse me, Ned, they are calling us," but he held +her sleeve and answered, "Not you--it's me," and glancing hurriedly +about, his eye met mine, and he added pleasantly, "You, my dear; they're +calling _Desdemona_." + +I stood still. Mrs. Ellsler's round, black eyes snapped, but this man who +blundered was a star and a friend. She tossed her head and petulantly +pushed him from her toward the stage. He went on, and at the end of his +speech: + + "This only is the witchcraft I have used; + Here comes the lady, let her witness it." + +he turned to face Mrs. Ellsler entering with _Iago_ and her attendants. +Looking utterly bewildered, he exclaimed: "Why, for God's sake, Effie, +you are not going on for _Desdemona_, are you?" + +Perhaps his dissatisfaction may be better understood if I mention that a +young man twenty-three years old, who took tickets at the dress-circle +door, called Mrs. Ellsler mother, and that middle-aged prosperity +expressed itself in a startling number of inches about the waist of her +short little body. Though her feet and hands were small in the extreme, +they could not counteract the effect of that betraying stodginess of +figure. Mrs. Ellsler, in answer to that rude question, laughed, and said: +"Well, I believe the leading woman generally does play _Desdemona_?" + +"But," cried Mr. Davenport, "where's--w-who's _Emilia_?" + +Mr. Ellsler took him by the arm and led him a little to one side. Several +sharp exclamations escaped the star's lips, and at last, aloud and ending +the conference, he said: "Yes, yes, John, I know anyone may have to twist +about a bit now and then in a cast, but damn me if I can see why you +don't cast Effie for _Emilia_ and this girl for _Desdemona_--then they +would at least look something like the parts. As it is now, they are both +ridiculous!" + +It was an awful speech, and the truth that was in it made it cut deep. +There were those on the stage who momentarily expected the building to +fall, so great was their awe of Mrs. Ellsler. The odd part of the +unpleasant affair was that everyone was sorry for Mr. Ellsler, rather +than for his wife. + +Well, night came. I trailed about after _Desdemona_--picked up the fatal +handkerchief--spoke a line here and there as Shakespeare wills she +should, and bided my time as all _Emilias_ must. Now I had noticed that +many _Emilias_ when they gave the alarm--cried out their "Murder! +Murder!" against all the noise of the tolling bells, and came back upon +the stage spent, and without voice or breath to finish their big scene +with, and people thought them weak in consequence. A long hanging bar of +steel is generally used for the alarm, and blows struck upon it send +forth a vibrating clangor that completely fills a theatre. I made an +agreement with the prompter that he was not to strike the bar until I +held up my hand to him. Then he was to strike one blow each time I raised +my hand, and when I threw up both hands he was to raise Cain, until I was +on the stage again. So with throat trained by much shouting, when in the +last act I cried: + + "I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known, + Though I lost twenty lives." + +I turned, and crying: + + "Help! help, ho! help!" + +ran off shouting, + + "The Moor has killed my mistress!" + +then, taking breath, gave the long-sustained, ever-rising, blood-curdling +cry: + + "Murder! Murder! Murder!" + +One hand up, and one long clanging peal of a bell. + + "Murder! Murder! Murder!" + +One hand up and bell. + + "Murder! Murder! Murder!" + +Both hands up, and pandemonium broken loose--and, oh, joy! the audience +applauding furiously. + +"One--two--three--four," I counted with closed lips, then with a fresh +breath I burst upon the stage, followed by armed men, and with one last +long full-throated cry of "Murder! the Moor has killed my mistress!" +stood waiting for the applause to let me go on. A trick? yes, a small +trick--a mere pretence to more breath than I really had, but it aroused +the audience, it touched their imagination. They saw the horror-stricken +woman racing through the night--waking the empty streets to life by that +ever-thrilling cry of "Murder!" A trick if you like, but on the stage +"success" justifies the means, and that night, under cover of the +applause of the house, there came to me a soft clapping of hands and in +muffled tones the words: "Bravo--bravo!" from _Othello_. + +When the curtain had fallen and Mr. Davenport had been before it, he +came to me and holding out his hands, said: "You splendid-lunged +creature--I want to apologize to you for the thoughts I harbored against +you this morning." I smiled and glanced uneasily at the clock--he went +on: + +"I have always fancied my wife in _Emilia_, but, my girl, your readings +are absolutely new sometimes, and your strength is--what's the matter? a +farce yet? well, what of it? you, _you_ have to go on in a farce after +playing Shakespeare's _Emilia_ with E. L. Davenport? I'm damned if I +believe you!" + +And I gathered up my cotton-velvet gown and hurried to my room to don +calico dress, white cap and apron, and then rush down to the +"property-room" for the perambulator I had to shove on, wondering what +the star would think if he knew that his _Emilia_ was merely walking on +in the farce of "Jones's Baby," without one line to speak, the second and +speaking nursemaid having very justly been given to one of the other +girls. But the needless sending of me on, right after the noble part of +_Emilia_, was evidently a sop thrown by my boldly independent manager to +his ballet--Cerberus. + +Heretofore stars had advised or chided me privately, but, oh, dear, oh, +dear! next morning Mr. Davenport attacked Mr. Ellsler for +"mismanagement," as he termed it, right before everybody. Among other +things, he declared that it was a wound to his personal dignity as a star +to have a girl who had supported him, "not acceptably, but brilliantly," +in a Shakespearian tragedy, sent on afterward in a vulgar farce. Then he +added: "Aside from artistic reasons and from justice to her--good Lord! +John, are you such a fool you don't understand her commercial value? Here +you have a girl, young and pretty" (always make allowances for the warmth +of argument), "with rare gifts and qualifications, who handles her +audience like a magician, and you cheapen her like this? Placing her in +the highest position only to cast her down again to the lowest. If she is +only fit for the ballet, you insult your public by offering her in a +leading part; if she's fit for the leading part, you insult her by +lowering her to the ballet; but anyway I'm damned if I ever saw a +merchant before who deliberately cheapened his own wares!" + +If the floor could have opened I would have been its willing victim, and +I am sure if Mr. Davenport had known that I would have to pay for every +sharp word spoken, he would have restrained his too free speech for my +sake--even though he was never able to do so for his own. + +And what a pity it was, for he not only often wounded his friends, but +worse still, he injured himself by flinging the most boomerang-like +speeches at the public whenever he felt it was not properly appreciating +him. He was wonderfully versatile, but though versatility is a requisite +for any really good actor, yet for some mysterious reason it never meets +with great success outside of a foreign theatre. The American public +demands specialists--one man to devote himself solely to tragedy, another +to romantic drama and duels, another to dress-suit satire. One woman to +tears, another to laughter, and woe betide the star who, able to act both +comedy and tragedy, ventures to do so; there will be no packed house to +bear witness to the appreciation felt for such skill and variety of +talent. + +Mr. Davenport's vogue was probably waning when I first knew him. He had a +certain intellectual following who delighted in the beautiful precision +and distinctness of his reading of the royal Dane. He always seemed to me +a _Hamlet_ cut in crystal--so clear and pure, so cold and hard he was. +The tender heart, the dread imaginings, the wounded pride and love, the +fits and starts, the pain and passion that tortures _Hamlet_ each in +turn, were utterly incompatible with the fair, highbrowed, princely +philosopher Mr. Davenport presented to his followers. And after that +performance I think he was most proud of his "horn-pipe" in the play of +"Black-Eyed Susan"; and he danced it with a swiftness, a lightness, and a +limberness of joint that were truly astonishing in a man of his years. +Legend said that in London it had been a great "go," had drawn--oh, +fabulous shillings, not to mention pounds--but I never saw him play +_William_ to a good house, never--neither did I ever see the dance +_encored_. The people did not appreciate versatility, and one night, +while before the curtain in responding to a call, he began a bitter +tirade against the taste of the public--offering to stand there and count +how many there were in the house, and telling them that next week that +same house would not hold all who would wish to enter, for there would be +a banjo played by a woman, and such an intellectual treat was not often +to be had, but they must not spend all their money, he was even now +learning to swallow swords _and_ play the _banjo_; he was an old dog now, +but if they would have a little patience he would learn their favorite +tricks for them, even though he could not heartily congratulate them on +their intelligence, etc., etc. Oh, it was dreadful taste and so unjust, +too, to abuse those who were there for the fault of those who remained +away. + +However, during the week's engagement of which I have been speaking, I +had two nights in the ballet, then again I was cast for an important +part. It was a white-letter day for me, professionally, for, thanks to +Mr. Davenport, I learned for the first time the immense value of +"business" alone, an action unsustained perhaps by a single word. I am +not positive, but I believe the play was "A Soldier of Fortune" or "The +Lion of St. Mark"--anyway it was a romantic drama. My part was not very +long, but it had one most important scene with the hero. It was one of +those parts that are talked about so much during the play that they gain +a sort of fictitious value. At rehearsal I could not help noticing how +fixedly Mr. Davenport kept gazing at me. His frown grew deeper and deeper +as I read my lines, and I was growing most desperately frightened, when +he suddenly exclaimed: "Wait a minute!" I stopped; he went on roughly, +still staring hard at me, "I don't know whether you are worth breaking a +vow for or not." + +Naturally I had nothing to say. He walked up the stage; as he came down, +he said: "I've kept that promise for ten years, but you seem such an +honest little soul about your work--I've a good mind, yes, I have a +mind----" + +He sat down on the edge of the prompt-table, and though he addressed +himself seemingly to me alone, the whole company were listening +attentively. + +"When I first started out starring I honestly believed I had a mission to +teach other less experienced actors how to act. I had made a close study +of the plays I was to present, as well as of my own especial parts in +them, and I actually thought it was my duty to impart my knowledge to +those actors who were strange in them. Yes, that's the kind of a fool I +was. I used to explain and describe, and show how, and work and sweat, +and for my pains I received behind my back curses for keeping them so +long at rehearsals, and before my face stolid indifference or a thinly +veiled implication that I was grossly insulting them by my minute +directions. Both myself and my voice were pretty well used up before I +realized that my work had been wasted, my good intentions damned, that I +had not been the leaven that could lighten the lump of stupid +self-satisfaction we call the 'profession'; and I took solemn oath to +myself never again to volunteer any advice, any suggestion, any hint as +to reading, or business, or make-up to man or woman in any play of mine. +If they acted well, all right; if they acted ill, all right too. If I +found them infernal sticks, I'd leave them sticks. I'd demand just one +thing, my _cue_. As long as I got the word to speak on, all the rest +might go to the devil! Rehearsals shortened, actors had plenty of time +for beer and pretzels; and as I ceased to try to improve their work, they +soon called me a good fellow. And now you come along, willing to work, +knowing more than some of your elders, yet actually believing there is +still something for you to learn. Ambitious, keenly observant, you tempt +me to teach you some business for this part, and yet if I do I suppose +what goes in at one ear will go out of the other!" + +Embarrassed silence on my part. + +"Well," he went on, whimsically, "I see this is not your day for making +protestations, but I'm going to give you the business, and if you choose +to ignore it at night--why, that will serve me right for breaking my +promise." + +"Mr. Davenport," I said, "I always try to remember what is told me, and I +don't see why I should not remember what you say; goodness knows you +speak plainly enough," at which, to my troubled surprise, everyone, star +and all, burst out laughing, but presently he returned to the play. + +"See here," he said, "you, the adventuress, are worsted in this scene. +You sit at the table. I have forced you to sign this paper, yet you say +to me: 'You are a fool!' Now, how are you going to say it?" + +"I don't know yet," I answered, "I have not heard the whole play +through." + +"What's that got to do with it?" he asked, sharply. + +"Why," I said, "I don't know the story--I don't know whether she is +really your enemy, or only injures you on impulse; whether she truly +loves anyone, or only makes believe love." + +"Good!" he cried, "good! that is sound reasoning. Well, you _are_ my +enemy, you love no one, so you see your 'fool' is given with genuine +feeling. It's years since the line has drawn fire, but you do this +business, and see. You sit, I stand at the opposite side of the table. +You write your name--you are supposed to be crushed. I believe it and +tower triumphantly over you. The audience believes it too. Now you lay +down your pen--but carefully, mind you, carefully; then close the +inkstand, and with very evident caution place it out of danger of a fall. +Be sure you take your time, there are places where deliberation is as +effective as ever rush and hurry can be. Then with your cheek upon your +hand, or your chin on your clasped hands--any attitude you fancy will +do--look at me good and long, and _then_ speak your line. Have you +thought yet how to deliver it?" + +"Well," I answered, hesitatingly, "to call you a fool in a colloquial +tone would make people laugh, I think, and--and the words don't fit a +declamatory style. I should think a rather low tone of sneering contempt +would be best," and he shouted loudly: "You've hit it square on the head! +Now let's see you do it to-night. Don't look so frightened, my girl, only +take your time, don't hurry. I've got to stand there till you speak, if +you take all night. Be deliberate; you see, you have played all the rest +so fiercely fast, the contrast will tell." + +The night came. Cornered, check-mated, I slowly signed the paper, wiped +the pen, closed the inkstand, and set it aside. He stood like a statue. +The silence reached the house. I stretched out my arms and rested my +crossed hands lightly on the table. I met his glance a moment, then, with +a curling lip, let my eyes sweep slowly down length of body to boot-tip +and back again, rose slowly, made a little "pouf" with lips and wave of +hand, and contemptuously drawled: "My friend, you are a fool!" while, +swift and sharp, came the applause Mr. Davenport at least had +anticipated. The act ended almost immediately, and I hurried to him, +crying: "Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Davenport. I never, never could have +found applause in a speech like that." + +"Ah, it was the business, child, not the speech. Always try to find good +business." + +"Suit the action to the word?" I laughed. + +"Yes," he answered, "and remember, Miss, actions speak louder than words, +too! But, my dear, it's a comfort to teach you anything; and when I saw +you trying so carefully to follow directions to-night, I swear I almost +prayed for the applause you were so honestly earning. You are a brick, my +girl! oh, I don't mean one of those measly little common building +bricks--I mean a great lovely Roman tile!" + +And when, in God's good time, success came to me, as I entered the +green-room at the Fifth Avenue one evening, a tall man in a gray suit +released himself from a bevy of pretty women, and coming over to me, held +out his hands, saying: "Did I ever make any remarks to you about building +materials?" and, laughingly, I answered: "Yes, sir, you said something +about bricks some years ago." + +And while I ran away to change, he called after me: "Say, 'Jones's Baby' +isn't on to-night, is it?" and immediately began to tell about _Emilia_, +and such is the power of imagination that he declared "She raged up and +down behind the scenes crying 'Murder,' till the very house broke loose, +and _right through all the pealing of the bells high and clear, you heard +her voice topping everything_!" + +I was resting and getting breath while the bell clanged, remember, but so +much for human memory. + +It is strange how often the merest accident or the utterance of a chance +word may harden wavering intentions into a fixed resolve. Though I am not +aggressive, there is in me a trace of bull-dog tenacity, made up of +patient endurance and sustained effort. Rather slow to move, when I am +aroused I simply _cannot_ let go my hold while breath is in me, unless I +have had my will, have attained my object. + +Perhaps people may wonder why I retained my anomalous position in that +theatre--why I did not follow the advice of some of the lady stars, who +gave me a kindly thought and word now and then. And at the risk of giving +them a poor opinion of my wisdom, I present the reason that actuated me. +One day at rehearsal, while waiting for the stage to be reset, several of +the actresses gossiped about theatrical matters. One had a letter from a +friend who announced her advance to "first walking lady," which turned +the talk to promotion generally, and laughingly she asked me: "What line +of business shall you choose, Clara, when your turn comes?" but before I +could reply, the eldest woman present sneered: "Oh, she can save herself +the trouble of choosing; if she's ever advanced it will be in some other +city than this." + +I was astonished; I had just made one of my small hits, and had a nice +little notice in the paper, but it did not occur to me that _envy_ could +sustain itself, keeping warm and strong and bitter on such slight +nourishment as that. And then, she of the letter, answered: "Why, Clara's +getting along faster than anyone else in the company, and I shall expect +to see her playing leading business before so very many seasons pass by." + +"Leading business here?" cried the other, "I guess not!" + +"Oh," laughed the first, "I see, you mean that Mrs. Ellsler will claim +the leading parts as long as she lives? Well, then, I shall expect to see +Clara playing the leading juveniles." + +"Well, you go right on expecting, and your hair will be as gray as mine +is, when she gets into any line of business in this town!" + +Unspeakably wounded, I asked, timidly: "But if I work hard and learn to +act well, can't I hold a position as well as anyone else?" + +She looked contemptuously at me, and then answered: "No, you must be a +fool if you suppose that after standing about in the ballet for months on +end that Cleveland will ever accept you in a respectable line of +business. You've got to go to some other place, where you are not known, +and then come back as a stranger, if you want to be accepted here." + +A dull anger began to burn in me--there was something so suggestive of +shame in the words, "Some other place, where you are not known." I had +nothing to hide. I could work, and by and by I should be able to act as +well as any of them--better perhaps. I felt my teeth come together with a +snap, the bull-dog instinct was aroused. I looked very steadily at the +sneering speaker and said: "I shall never leave this theatre till I am +leading woman." And they all laughed, but it was a promise, and all these +provoking years I was by way of keeping it. The undertaking was hard, +perhaps it was foolish, but of the group of women who laughed at me that +day every one of them lived to see my promise kept to the letter. When I +left Cleveland it was to go as leading woman to Cincinnati, one season +before I entered New York. + +But after I had at last escaped the actual ballet, and was holding a +recognized position, I was still treated quite _en haut--en bas_ by the +management. Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler had acquired the old-shoe habit. I was +the easy old dramatic slipper, which it was pleasant to slip on so +easily, but doubly pleasant to be able to shake off without effort. + +That you may thoroughly understand, I will explain that I was an +excellent _Amelia_ in "The Robbers" when a rather insignificant star +played the piece, but when a Booth or some star of like magnitude +appeared as _Charles de Moor_, then the easy slipper was dropped off, and +Mrs. Ellsler herself played _Amelia_. Any part belonging to me by right +could be claimed by that lady, if she fancied it, and if she wearied of +it, it came back to me. When we acted in the country in the summer-time, +at Akron or Canton, where there were real theatres, she played +_Parthenia_ or _Pauline_ in the "Lady of Lyons," or any other big part; +but if the next town was smaller, I played _Parthenia_ or _Pauline_ or +what not. Because I had once been in the ballet I had become an old pair +of dramatic slippers, to be slipped on or kicked off at will--rather +humiliating to the spirit, but excellent training for the growing +actress, and I learned much from these queer "now-you're-in-it and now +you're-not-in-it" sort of casts, and having much respect and admiration +for Mr. Ellsler, I fortunately followed in his wake, rather than in that +of any woman. He was one of the most versatile of actors. _Polonius_ or +_Dutchy_ (the opposite to Chanfrau's _Mose_), crying old men or broad +farce-comedy old men. Often he doubled _King Duncan_ and _Hecate_ in +"Macbeth," singing any of the witches when a more suitable _Hecate_ was +on hand--acquainted with the whole range of the "legitimate," his +greatest pleasure was in acting some "bit" that he could elaborate into a +valuable character. I remember the "switch-man" in "Under the +Gaslight"--it could not have been twenty lines long, yet he made of him +so cheery, so jolly, so kindly an old soul, everyone was sorry when he +left the stage. He always had a good notice for the work, and a hearty +reception ever after the first night. It was from him I learned my +indifference to the length of my parts. The value of a character cannot +always be measured by the length and number of its speeches, but I think +the only word of instruction he ever gave me was: "Speak loud--speak +distinctly," which was certainly good as far as it went. He was the most +genial of men, devotedly fond of children, he was "Uncle John" to them +all, and while never famous for the size of the salaries he paid, he was +so good a friend to his people that he often had trouble in making +desirable changes, and the variegated and convoluted falsehoods he +invented in order to get rid of one excessively bad old actor with an +affectionate heart, who wished to stay at a reduced salary, must lay +heavy on his conscience to this hour. + +I used to wonder why he had never taken to starring, but he said he had +not had enough self-assertion. He was a hard-working man, but he seemed +to lack resolution. He had opinions--not convictions. He was always +second in his own theatre--often letting "I dare not wait upon I would." +After years of acquaintanceship, not to say friendship, when my ambition +had been aroused, and I turned hopeful eyes toward New York, Mr. Ellsler +opposed me bitterly, telling me I must be quite mad to think that the +metropolis would give me a hearing. He said many pleasant and encouraging +things, or wrote them, since I was in Cincinnati then. Among them I find: +"The idea of your acting in New York; why, better actresses than you are, +or can ever hope to be, have been driven broken-hearted from its stage. +Do you suppose you could tie the shoe of Eliza Logan, one of the greatest +actresses that ever lived--but yet not good enough for New York? How +about Julia Dean, too? Go East, and be rejected, and then see what +manager will want you in the West." + +Verily not an encouraging friend. Again I find: "Undoubtedly you are the +strongest, the most original, and the youngest leading lady in the +profession--but why take any risk? why venture into New York, where you +may fail? at any rate, wait _ten years_, till you are surer of yourself." + +Good heavens! If I was original and strong in the West, why should I wait +ten years before venturing into the East? + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH + + I recall the Popularity and too Early Death of Edwin Adams. + + +I hear many tales of the insolence of stars--of their overbearing +manners, and their injustice to "little people," as the term goes; but +personally I have seen almost nothing of it. In the old days stars were +generally patient and courteous in their manners to the supporting +companies. + +Among the stars whose coming was always hailed with joy was Edwin Adams, +he of the golden voice, he who should have prayed with fervor, both day +and night: "Oh, God! protect me from my friends!" He was so popular with +men, they sought him out, they followed him, and they generally expressed +their liking through the medium of food and drink. Like every other +sturdy man that's worth his salt, he could stand off an enemy, but he was +as weak as water in the hands of a friend, and thus it came about that he +often stood in slippery places, and though he fell again and again, yet +was he forgiven as often as he sinned, and heartily welcomed back the +next season, so great was his power to charm. + +He was not handsome, he was not heroic in form, but there was such dash +and go, such sincerity and naturalness in all his work, that whether he +was love-making or fighting, singing or dying, he convinced you he was +the character's self, whether that character was the demented victim of +the _Bastille_, young _Rover_ in "Wild Oats," or that most gallant +gentleman _Mercutio_, in which no greater ever strode than that of Edwin +Adams. His buoyancy of spirit, his unconquerable gayety made it seem but +natural his passion for jesting should go with him to the very grave. +Many a fine _Mercutio_ gives: + + "----a plague o' both your houses!" + +with a resentful bitterness that implies blame to _Romeo_ for his "taking +off," which would be a most cruel legacy of grief and remorse to leave to +his young friend--but Adams was that brave _Mercutio_: + + "That gallant spirit that aspired the clouds, + Which too untimely here did scorn the earth." + +and whose last quips, coming faintly across paling lips, expressed still +good-natured fun, and so: + + "----a plague o' both your houses!" + +but no blame at all. + +His grace of movement and his superb voice were his greatest gifts. Most +stars had one rather short play which they reserved for Saturday nights, +that they might be able to catch their night train _en route_ for the +next engagement; so it happened that Mr. Adams, having bravely held +temptation from him during the first five nights, generally yielded to +the endearments of his friends by the sixth, and was most anyone but +himself when he came to dress for the performance of a play most +suggestively named: "The Drunkard." It was a painful and a humiliating +sight to see him wavering uncertainly in the entrance. All brightness, +intelligence, and high endeavor extinguished by liquor's murky fog. His +apologies were humble and evidently sincere, but the sad memory was one +not to be forgotten. + +I had just married, and we were in San Francisco. I was rehearsing for my +engagement there. The papers said Mr. Adams had arrived from Australia +and had been carried on a stretcher to a hotel, where, with his devoted +wife by his side, he lay dying. A big lump rose in my throat, tears +filled my eyes. I asked my husband, who had greatly admired the actor, +and who was glad to pay him any courtesy or service possible, to call, +leave cards, and if he saw Mrs. Adams, which was improbable, to try to +coax her out for a drive, if but for half an hour, and to deliver a +message of remembrance and sympathy from me to her husband. To his +surprise, he was admitted by the dying man's desire to his room, where +the worn, weary, self-contained, ever gently smiling wife sat and, like +an automaton, fanned hour by hour, softly, steadily fanned breath between +those parched lips, that whispered a gracious message of congratulation +and thanks. + +Mrs. Adams never left him, scarce took her eyes from him. Poor wife! who +knew she could hold him but a few hours longer. + +My husband was deeply moved, and when he tried to describe to me that +wasted frame--those helpless hands, whose faintly twitching fingers could +no longer pluck at the folded sheet, my mind obstinately refused to +accept the picture, and instead, through a blur of tears, I saw him as on +that last morning, when in his prime, strong and gentle, at his rehearsal +of "Enoch Arden," he said to me: "I am disappointed to the very heart, +Clara, that you are not my _Annie Lee_." + +He took his hat off, he drew his hand across his eyes. "I can't find +her," he said, with that touch of pathos that made his voice +irresistible; "no, I have not found her yet--they are not innocent and +brave! They are bouncing, buxom creatures or they are whimpering little +milk-sops. They are never fisher-maidens, flower-pure, yet strong as the +salt of the sea! She loved them both, Clara, yet she was no more weak nor +bad than when, with childish lips, she innocently promised to be 'a +little wife to both' the angry lads--to Philip and young Enoch! Now your +eyes are sea-eyes, and your voice--oh, I am disappointed! I thought I +should find my _Annie_ here!" + +And so I see him now as I think with tender sorrow of the actor who was +so strong and yet so weak--dear Ned Adams! + +When Mr. Joseph Jefferson came to us I found his acting nothing less than +a revelation. Here, in full perfection, was the style I had feebly, +almost blindly been reaching for. This man, this poet of _comedy_, as he +seemed to me, had so perfectly wedded nature to art that they were indeed +one. Here again I found the immense value of "business" the most minute, +the worth of restraint, if you had power to restrain, and learned that +his perfect naturalness was the result of his exquisite art in cutting +back and training nature's too great exuberance. + +I was allowed to play _Meenie_, his daughter, in the play of "Rip Van +Winkle," and my delight knew no bounds. He was very gentle and kind, he +gave me pleasant words of praise for my work; he was very great, and--and +his eyes were fine, and I approved of his chin, too, and I was, in fact, +rapidly blending the actor and the man in one personality. In the last +act, when kneeling at his feet, during our long wait upon the stage, I +knelt and adored! and he--oh, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson, that I should +say it, but _did_ you not hold my fingers unnecessarily close when you +made some mild little remarks that were not in the play, but which filled +my breast with quite outrageous joy, and pride--indeed, my crop of young +affections, always rather a sparse growth, came very near being gathered +into a small sheaf and laid at your feet. + +Fortunately, I learned in time that there was an almost brand-new wife in +the hotel next door, and I looked at him with big, reproachful eyes and +kept my fingers to myself, and wisely put off the harvesting of my +affections until some distant day. + +Mind you, I was well within my rights in this matter. Girls always fall +in love with stars--some fall in love with all of them, but that must be +fatiguing; besides, as I said before, my affections were of such sparse +growth they could not go round. Yet since I could honor thus but one +star, I must say I look back with complete approval upon my early choice, +and the shock to my heart did not prevent me from treasuring up some +kindly words of advice from the artist-actor anent the making-up of eyes +for the stage. + +Said he to me one evening: "My girl, I want to speak to you about that +'make-up' you have on your eyes." + +"Yes, sir?" I answered, interrogatively, feeling very hot and +uncomfortable, "have I too much on?" + +"Well, yes," he said, "I think you have, though you have much less than +most women wear." + +"Oh, yes," I hurriedly interposed, "there was a French dancer here who +covered nearly a third of her eyelids with a broad blue-black band of +pomatum, and she said----" + +"Oh," he protested, "I know, she said it made the eyes large and +lustrous, and as you see yourself in the glass it does seem to have that +effect; but, by the way, what do you think of my eyes?" + +And with truth and promptness, I made answer: "I think they're lovely." + +My unexpected candor proved rather confusing, for for a moment he +"Er-er-erd," and finally said: "I meant as a feature of acting, they are +good acting eyes, aren't they? Well, you don't find _them_ made up, do +you? Now listen to me, child, always be guided as far as possible by +nature. When you make up your face, you get powder on your eyelashes, +nature made them dark, so you are free to touch the lashes themselves +with ink or pomade, but you should not paint a great band about your eye, +with a long line added at the corner to rob it of every bit of +expression. And now as to the beauty this lining is supposed to bring, +some night when you have time I want you to try a little experiment. Make +up your face carefully, darken your brows and the lashes of one eye; as +to the other eye, you must load the lashes with black pomade, then draw a +black line beneath the eye, and a broad line on its upper lid, and a +final line out from the corner. The result will be an added lustre to the +made-up eye, a seeming gain in brilliancy; but now, watching your +reflection all the time, move slowly backward from the glass, and an odd +thing will happen, that made-up eye will gradually grow smaller and +smaller, until, at a distance much less than that of the auditorium, it +will really look more like a round black hole than anything else, and +will be absolutely without expression. You have an admirable stage +eye--an actor's eye, sensitive, expressive, well opened, it's a pity to +spoil it with a load of blacking." + +And I said, gratefully: "I'll never do it again, sir," and I never have, +first from respect to a great actor's opinion, and gratitude for his +kindly interest, later having tried his experiment, from the conviction +that he was right, and finally because my tears would have sent inky +rivulets down my cheeks had I indulged in black-banded eyes. So in all +these years of work, just once, in playing a tricky, treacherous, +plotting female, that I felt should be a close-eyed, thin-lipped +creature, I have painted and elongated my eyes, otherwise I have kept my +promise "not to do it again." + +I met Mr. Jefferson in Paris at that dreadful time when he was threatened +with blindness, and I never shall forget his gentle patience, his +marvelous courage. That was a day of real rejoicing to me, when the news +came that his sight was saved. Blindness coming upon any man is a horror, +but to a man who can see nature as Joseph Jefferson sees her it would +have been an almost incredible cruelty. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH + + I See an Actress Dethroned--I Make Myself a Promise, for the World Does + Move. + + +To be discarded by the public, that is the _bête noire_, the +unconquerable dread and terror of the actor. To fail in the great +struggle for supremacy is nothing compared to the agony of falling after +the height has once been won. + +Few people can think of the infamous casting down of the great column +Vendôme without a shiver of pain--the smashing of the memorial tablet, +the shattering of the statue, these are sights to shrink from, yet what +does such shrinking amount to when compared to the pain of seeing a human +being thrust from the sunlight of public popularity into the darkness of +obscurity? + +I was witness once to the discrowning of an actress, and if I could +forget the anguish of her eyes, the pallor beneath her rouge, I would be +a most grateful woman. + +She had been handsome in her prime, handsome in the regular-featured, +statuesque fashion so desirable for an actress of tragic parts; but Mrs. +P---- (for I shall call her only by that initial, as it seems to me that +naming her fully would be unkind) had reached, yes, had passed, middle +age and had wandered far into distant places, had known much sorrow, and, +alas, for her, had not noticed that her profession, like everything +alive, like the great God-made world itself, moved, moved, moved! So not +noticing, she, poor thing, stood still in her method of work, loyally +doing her best in the style of acting that had been so intensely admired +in her triumphant youth. + +She had most successfully starred in Cleveland years before, but at the +time I speak of she was returning from distant parts, widowed and poor, +yet quite, quite confident of her ability to please the public, and with +plans all made to star two, possibly three, years, long enough to secure +a little home and tiny income, when she would retire gracefully from the +sight of the regretful public. Meantime she entreated Mr. Ellsler, if +possible, to give her an engagement, that she might earn money enough to +carry her to New York and see the great agents there. + +By some unlooked-for chance the very next week was open, and rather +tremulously as manager, but kind-heartedly as man, Mr. Ellsler engaged +her for that week. + +The city was billed accordingly: "Mrs. P----, the Queen of +Tragedy!"--"The celebrated Mrs. P----, Cleveland's great +favorite!"--"Especial engagement of Mrs. P----!" etc., etc. + +I had a tiny part in the old Grecian tragedy she opened in. I came early, +as was my wont, and when dressed went out to look at the house--good +heavens! I gasped. Poor? it was worse than poor. Bad? it was worse than +bad. My heart sank for her as I recalled how, that morning, she had +asked, with a little nonchalant air of: "It doesn't really matter, of +course, but do the people here throw their flowers still, or do they send +them up over the footlights?" Flowers? Oh, poor Mrs. P----! + +The overture had ended before she came out of her dressing-room, so she +had no warning of what the house was like. She was all alight with +pleasant anticipation. At a little distance she looked remarkably well; +her Grecian robes hung gracefully, her hair was arranged and filleted +correctly and becomingly, her movements were assured; only looking at the +deeply drawn lines about her mouth, made one regret that her opening +speeches referred so distinctly to her "dewy youth"; but Cleveland was +well used to that sort of contradiction, and I might have taken heart of +grace for her if only she had not looked so very pleased and happy. + +The opening scene of the old-fashioned play was well on when the star +appeared, and smiling graciously--faced the almost empty house. She +halted--she gave the sort of sudden gasp that a dash of icy water in the +face might cause. The humiliating half-dozen involuntary hand-claps that +had greeted her fell into silence as she came fully into view, where she +stood dismayed, stricken--for she was an old actress and she read the +signs aright, she knew this was the great _taboo_. + +Her face whitened beneath her rouge, her lips moved silently. One moment +she turned her back squarely upon the audience, for she knew her face was +anguished, and moved by the same instinct that makes an Indian draw the +blanket across his dying face, or the wounded animal seek deepest +solitude, she sought to hide _her_ suffering from the coldly observant +few. + +With the light stricken from her eyes they looked dull and sunken, while +every nerve and muscle of her poor face seemed a-quiver. It was a +dreadful moment for us who looked on and understood. + +Presently she clinched her hands, drew a long breath, and facing about, +took up the burden of the play, and in cold, flat tones began her part. +She did her best in the old, stilted declamatory style, that was as dead +as many of the men and women were who used to applaud it. Once only the +audience warmed to her a trifle, and as she accepted their half-hearted +"call," her sad eyes roved over the empty spaces of the house, a faint, +tired smile touched her lips, while two great tears coursed down her +cheeks. It was the moment of renunciation! They denied her right to the +crown of popularity, and she, with that piteous smile, bowed to their +verdict, as an actress must. + +At the curtain's final fall her stardom was over. She went very quietly +to Mr. Ellsler and gave him back the engagement he had granted her, +saying, simply: "They do not want me any longer." + +A short time after that, she sat one evening in Mr. Ellsler's family box, +and with wide, astonished eyes gazed at the packed house which greeted +the jig, the clog, the song, the banjo of Miss Lotta, whose innocent +deviltries were bringing her a fortune, and when, in response to a +"call," instead of appearing, Miss Lotta thrust her foot and ankle out +beyond the curtain and wriggled them at the delighted crowd, poor Mrs. +P---- drew her hand across her forehead and said, in bewildered tones: +"But--I don't understand!" + +No, she could not understand, and Miss Lotta had not yet faced New York, +hence John Brougham, the witty, wise, and kindly Irish gentleman, had not +yet had his opportunity of summing up the brilliant and erratic star, as +he did later on in these words: "Act, acting, actress? what are you +thinking of? she's no actress, she's--why, she's a little dramatic +cocktail!" which was a delicious Broughamism and truthful withal. + +But that sad night, when Mrs. P---- first set her feet in the path of +obscurity, I took to myself a lesson, and said: "While I live, I will +move. I will not stand still in my satisfaction, should success ever come +to me--but will try to keep my harness bright by action, in at least an +effort to keep abreast with the world, for verily, verily, it does +move!" + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH + + Mr. Lawrence Barrett the Brilliant and his Brother Joseph the + Unfortunate. + + +There were few stars with whom I took greater pleasure in acting than +with Mr. Lawrence Barrett. I sometimes wonder if even now this profession +really knows what great reason it has to be proud of him. He was a man +respected by all, admired by many, and if loved but by few, theirs was a +love so profound and so tender it amply sufficed. + +We are a censorious people, and just as our greatest virtue is generosity +in giving, so our greatest fault is the eagerness with which we seek out +the mote in our neighbor's eye, without feeling the slightest desire for +the removal of the beam in our own eye. Thus one finds that the first and +clearest memory actors have of Mr. Barrett is of his irascible temper and +a certain air of superiority, not of his erudition, of the high position +he won socially as well as artistically, of the almost Titanic struggle +of his young manhood with adverse circumstances. + +Nor does that imply the slightest malice on their part. Actors, as a +family trait, have a touch of childishness about them which they come by +honestly enough. We all know the farther we get from infancy the weaker +the imagination grows. Now it is imagination that makes the man an actor, +so it is not wonderful if with the powerful creative fancy of childhood +he should also retain a touch of its petulance and self-consciousness. +Thus to many actors Mr. Barrett's greatness is lost sight of in the +memory of some dogmatic utterance or sharp reproval that wounded +self-love. + +It would seem like presumption for me to offer any word of praise for the +artistic work of his later years; the world remembers it; the world +knows, too, how high he climbed, how secure was his position; but twice I +have heard the stories of his earlier years--some from the lips of his +brave wife, once from the lips of that beloved brother Joe, who was yet +his dread and sorrow--and at each telling my throat ached at the pain of +it, while my nerves thrilled with admiration for such endurance, such +splendid determination. + +A paradox is, I believe, something seemingly absurd, yet true in fact. In +that case I was not so very far wrong, in spite of general laughter, +when, after my first rehearsal with him, I termed Mr. Barrett a man of +cold enthusiasm. "But," one cried to me, "you stupid--that's a paradox! +don't you see your words contradict each other?" + +"Well," I answered, with shame-faced obstinacy, "perhaps they do, but +they are not contradicted by _him_. You all call him icy-cold, and _I_ +know he is truly enthusiastic over the possibilities of this play, so +that makes what I call cold enthusiasm, however par-a-paradoxy (?) _it_ +sounds." + +And now, after all the years, I can approve that childish judgment. He +was a man whose intellectual enthusiasm was backed by a cold +determination that would never let him say "die" while he had breath in +his body and a stage to rehearse on. + +I have a miserable memory for names, and often in the middle of a remark +the name I intended to mention will pass from my remembrance utterly; so, +all my life, I have had the very bad habit of trying to make my hearers +understand whom I meant by imitating or mentioning some trait peculiar to +the nameless one, and I generally succeeded. + +As, for instance, when I wished to tell whom I had seen taking away a +certain book, I said: "It was Mr.--er--er, oh, you know, Mr.--er, why +this man," and I pulled in my head like a turtle and hitched up my +shoulders to my ears, and the anxious owner cried: "Oh, Thompson has it, +has he?" Thompson having, so far as _we_ could see, no neck at all--my +pantomime suggested his name. + +Everyone can recall the enormous brow of Mr. Barrett, and how beneath his +great, burning eyes his cheeks hollowed suddenly in, thinning down to his +sensitive mouth. I was on the stage in New Orleans, the first morning of +my engagement there (I was under Mr. Daly's management, but he had loaned +me for a fortnight), and I started out with: "Mr. Daly said to please ask +Mr.----," away went the name--goodness gracious, should I forget my own +name next! + +The stage manager suggested: "Mr. Rogers." + +"No, oh, no! I mean Mr.--er--er," and I trailed off helplessly. + +"Mr. Seymour?" offered a lady. + +"No, no! that's not it!" I cried; "why, goodness mercy me! you all know +whom I mean--the--the actor with the _hungry eyes_?" + +"Oh, Barrett!" they shouted, all save one voice, that with a mighty laugh +cried out: "That's my brother Larry, God bless him! no one could miss +that description, for sure he looks as hungry to-day as ever he did when +he felt hungry to his heart's core!" + +And so it was that I first met poor Joe Barrett, who worshipped the +brother whose sore torment he was. For this great, broad-shouldered, +ruddy-faced fellow with the boyish laugh had ever in his veins the +craving for liquor--that awful inherited appetite that can nullify prayer +and break down the most fixed determination. + +"Ah!" he cried to me, "no one, no one can ever know how good Larry has +been to me, for while he is fighting and struggling to rise, every little +while some lapse of mine drags him back a bit. Yet he never casts me +off--never disowns me. He has had to discharge me for the sake of +discipline here, but he has re-engaged me. He has sent me away, but he +has taken me back again. I promise, and fail to keep my promise. I fall, +and he picks me up. Through the cursed papers I have dragged my brother +through the mud, but the sweet Saviour could hardly forgive me more fully +than Larry does, for, look you, he never forgets that I am the son of my +father, who was accursed before me, while he is the son of our poor +mother--blessed be her name! It isn't that I don't try. I keep straight +until the agony of longing begins to turn into a mad desire to do bodily +harm to someone--anyone, and then, fearing worse, I drink my fill, and +the papers find me out, and are not content to tell of the disgraceful +condition of Joseph Barrett, but must add, always, 'the brother of the +prominent actor, Mr. Lawrence Barrett.' Poor Larry! poor little delicate +chap that he used to be, with his big, brainy head--too heavy for his +weak neck and frail body to carry." + +And then he told me of their sorrowful life, their poverty. The +often-idle father and his dislike for the delicate boy, whose only moment +of happiness was when the weary mother, the poor supper over, sat for a +little to breathe and rest, and held his heavy head upon her loving +breast, while Joe sang his songs or told all the happenings of the day. + +That happy Joe, who had no pride and was quite as satisfied without a +seat to his small trousers as with one! Then he told me how hard it was +for Lawrence to learn; how he had to grind and grind at the simplest +lesson, but once having acquired it, it was his for life. + +"Why, even now," said he, "in confidence I'm telling you, my brother is +studying like a little child at French, and it does seem that he cannot +learn it. He works so desperately over it, a doctor has warned him he +must choose between French and his many 'parts' or break down from +overwork. But he _will_ go on hammering at his _parlez-vous_ until he +learns them or dies trying." + +"If you were to live with your brother, might not that help to keep you +strong?" I asked. + +"Now, my dear little woman," he smiled, "Larry is human, in some +respects, if he is almost God-like toward me. Remember he has a young +family now, and though his wife is as good as gold and always patient +with me, I am not the kind of example a man would care to place before +his little ones, and as Lawrence is devoured with ambition for them and +their future, he rightly guards them from too close contact with the drag +and curse of his own life, in whom he, and he alone, can see the sturdy +tow-headed brother of the old boyish days, who saved him from many and +many a kick and thump his delicate body could ill have borne." + +Joe told me of his dead wife--Viola Crocker that was--the niece of Mrs. +Bowers and Mrs. Conway; of their happiness and their misery. Describing +himself as having been "in heaven or in hell--without any betwixts and +betweens." His devotion to me was very great. He was "hard-up" for money, +as the men express it, but he would manage to bring me a single rose or +one bunch of grapes or a half-dozen mushrooms or some such small offering +every day; and learning of his bitter mortification because he could not +hire a carriage to take me out to see the curious old French cemetery, I +made him supremely happy by expressing a desire to ride in one of those +funny bob-tailed, mule-drawn street-cars--the result being a trip by my +mother, Mr. Barrett, and myself to the famous cemetery. + +I don't know that I ever heard anyone sing Irish and Scottish ballads +more tenderly, more pathetically than did Joe Barrett, and as my mother +was very fond of old songs, he used to sit and sing one after another for +her. That day there was no one in the crawling little car but we three, +and presently he began to sing. But, oh, what was it that he sang? Irish, +unmistakably--a lament, rising toward its close into the _keen_ of some +clan. It wrung the very heart. + +"Don't!" I exclaimed. My mother's face was turned away, my throat ached, +even Joe's eyes had filled. "What is it?" I asked. + +"I don't know its name," he answered, "I have always put it on programmes +as 'A Lament.' I learned it from an Irish emigrant-lad, who was from the +North, and who was dying fast from consumption and home-hunger. Is not +that wail chilling? As he gave the song it seemed like a message from the +dying." + +At the end of our stroll among the flowers and trees and past those +strange stone structures that look so like serious-minded bake-ovens, +having to wait for a car, we sat on a stone bench, and in that quiet city +of the dead Joe's voice rose, tenderly reverent, in that simple air that +was yet an anguish of longing, followed by a wail for the dead. + +My mother wept silently. I said, softly: "It's a plaint and a farewell," +and Joe brought his eyes back from the great cross, blackly silhouetted +against the flaming sky, and slowly said: "Beloved among women, it is a +message--a message from the dying or the dead, believe that." + +And a time came when--well, when _almost_ I did believe that. + +Later on, when Mr. Barrett stood second only to Mr. Booth in his +profession, well established, well off, well dressed, polished and +refined of manner, aye, and genial, too, to those he liked, I came by +accident upon a most gracious act of his and, following it up, found him +deep in a conspiracy to deceive a stricken woman into receiving the aid +her piteous determination to stand alone made impossible to offer openly. +I looked at the generous, prosperous, intellectual, intensely active +gentleman, surrounded by clever wife and the pretty, thoroughly educated +daughters, who were chaperoned in all their walks to and from park or +music-lesson or shopping-trip, and I wondered at the distance little +"Larry," with the heavy head and frail body, had traveled, and bowed +respectfully to such magnificent energy. + +Even then there arose a cry from the profession that Mr. Barrett was +dictatorial, that he assumed airs of superiority. Mr. Barrett was +wrapped up, soul and body, in the proper production of the play in hand. +He was keenly observant and he was sensitive. When an actor had his mind +fixed upon a smoke or a glass of beer, and cared not one continental +dollar whether the play failed or succeeded, so long as he got his +"twenty dollars per--," Mr. Barrett knew it, and became "dictatorial" in +his effort to force the man into doing his work properly. I worked with +him, both as a nobody and as somebody, and I know that an honest effort +to comprehend and carry out his wishes was recognized and appreciated. + +As for his airs of superiority--well, the fact is he was superior to +many. He was intellectual and he was a student to the day of his death. +When work at the theatre was over he turned to study. He never was well +acquainted with Tom and Dick, nor yet with Harry. His back fitted a +lamp-post badly. He would not have known how "to jolly the crowd." He was +not a full, voluminous, and ready story-teller for the boys, who called +him cold and hard. God knows he had needed the coldness and the so-called +hardness, or how could he have endured the privations of the long journey +from his weary mother's side to this position of honor. + +Cold, hard, dictatorial, superior? Well, there is a weak lean-on-somebody +sort of woman, who will love any man who will feed and shelter her--she +doesn't count. But when a clear-minded, business-like, clever woman, a +wife for many years, loves her husband with the tenderest sentiment and +devotion, I'm ready to wager something that it was _tenderness_ and +_devotion_ in the husband that first aroused like sentiments in the wife. + +Mrs. Barrett was shrewd, far-seeing, business-like--a devoted and +watchful mother, but her love for her husband had still the freshness, +the delicate sentiment of young wifehood. When she thought fit, she +bullied him shamefully; when she thought fitter, she "guyed" him +unmercifully. Think of that! And it was delightful to see the great, +solemn-eyed personification of dignity smilingly accepting her buffets. + +But, oh, to hear that wife tell of the sorrows and trials they had faced +together, of their absurd makeshifts, of their small triumphs over +poverty, of Lawrence's steady advance in his profession, of that +beautiful day when they moved into a little house all by themselves, when +he became, as he laughingly boasted, "a householder, not a forlorn, +down-trodden boarder!" + +Their family, besides themselves, then consisted of one little girl and +Lawrence's beloved old mother, and he had a room to study in in peace, +and the two women talked and planned endlessly about curtains and +furniture, and--oh, well, about some more very small garments that would, +God willing, be needed before a very great while. And one day Lawrence +looked about his little table, and said: "It's too good, it can't last, +it can't!" and the women kissed him and laughed at him; yet all the time +he was right, it did not last. An awful bolt seemed to fall from the blue +sky. It was one of those pitiful disasters that sometimes come upon the +very old--particularly to those who have endured much, suffered much, as +had the elder Mrs. Barrett in the past. + +I wept as I heard the story of the devoted son's dry-eyed agony, of the +awful fears his condition aroused in the minds of those close to him, and +then suddenly she, the wife, had been stricken down, and her danger and +that of the tiny babe had brought him to his old self again. + +He worked on then for some months, grateful for the sparing of his dear +ones, when quite suddenly and painlessly the stricken old mother passed +from sleep to life everlasting. Then when Joseph was to be summoned--Joe +who worshipped the mother's footprint in the dust--he was not to be +found. He had fallen again into disgrace, had been discharged, had +disappeared, no one knew whither. + +"Oh, dear Father!" cried Mrs. Barrett, "what did not Lawrence suffer for +Joe! knowing what his agony would be when he knew all--but we could do no +more. The funeral took place. White as marble, Lawrence sent us all +home, and himself waited till the last clod of earth was piled upon the +grave; then waited till the men had gone, waited to kneel and pray a +moment before leaving the old mother there alone. And as he knelt he +noted how nearly dark it was, and thought he must not linger long or the +gates would be locked upon him. As he rose from his knees, he was +startled to see, through the dusk, a tall form coming toward him. It +would dodge behind a monument, and after a moment's pause would come a +little nearer. Suddenly the drooping, lurching figure became familiar to +him. With a groan he hid himself behind a tombstone and waited--waited +until suspicion became certainty, and he knew that the bent, weary +funeral guest was his brother, Joe! + +"He held his peace until the wanderer found his way along the darkening +path to that pathetic stretch of freshly broken earth, where, with an +exceeding bitter cry, he flung his arms above his head and fell all his +length along the grave that held the sweetest and the holiest thing God +had ever given him, an honest, loving mother, and clutched the damp clods +in his burning hands, and gasped out: 'Oh, mother! I have hungered and I +have tramped with the curse upon me, too; I have hungered and tramped so +far, so far, hoping just to be in time to see your dear face once more, +and now they've shut you away from me, from the bad boy you never turned +your patient eyes away from! Oh, mother! whatever can I do without you, +all alone! all alone!' + +"At that child-like cry from the broken man, prostrate on the grave, +Lawrence Barrett's heart turned to water, and kneeling down he lifted to +his breast the tear-blurred, drink-blemished face of his brother, and +kissed him as his mother might have done. Thus they prayed together for +the repose of the soul of their beloved, and then, with his arm about the +wanderer, to steady his failing steps, Lawrence led him to his little +home, and, as they entered, he turned and said: 'Joe, can't you take back +those words, "all alone," can't you?' and Joe nodded his head, and +throwing his arms about his brother's neck, answered: 'Never alone, while +my little brother Larry lives and forgives!'" + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH + + I play "Marie" to Oblige--Mr. Barrett's Remarkable Call--Did I Receive + a Message from the Dying or the Dead? + + +From the time when, as a ballet-girl, I was called forward and given the +part of _Marie_ in "The Marble Heart," a play Mr. Barrett was starring +in, to the then distant day of that really splendid combination with Mr. +Edwin Booth, I never saw the former when he was not burning with +excitement over some production he had in mind, if not yet in rehearsal. +Even in his sleep he saw perfect pictures of scenery not yet painted, +just as before "Ganalon" he used to dream of sharp lance and gay pennon +moving in serried ranks, of long lines of nobles and gentlemen who wore +the Cross of the Crusader. + +His friends were among the highest of God's Aristocracy of Brains--'twas +odd that sculptors, artists, poets, thinkers should strike hands with so +"cold" a man and call him friend! + +I remember well the dismayed look that came upon his face when I was +ordered from the ballet ranks to take the place of the lady--a hard, +high-voiced soubrette, who was to have played _Marie_, had not a sore +throat mercifully prevented her. But at my first "Thank you--I'd rather +go--yonder--," pointing to the distant convent, his eyes widened, +suddenly a sort of tremor came to his lips. He was at my side in an +instant, telling me to indicate my convent as on the opposite side, so +that my own attitude would be more picturesque to the audience. Between +the acts he said to me: "Have you any opinion of _Marie_, Miss er--er?" + +"My name's 'just Clara,'" I kindly interjected. + +"Well," he smiled, "'just Clara,' have you formed any idea of this +_Marie's_ character?" + +"Why," I answered, "to me she seems a perfect walking gratitude; in real +life she would be rather dog-like, I'm afraid; but in the play she is +just beautiful." + +He looked solemnly at me, and then he said: "And _you_ are just +beautiful, too, for you are a little thinking actress. Now if you have +the power of expressing what you think, do you know I am very honestly +interested, 'just Clara,' in your share of to-night's work." + +The play went well as a whole, and as _Marie_ is one of the most tenderly +pathetic creations conceivable, I sat and wept as I told her story; but +imagine my amazement when, as Mr. Barrett bent over my hand, a great hot +tear fell from his cheek upon it. + +"Oh, my girl," he said, when the play was over, "don't let anything on +God's footstool dishearten you. Work! work! you have such power, such +delicacy of expression with it--you _are Marie_, the little stupidly +religious, dog-like 'Marie the resigned,' that you have renamed for me +'Marie the grateful.'" + +When I was leading woman he wished to do that play for a single night. Of +course _Marco_ belonged to me, but the big, handsome, cold-voiced second +woman could well talk through _Marco_, while she would (artistically +speaking) damn _Marie_. Mr. Barrett was very hungry-eyed, there was +positive famine in them, as he mournfully said: "I would give a great +deal to hear you tell _Marie's_ story again--to see you and your little +bundle and bandaged foot. Such a clever touch that--that bandaged foot, +no other _Marie_ dares do that; but you have turned your back on the +'grateful one'; you can't afford to do her again." + +"Mr. Barrett," I asked, "do you wish me to play _Marie_ now?" + +"Do I wish it?" he echoed, "I wish it with all my heart, but I have no +right to ask a sacrifice from you even if it would benefit the whole +performance, as well as give me a personal pleasure." + +"If the manager does not object," I said, "I am quite willing to give up +the leading part and play _Marie_ again." + +He held my hands, he fairly stammered for a moment, then he said: "You +are an _artiste_ and a brave and generous girl. I shall remember this +action of yours, 'just Clara,' always." + +The amazed manager, after some objection, having consented, I once more +put on the rusty black gown, took my small bundle, and asked of the gay +ladies from Paris my way to the convent, yonder--finding in the tears of +the audience and the excellence of the general performance, full reward +for playing second fiddle that evening. + +In my early married days, when the great coffee-urn was still a menace to +my composure and dignity, at a little home-dinner, when Mr. William +Black, the famous writer of Scottish novels, honored me by his presence +on my right, Mr. Barrett on my left, moved, no one knows by what freak of +memory, lifted his glass, and, speaking low, said: "'Just Clara,' your +health!" + +I laughed a little, and was nodding back, when Mr. Black, who saw +everything through those glasses of his, cried out: "Favoritism, +favoritism! why, bless my heart, I drank your health ten minutes ago, and +you never blushed a blush for me! And I am chief guest, and on the right +hand of the hostess--explanations are now in order!" + +And Mr. Barrett said that he would explain on their way to the club, +whereupon Mr. Black wrinkled up his nose delightedly, and said he +"scented a story"--"and, oh," he cried, "it's the sweetest scent in the +world, the most fascinating trail to follow!" + +But I was thankful that he did not hunt down his quarry then and there, +for he could be as mischievous as a squirrel and as persistent as any +_enfant terrible_, if he thought you were depriving him of a story. + +Though tears creep into my eyes at the same moment, yet must I laugh +whenever I think of Mr. Barrett's last "call" upon me. We were +unknowingly stopping in the same hotel. On the way to the dining-room for +a bit of lunch, Mr. Harriott and Mr. Barrett met, exchanged greetings, +and when the latter found I was not going to luncheon, and was moreover +suffering from a most severe attack of neuralgia, he asked if he could +not call upon me for a few moments. + +Mr. Harriott looked doubtful, and while he hesitated, Mr. Barrett hastily +added: "Of course I shall merely say 'How do you do,' and express my +sympathy, since I know something about neuralgia myself--that's all." + +Upon which they turned back, and Mr. Harriott ushered the unexpected, the +spick-and-span caller into my presence, with the reassuring word: "Mr. +Barrett is sparing a moment or two of his time, Clara, to express his +sympathy for you." + +When a woman knows she is an "object," words of welcome for the +unexpected visitor are apt to come haltingly from the tongue, and that I +was an "object" no one can deny. A loose, pink dressing-gown was bad, a +knit white shawl huddled about the shoulders was worse, but, oh, worst of +all, my hair was all scrambled up to the top of my head (hair was dressed +low then), and a broad handkerchief bandage concealed from the eye, but +not from the nose, the presence of a remedial poultice of flour and +brandy. + +Truly it is such acts as this that brings many a well-meaning but +apparently demented husband into the divorce court. Now any friend, +relative, or servant would have bravely but politely prevaricated to the +last gasp rather than have admitted a caller to me in that state, but +husbands have no discretion, husbands have no--well, that's too large a +contract, so I'll keep to that call. + +I was aghast for a moment, but the warm pressure of Mr. Barrett's hand, +his brightening eye gave me such an impression of sincerity in his +pleased greeting that I forgot I was an "object," and asked him to sit +down for a chat, as eagerly as though I had had all my war-paint on. + +We were soon exchanging memories of the past, and Mr. Harriott, having a +business engagement ahead, excused himself and withdrew. Mr. Barrett, +calling after him: "I'll join you in a moment," resumed his conversation. +There still stood on the table a pot of tea and a plate holding two +pieces of toast. They had been meant for my lunch, but neuralgia had the +call, and lunch had been ignored; so, as we talked on and on, presently +Mr. Barrett, seeing my bandage sliding down over my eyes, rose, and, +without pausing in his rapid description of a certain picture he had seen +abroad in its creator's studio, he passed behind me, tightened the knot +of the handkerchief, put the sofa-pillow behind my head, a stool under my +feet, and resumed his seat. + +Then I talked and talked, and grew excited, then thirsty. I drew the tray +nearer and poured out a cup of tea. + +"Give me some," said Mr. Barrett, who was now telling me about a sitting +of Parliament in London. + +"Let me order some that's fresh," I replied. + +"No, no!" he cried, impatiently, "that will be such an interruption--no, +no!" + +I gave him then a cup of cold tea. Presently I broke off a bit of the +stiff and repellant toast, with its chilled, pale gleam of butter, and +nibbled it. His hand went forth and broke off a bit also. We were on a +new poem then, and Mr. Barrett seemed thrilling to his fingertips with +the delight of it. He repeated lines; I questioned his reading; we +experimented, placing emphasis first on this word, then on that. We +generally agreed, but we came an awful cropper over Gladstone. + +How fiercely we clashed over the grand old man those who knew Mr. Barrett +will guess from the fact that during the fray he excitedly undid two +buttons of his tight frock-coat. The ends of his white silk muffler now +hung down his back, fluttering when he moved like a small pair of white +wings. I have a recollection, too, of his rising, and, apparently +unconscious of his act, lighting the gas, while he passionately demanded +of me the reason why Dickens could not create a real woman. + +At last we came up hard and fast against _Hamlet_. The air was thick with +stories. Part of the time we talked together in our eagerness. Mr. +Barrett's coat was quite unbuttoned; the curl on his wide brow had grown +as frizzly as any common curl might grow. Two round, red spots spread +over his high cheek-bones, his eyes were hungrily glowing; he had just +taken a long breath and made a start on an audience with the Pope, when +Mr. Harriott entered and said: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrett, there's a +man outside who is very anxiously inquiring for you." + +"For me?" exclaimed Mr. Barrett, with astonishment, "that's rather +impertinent, it seems to me!" + +Suddenly he noticed the gas-light. He started violently, he pulled out +his watch, then sprang to his feet, crying: "Good God! Harriott, that's +my dresser looking for me--I ought to be in my dressing-room. What will +Mr. Booth think has become of me, and what, in heaven's name, do you +think of me?" + +He hastily buttoned himself into rigidity, rescued the flying ends of his +muffler, and holding my hands for a moment, he laughed: "You are not only +'just Clara,' but you are the only Clara that would make me so utterly +forgetful of all rules of etiquette. Forgive, and good-by!" and he made +an astonishingly hasty exit. + +That "call," that lasted from one till seven, with the accompanying +picture of the stately Lawrence Barrett drinking cold tea and eating +stiff cold toast, while he talked brilliantly of all things under heaven, +is one of my quaintest memories. + +One loves to think of those years of his close relations with Mr. Booth. +Artistically, the combination was an ideal one; commercially, it was a +most successful one; while it certainly brought out qualities of +gentleness and devotion in Mr. Barrett that the public had not +accredited him with. + +The position of manager and co-star was a difficult one, and only +Barrett's loving comprehension of Booth's peculiarities, as well as his +greatness, made that position tenable. Mr. Booth loathed business +details; he was sorrowful and weary; he had tasted all the sweets the +world had to offer, but only their under tang of bitterness was left upon +his lips. He had grown coldly indifferent to the call of the public, but +Mr. Barrett believed that under this ash of lassitude there still glowed +the clear fire of genius, and when they went forth to try their great +experiment, Mr. Booth found himself respected, honored, guarded as any +woman might have been. He was asked no questions about scene or scenery, +about play or percentage--his privacy and peace were ever of the first +consideration. Mr. Barrett was his agent, manager, stage-manager, friend, +co-worker, and dramatic guardian angel--all he asked of him in return was +to act. + +And how splendidly Mr. Booth responded the public can well remember. As +he said laughingly to a friend, at the end of the first season: "Good +work, eh? well, why should I not do good work, after all Barrett has done +for me. Why, I never knew what c-o-m-f-o-r-t spelled before. I +arrive--someone says: 'Here's your room, Mr. Booth.' I go in and smoke. +At night, someone says: 'Here's your dressing-room, sir,' and I go in and +dress, yes, and smoke, and then act. That's all, absolutely all that I +have to do, except to put out my hand and take my surprisingly big share +of the receipts now and then. Good work, eh? well, I'll give him the best +that's in me, he deserves it." + +And in the beautiful friendship that grew up between the melancholy, +gentle Booth and the nervously energetic Barrett I believe each gave to +the other the best that was in him. + +Before leaving the Barretts I should like to mention an odd happening +connected with Joe and my visit to New Orleans, where the theatre was +under the management of Lawrence Barrett and Mr. Rogers. The company had +taken for me one of those quick likings peculiar to our people; +principally, I think, because being a temporary star (by the grace of Mr. +Daly's will) they had expected me to be haughtily dictatorial, instead of +shy to the point of misery, and because of their mistake they treated me +like a long-sought sister, instead of the stranger I was. + +They publicly presented me with a gift on my last night, and almost in a +body saw my mother and myself off on our Sunday night start for home. +Everyone had left the car but big, hearty Joe Barrett--he still clung +silently to my hands, though my mother begged him to go before he met +with an injury. The train was out of the depot--the speed increasing +rapidly, before he dropped off, safely landing just beneath a light, high +above his head. His hat was off, his empty hand held out toward me, and +in that light his face was as the face of the sorrowful dead. It chilled +me, all my high spirits flattened down suddenly; I turned, and said: "Did +_you_ see, mother?" and she answered: "It was the light, and his +unhappiness, that made him look so like a--so sad," so I knew she had +seen him as I had. + +Our journey was saddened by an accident, and when the train backed to +take up the creature it had crushed, not knowing what had happened, by +chance, I glanced down from the window, full into the face of the victim +as they bore him past. He had been a large, broad-shouldered man, and the +still, white face was so like Barrett's that I almost fainted. Everyone +in the car seemed to feel some measure of culpability for the mishap; and +at every unusual jolt or jar we looked with frightened eyes from the +windows, dreading lest another stretcher might be borne into view. At +last we were at home, and in work I regained my usual spirits. + +A few weeks, three or four, had passed. One morning I awakened myself +from a dreamless sleep by my own singing. I faced the blank wall. I +smiled sleepily at the absurdity of the thing, then I grew more awake, +and as I sang on, I said to myself: "What is it--why, what can it be, +that I am singing?" + +There were no words to this mournful, heart-breaking air, that ended with +a wail, long and weird. + +"Mother," I called, the door being open between our rooms, "Mother, did +you hear me singing just now?" + +"Well, yes," she replied, "since I am not deaf, I heard you very +plainly." + +"Oh," I cried, "can you tell me what it was I sang?" + +My mother raised her head and looked in at me surprisedly: "Why, what is +the matter with you, child--aren't you awake, that you don't know what +you are doing? You were singing 'the lament' Joe Barrett sang in the +French cemetery." + +"Oh!" I cried, in late-coming recognition, "you are right." I scrambled +up, and thrusting back my hair from my face, started to sing it again, +and lo! not a note could I catch. Again and again I tried; I shut my eyes +and strove to recall that wail--no use. Then, remembering what a memory +my mother had for _airs_ heard but once or twice, I called: "Dear, can't +you start 'the lament' for me, I have lost it entirely?" + +She opened her lips, paused, looked surprised, then said, positively: "I +might never have heard it, I can't get either its beginning or ending." + +I sprang from the bed, and in bare, unslippered feet, ran to the piano in +the front room--no use; I never again heard, waking or sleeping, another +note of "the lament." + +Mother called out presently: "Do you know what time it is? Go back and +finish your sleep, it's not quite six o'clock." + +As I obediently returned to my room, I said, in a troubled voice: "What +do you suppose it means, mother?" and as she snuggled her head back upon +her pillow, she laughingly answered: "Oh, I suppose it's a sign you are +going to hear from Joe Barrett soon. If you do, I hope it won't be +anything bad, poor fellow!" for mother liked the "big Irish boy," as she +called him. + +I fell asleep again, but was up and ready at nine for our rather-foreign +breakfast of coffee, rolls, and salad. Now in our partnership mother was +mistress of the house, and I, doing the outside work, being the +wage-winner, was the _man_ of the house, and as such had the master's +inalienable right to the morning paper with my coffee. That the mistress +occasionally peeped at the headlines before the _master_ rose was a fact +judiciously ignored by both, so long as the paper was ever found neatly +folded beside the waiting coffee-cup. Imagine then my surprise when, +coming into the room, I found my mother sitting at table with the badge +of authority in her own hands, and my cup standing shorn of all its +dignity. She avoided my eye, and hastily pouring coffee, said: "Drink it +while it's hot, dear, and--and I'll just glance at the paper a moment." + +I sat back and stared, and I was just beginning to laugh at our small +comedy when I discovered that mother, she of the rock-steady nerves, was +trembling. Without looking up, she said again: "Drink your coffee--I'll +give you the paper presently." + +I sipped a little and watched. She was not reading a line. I put down the +cup. "Mother," said I, "is there anything in that paper that will +interest me?" + +She looked up hastily: "Drink your coffee, and I'll----" + +"Is there?" I broke in. + +Tears rose in her eyes. "Y-y-yes," she stammered, "there is something +here that will interest--rather that will grieve you, but if you would +please take your coffee!" + +I caught up the cup and emptied it at a draught, then held out my hand. +Mother gave me the paper and left the room; as her first sob reached my +ear, I read: "Sudden death of the actor, Joseph Barrett." I sat staring +stupidly, and before I saw another word there came to my ears the +shivering of leaves, and a grave voice, saying: "It is a message from the +dying or--the dead--believe that." + +"What," I asked, dully, "what is a message?" and then the blood chilled +at my heart as I recalled "the lament," Joe had said: "It is a message +from the dying--or the dead." + +After rehearsal, Mr. Daly wished to see me in his bit of a +staircase-office in front of the house. He desired help in deciding about +several scenes he meant to have built from old engravings. Suddenly he +came to a stand-still. "What's the matter with you?" he cried; "where are +your splendid spirits? you have been absent and heavy all morning--what's +the matter?" + +"Oh, nothing much," I began, when he angrily interrupted: "For heaven's +sake, spare me that senseless answer. If you won't tell me, say so. +Refuse me your confidence, if you choose, but don't treat me as though I +were a fool by saying _nothing_, when you look as if you'd seen a ghost!" + +"Oh, don't!" I cried, and astonished my irate manager by bursting into +tears. He instantly became gentle, and forcing a thimbleful of +_Chartreuse_ (which I loath) upon me, he once more asked what was the +matter. + +And then I told him of the dying emigrant--of Joe's feeling for me--of +the singing of "the lament," and at Joe's words: "It's a message from the +dying, or the dead." + +Mr. Daly's fingers trembled like aspen leaves, his eyes dilated to +perfect blackness, and almost he whispered the words: "Well, +child--well?" + +I told of the song, begun in sleep, continued in wakefulness to its +wailing end, and then lost--utterly lost! And leaning his pale face +eagerly toward me, Mr. Daly exclaimed: "He proved his words, good God! +don't you see that--that air was his message to you? a message from the +dying or the dead!" his fingers nervously sought the little amulet he +wore. + +"But," I objected, "he had been dead many hours before the song came to +me?" + +When, with the utmost conviction, he instantly answered: "Think how far +you were asunder--what a distance he had to come to you!" + +Being a very practical young person, a smile was rising to my lips, but a +glance into his earnest eyes, that had become strange and mystic, checked +it. + +"I shall tell Father D----y of this," he said, half to himself, then, +looking at me, he added: "The man loved you greatly, whatever he may +have been, for you have received his message--whether it came from the +man dying or the man dead. Go home, child; never mind about the scenes +to-day--go home!" + +And with that weird idea firmly fixed in his mind, he dismissed me. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH + + I accept an Engagement with Mr. Macaulay for Cincinnati as Leading + Lady--My Adieus to Cleveland--Mr. Ellsler Presents Me with a Watch. + + +After years of weary waiting, years of patient work, I had reached the +position of juvenile leads _de jure_, but of general lack _de facto_, and +then, lacking as my character was in the element of "push," even _I_ +could see plainly that I was throwing away myself and my chances in life +by remaining in a position where I faced the sign of "No thoroughfare." + +That Mrs. Ellsler would retain the leading business while her husband +retained a theatre was certain. I knew positively that some of +Cleveland's leading business men, sturdy supporters of the theatre, +finding that their mildly expressed dissatisfaction with the make-up of +the company was ignored, had written and plainly asked for a change, just +as Mr. Ellsler, every two years, changed the comedian, leading man, etc., +etc. They declared that his business would double in consequence; and +this was submitted with the kindliest intentions and no wish to wound +anyone, etc., and they were, with great respect--various business men. + +At all events, when the letter had produced embarrassed discomfort in one +quarter and fierce anger in another, it became inactive. I rightly judged +that the "No thoroughfare" sign was permanent--there was no further +advancement possible in that theatre; therefore I rejoiced greatly when I +had an engagement offered me, even though, for reasons touching the +reputation of the manager who wrote, I refused it--still an offer of +leading business heartened me, and I felt gratefully sure some star had +spoken a kind word in my behalf. There was so much hanging upon that +possible engagement, too; it meant more than advancement professionally, +more than gratified ambition. Never yet had I been able to go beyond the +taking care of myself and lending a helping hand in sickness to my +mother; while, to my unsleeping distress, my bitter mortification, she +had still to work. We were still apart, save for my regular weekly visit, +and such a small increase in salary would have made it possible for us to +live together, after a manner, in a very small way, but we would rather +have been half alive and together than have thrilled with superabundant +vitality while separated. + +As my services had never seemed to be regarded seriously by anyone but +the star of the especial occasion, I was not utterly taken aback when I +found my intention of stepping bravely out into the big world received +with surprise and cold disapproval. Really, I was almost convinced that I +had still the very a-b-abs of my business yet to learn, that I was rash +and headstrong and all puffed up with strange, unseemly vanity; but just +as I was sinking back to that "old-slipper" state of mind desired, a +letter came from the well-known, thoroughly established actor-manager, +Mr. Barney Macaulay, who offered me the leading business at Wood's +Museum, Cincinnati, O. + +The salary was very small, but I understood perfectly that any manager +would offer as small a salary to any actress whose _first_ season it was +as leading woman. + +Oh, my! oh, my! but there followed a period of scant sunshine, of hot +argument, of cold and cautious advice, of terrifying hints of lacking +qualities. Want of dignity, of power, of authority! The managerial forces +were winning all along the line of argument, when, like many another +combatant who faces annihilation, I took a desperate chance; I called up +every dissatisfied speech of my absent mother, every complaint, regret, +reproach, every word of disappointment, of vexation, of urging, of +goading, of stern command, and arming these words with parental authority +I mounted them upon a mother's fierce wrath, and thus, as cavalry, +recklessly hurled them at full charge upon the enemy's line. I had no +infantry of proof to support my cavalry's move, it was sheer desperation; +but Fortune is a fickle jade, she sprang suddenly to my side. The +managerial lines broke before the mother's charge, and before he had them +reformed I had written Mr. Macaulay that I was ready to consider to +accept the offered engagement, if, etc., etc., and then put on my hat and +jacket and went forth and cleverly showed, first the offered engagement +to arouse my victimized parent's hopes, then descanted upon the +opposition offered to my acceptance of it, and when _she_ was warmed with +indignation I confessed to using her as my principal weapon--even +admitted making up some speeches, and being hot and pleased, indignant +and proud, she forgave me, and I bit my lips hard to keep silence about a +great hope that she might possibly go with me to that new engagement; +but, to spare her a possible disappointment, I held my peace. + +Later, when everything was seemingly settled and only the contract left +to sign, came the amazing suggestion from Mr. Macaulay, that, because of +my youth, I would undoubtedly be perfectly willing to let him reserve a +few heavy _parts_ for his wife's acting. It is quite needless for me to +explain that the few _parts_ to be reserved were the choicest of the +legitimate drama. And then an amusing thing came to pass. I, who was so +lacking in self-confidence, so backward and retiring, so easily cast down +by a look of disapprobation, suddenly developed (on paper) an ability to +stand up for my rights that was startling. By return mail I informed Mr. +Macaulay that my youth did not affect me in the manner he anticipated; +that I was not willing to resign all those important parts to another--no +matter whose wife that other happened to be. + +A long, argumentative, soothing sort of letter came back to me, ending +with the positive conviction that I would yield two parts to his +wife--great pets of hers they were, too, and one of them being _Lady +Macbeth_, I would of course be grateful to have it taken off my hands, +while _Julia_, in "The Hunchback," had really come to be considered, in +Cincinnati, as Miss Johnson's special property--Miss Rachael Johnson +being the stage name of Mrs. Macaulay. + +Had he asked two _parts_ in the first place I would have granted them, +but now my blood was up (on paper, mind you), and with swift decision I +boldly threw the engagement up, declaring I would be the leading woman or +nothing. For, you see, I had been in the frying-pan of one family theatre +all my dramatic life, and I was not willing to throw myself at once into +the fire of another one. + +The next letter contained a great surprise: a couple of signed contracts +and a pleasant request for me too to sign both and return one +immediately. Then the writer quite gently regretted my inability to grant +his request, but closed by expressing his respect for my firmness in +demanding my rights; and straightway I signed my first contract; went out +and mailed one copy, and when I returned I had made up my mind to take +the great risk--I had decided that my mother should never again receive +commands from anyone. That my shoulders were strong enough to bear the +welcome burden, and so we would face the new life and its possible +sufferings together--_together_, that was the main thing. + +As I stood before the glass, smoothing my hair, I gravely bowed to my +reflection, and said: "Accept my congratulations and best wishes, 'Wood's +leading lady,'" and then fell upon the bed and sobbed, as foolish +nerve-strained women will; because, you see, the way had been so long and +sometimes so hard, dear Lord! so hard, but by His mercy I had won one +goal--I was a leading woman! + +And then began my good-by to the city that I loved. I had lived in so +many of its streets; I had attended so many of its schools, and still +more of its churches. There was the great lake, too. I had sailed on it, +had been wrecked on it, but against that I set the memory of those days +when, in night-gown bath-dress, I reveled in its blue waters on Fourth of +July family picnics. + +One church--old Bethel on Water Street--I hated, because the +Sunday-school superintendent had been a hypocrite, and we knew it, and +because in every one of its library books the good child died at the end, +which was very discouraging to youthful minds. + +Another church, on Prospect Street, I loved, because that Sunday-school +teacher had been so gentle and smiling and had worn such pretty pink +flowers in her bonnet. + +Then there was the fountain in the square. I laughed as I said good-by to +that, recalling the morning when, because of a bad throat, I had +unobservedly, as I supposed, swallowed a powder (homoeopathic), and +next moment heard hurrying footsteps behind me and felt a heavy hand on +my shoulder, while a rough voice cried: "Where's the paper? what did you +do it for? what's your name? say, answer up, now, before it gets hold of +you--what's your name?" + +Frightened and bewildered, 'twas with difficulty I convinced the +suspicious policeman that I was not attempting suicide by poison, but was +trying to cure a sore throat. A theatre bill-board was in fair view, and +my part in the _play_, which I luckily held rolled in my hand, induced +him to let me go to rehearsal instead of the station-house; and while the +policeman dispersed the crowd his own error had gathered, I resolved, as +I flew toward the theatre, to take no more powders in public parks--no +matter how empty they might seem to be. + +And then there was the _jail_, and as I nodded a good-by at its blackened +walls I saw again that sunny morning when, in greatest haste, I passed +that way and observed, coming toward me, three men walking very closely, +who showed no intention of making way for me--which made me look at them +surprisedly. And then the astonishing beauty of the tail, white-clothed +central figure brought me to a halt. His ruddy features were as severely +perfect as those stamped on an ancient coin. His glittering hair and +mustache were of that pale and precious gold most often seen crowning a +baby's head. His figure was tall, broad-shouldered, small-waisted, and +his hands, good God! I whispered, and stopped there, for he wore the +hand-cuffs, and on either side of him a strong and grimy hand gripped his +arm. That was why they made no room for me; and as I swerved swiftly out +into the middle of the street to pass them by, there came a glitter of +bold blue eyes, a flash of white teeth, and a deep voice cried back to +me: "I'm awfully sorry; I beg your pardon," and then they wheeled inside +the iron gates, and five minutes later I knew the physically splendid +creature I had seen was that Dr. Hughes who had just been taken for the +murder of his victim (of a mock marriage), poor little sixteen-year-old +Tamsie Parsons--she of the curly head, but steel-firm mouth, who loved +passionately this God-like devil, yet had the moral courage to resist him +to the death. + +And then the post-office was quite full of memories. One made my brow +grow moist, even after years had passed since the damp autumn day when, +as a child, I had let fall upon the stone floor a good large bottle of +benzine. The crushed thing, wrapped nicely in blue paper, lay there, +innocent to behold, while its escaping volatile contents got in some +really fine work. First, two ladies held their noses, then a fierce old +be-whiskered man looked about suspiciously, working his offended member +just as a dog would. Then two men hurrying in opposite directions, but +with their eyes turned up inquiringly toward the gas-fixture overhead, +collided violently, and instead of apologizing, each abused the other as +a blundering idiot, and wrinkling up their noses disgustedly, unlocked +their boxes, and still grumbling went their ways, one declaring that the +gas being wasted there was sufficient to illuminate the whole building. +Then doors began to open violently, and pale men in office coats of +alpaca darted out and ran about, frantically trying to turn off gas that +was not turned on; and there I stood, shivering over the innocent blue +package, very wet by that time, with my fear of a whipping for breaking +the bottle losing itself in the greater terror of some swift public +expiation of my fault. The unknown is always terrifying, and I strove in +vain to imagine what the punishment would be for creating evil odors in a +public building that brought postal clerks from their work in pursuit of +them. But the sight of a policeman advancing toward the delivery window +suddenly set me in motion, and with a bound I was out of the door and +running like mad for a (then) Kinsman Street car. I wonder yet if that +gas leak was ever properly located. + +Another day I had been sent for an advertised letter, and as several +grown-ups were ahead of me at the little window, I withdrew to lean +against the wall and rest a bit while waiting, for I had walked far and +was very tired. And then a very white-haired, white-whiskered, white-tied +old gentleman entered one of the many doors and looked nervously about +him; when, seeing me, he brightened up, and at once began to beckon me +toward him. Always respectfully obedient to the old, I at once approached +the pink and white chipper old man, who nodded, smiled, and patting my +head, asked, eagerly: "Er--er, do you--can you get letters from the +office-window yonder?" + +His restless eyes wandered all over the place. "Oh, yes, sir," I +answered, "I often get them for my mother, and for other people, too!" + +"Quite right, yes, yes, quite right, quite right!" responded the old +gentleman, then added, reflectively: "Yes, she's a female, but females +receive letters, though they don't vote, yes, yes! Well, my child, I want +you to help me in a great and good work. You know people are taught from +their earliest infancy the necessity of minding their P's and Q's, and +that they don't do it! Now you and I will mind the P's and Q's of this +great city, won't we, my dear? So, you just go to the window there and +get all the letters there are for Parker, Purley, Prentiss, and Porter, +and I'll come after you and get all the letters for Pixley, Pratt, +Prince, and Pettigrew, and to-morrow, my dear, we'll come down and get +all the Q's--the Quigley, Quinn, and Quiller crowd--and--and we'll take +all the letters over to the fountain and throw them in the basin of +water, and if they float we'll pitch bricks at 'em! Now, now's your time, +go ahead, and get all the P's you can--it's a great scheme, great!" and +then he stopped, for an almost breathless voice called out: "Here he is, +Hank! confound him!" And as two men hurried toward my chipper old +reformer, one said, reproachfully: "Now, look-a-here, Mr. Peiffer, if you +don't keep your word no better nor this, Hank and me'll have to keep hold +of you on your walks, and you won't like that!" + +"No," meekly murmured the old man, "I--er--I won't like that, I'm sure." + +Then Hank turned to me and asked, suspiciously: "Has he been filling you +full of P's and Q's?" + +I nodded. "Then," said the other man, "we'd better get him back quick, +that's the way he begins. Come on, now, Mr. Peiffer, come on!" and +between them they led away the poor white-haired old madman, who looked +back as he passed me, and whispered: "Pitch 'em in the fountain, I'll get +the Q's to-morrow!" + +There, too, was the old, old grave-yard that the city had crept up to, +cautiously at first, then finding them quite harmless--the quiet +dead--had stretched out brick and mortar arms and circled it about. A +network of streets had tangled about it, and turbulent life dashed +against its very gates on the outside, but inside there was a great green +silence. + +How well I knew the quiet place--the far, damp corner where, in lifting +bodies for removal to a new cemetery, one had been found petrified; the +giant sycamore-tree that guarded the grave of a mighty Indian chief, the +lonely hemlock blackened nook where a grave had been cruelly robbed, the +most expensive tomb, the most beautiful tomb, the oldest tomb, I knew +them all. But the special attraction for me was a plain white headstone +that happened to bear my own name. Whenever my mother boxed my ears, or +was too hasty in her judgment to be quite just, I went over to my silent +city and sat down and looked at the tombstone, and thought if it were +really mine how sorry my mother would feel for what she had done. And +when I had, in imagination, seen her tears and remorse, I would begin to +feel sorry for her and to think she was punished enough, especially if it +was rather late, and the shadows of tombstones and trees all fell long +upon the sunny walks, all pointing like warning black fingers toward the +gate. Then, indeed, I was apt to forgive my mother and flee to her--and +supper. + +And so, up and down, smiling and sighing, I went, taking _congé_ of the +city that had been home to me all my life, save just two years. I even +paused at the little old cottage whose gate was the only one I had ever +swung on, and I had hated the swinging, but I was six and was +passionately enamoured of a small person named Johnnie, who lived there +and who wore blue aprons; so I swung on the gate with him and to please +him, and then, being like most of his sex, fickle of fancy, he deserted +me for a new red dress worn by another. And when he spilled milk on it +(his mother sold milk) and spoiled its glory, she scratched his face, and +he wanted to return to me; but my love was dead, so dead I wouldn't even +accept sips of milk out of the little pails he had to carry around to +customers. And, so cruel is life, there I stood and laughed as I took +leave of the small gate. + +At last all was done, my trunks were gone, I sat in my empty room waiting +for the carriage. I had to make my journey quite alone, since my mother +was to join me only when I had found a place to settle in. I was very +sad. Mr. Ellsler was ill, for the first time since I had known him, and I +had been over to his home, three or four blocks away, and bade good-by +to Mrs. Ellsler and gentle little Annie--the other children were out. And +finding I had no fear of contagion from a bad throat, she showed me into +Mr. Ellsler's room. I was shocked to see him so wasted and so weak, and +not being used to sickness I was frightened about him. Judge, then, my +amazement, when, hearing a knock on my door and calling, "Come in," +instead of a bell-boy, there entered, pale and almost staggering, Mr. +Ellsler. A rim of red above his white muffler betrayed the bandaged +throat, and his poor voice was but a husky whisper. + +"I could not help it," he said; "you were placed under my care once by +your mother. You were a child then, and though you are pleased to +consider yourself a woman now, I could not bear to think of your leaving +the city, at this saddest hour of the day, to begin a lonely journey, +without some old friend being by for a parting God-speed." + +I was inexpressibly grateful, even through all my fright at his rashness; +but he had yet another surprise for me. He said: "I wanted, too, Clara, +to make you a little present, to give you a keepsake that would last long +and would remind you daily of--of--er the years you have passed in my +theatre." + +He drew a small box from his pocket. "A good girl and a good actress," he +said, "needs and ought to own a--" he touched a spring, the box flew +open--"a good watch," he finished. + +I gave a cry, I could not realize it was for me--I _could_ not! I clasped +my hands in admiration instead of taking it, so, with his thin, sick +man's fingers, he took it from its case and dropped it in my lap. I +caught it then, and "Oh!" and again "Oh!" was all that I could cry, while +I pressed it to my cheek and gloated over it. + +Literally, I could not speak, such an agony of delight in its beauty, of +pride in its possession, of satisfaction in a need supplied, of gratitude +tremendous and surprise immeasurable were more than I could find words +for. If you are inclined to think this exaggeration, remember how poor I +was--had always been; remember, too, there were no cheap watches then; +this was of the best make and had a chain attached as well; then think +how great was my need of it for the theatre, day and night, and for +traveling. By my utter inability to earn such a thing measure my joyful +surprise at receiving it, a gift. + +It was one of the red-letter days of my life, the day I owned a watch. My +thanks must have been sadly jumbled and broken, but my pride and pleasure +made Mr. Ellsler laugh, and then the carriage was there, and laughter +stilled into a silent, close hand-clasp. As I opened the door of the +dusty old hack, I glanced up and saw the first star prick brightly +through the evening sky. Then the hoarse voice said, "God bless you!" and +I had left my first manager. + +As I stepped out of the carriage at the depot, glancing up again I saw +the sky sown thick with stars, like a field of heavenly daisies. I smiled +a little at the thought, then suddenly _drew my watch_ to see the time, +and hurried to my train. Thus grateful for a kindly send-off, made happy +by a gift, I turned my back upon the old, safe life and brightly, +hopefully faced the new. For I was young, and therefore confident; and it +is surely for the old world's need that God has made youth so. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH + + My first Humiliating Experience in Cincinnati is Followed by a + Successful Appearance--I Make the Acquaintance of the Enthusiastic + Navoni. + + +It is a deep humiliation to relate my first experience in Cincinnati, but +for reasons I set it down. + +A friend of mine, who hailed from Cincinnati and who wished to serve me, +had said: "One thing I think I can do for you, friend Clara, I can save +you the weariness and annoyance of a long search in a strange city for +board. My wife and I were never so comfortable in our lives before as we +were at the house of a Mrs. Scott. She is a gentlewoman, therefore she +never pries, never gossips, never 'just runs in a moment,' when you want +to study a 'part.' Her charges are reasonable, the table a little close, +perhaps, but the cooking perfect. You and your mother would suit her +demands as to regularity of habits, quiet conduct, etc., completely, and +going there so early in September you will stand a good chance of +securing a room. Try for 'ours'--it was so sunny and bright." And I, +delighted at such a prospect, looked upon my letter of introduction as a +very valuable document--a sort of character from my last place, and early +on Monday morning went forth from my temporarily sheltering hotel to find +Mrs. Scott and beg her to take me in on the word of her boarders of a +year ago. + +I found the house easily, but, modest as was its exterior, its rich +interior sent my heart down rapidly--it was going to be away beyond my +salary I decided. Yet after a, to me, most bewildering interview, I found +myself inspecting the big sunny room, and shrinking at the thought of my +rough trunks coming in contact with such a handsome carpet. Mrs. Scott +had remarked, casually, that she had put her earnings back on the house, +as a pure matter of business, and I was radiant when she named her price +for the room, and hastily engaging it, I started out at once to order my +trunks taken there and to telegraph mother to come. + +As I descended the steps I could not help humming a little tune. A +policeman strolled across the street toward me, and I had a hazy notion +that he had been there when I went in. As I reached the pavement he +stepped up, and holding out to me a handkerchief, palpably his own, +asked, while looking at me closely, if it was mine. + +I was indignant, and I answered, sharply: "It is not mine--as you very +well know!" + +He laughed rather sheepishly, and said: "Well, you are not stupid, if you +are innocent," then asked: "Are you a stranger here?" + +I turned back toward the house I had just left, then paused as I said, +angrily: "I have a mind to go back and ask Mrs. Scott to come out with me +to protect me from the impertinence of the police!" + +"Who?" he asked, with wide-open, wondering eyes, "you will go back to +who?" + +"To Mrs. Scott," I snapped. + +"Why," said he, "there's no Mrs. Scott there." + +"No?" I questioned satirically. "No? Well, as I have just engaged board +from Mrs. Scott, I venture to differ with you." + +"Good Lord, Miss," the man said, "Mrs. William Scott's been dead these +nine months or more. That's no place for honest people now. Why--why, +we're watchin' the house this moment, hoping to catch that woman's +jail-bird son, who has broken jail in Louisville--don't look so white, +Miss!" + +"But--but," I whispered, "I--I was sent here by a friend--I--I have +engaged a room there! Oh, what shall I do?" + +"That's all right, Miss," reassuringly answered the policeman, "I'll give +up the room for you. You ain't the only one that has come here expecting +to find Mrs. Scott in the house. You don't need to go back to the door;" +and the theatre being in full view, in an agony of humiliation and +terror, I flung myself into its friendly, just-opened office, where Mr. +Macaulay presently found me shaking like a leaf and almost unable to make +plain my experience. + +He was furious, and finding my name was mentioned in the letter of +introduction to Mrs. Scott, and that "Mrs. Scott" had retained it, he +called the policeman and together they went to the house and demanded the +letter back. It was given up, but most unwillingly, as the woman, with +the superstition of all gambling people, looked upon it as a +luck-breeder, a mascot; and an hour later, by Mr. Macaulay's aid, I had +found two wee rooms, whose carpets would welcome my trunks as hiders of +holes--rooms that were dull, even dingy, but had nevertheless securely +sheltered honest poverty for long years past, and could do as much for +years to come. + +I mention this unpleasant incident simply to show how utterly unexpected +are some of the pitfalls that make dangerous the pathway of honest +girlhood. To show, too, that utter ignorance of evil is in itself a +danger. The interview that bewildered me would have been, for instance, a +danger signal to my mother, who would, too, having seen how the richness +of furniture contradicted outside shabbiness, have had her suspicions +aroused. I noted that fact, but not knowing of gambling being unlawful +and secretly carried on, my observation was of no service to me, as it +suggested nothing. Ignorance of the existence of evil may sometimes +become the active foe of innocence. + +No one learned of the unpleasant experience, so I was spared +disagreeable comment; and, sending for my mother to join me, I devoted +myself to preparations of my opening night. + +The meeting with strangers, which I had greatly dreaded, passed off so +easily, even so pleasantly, as to surprise me. Everyone offered a kind +word of greeting, and all the women expressed their sympathy because I +had to open in so poorly dressed a part. That troubled _me_ very little, +however. + +The character was that of a country girl (_Cicely_) in some old comedy, +whose name I have forgotten. She wore just one gown--a black and white +print, as she was in mourning for her old, farmer father. A rustic wench, +a milk-maid come up to "Lun'un-town," she had one speech that was a trial +for any woman to have to speak. It was not as brutally expressed as are +many of the speeches given to rustics in the old English comedies--but it +was the _double-entendre_ that made it coarse. + +Some of the ladies were speaking with me of the matter, and the "old +woman" suggested that I just mumble the words. I said I could not well do +that, as it was a part of the principal scene of the play. + +"Well," declared another, "I should hang my head and let the house see +that I was ashamed of the speech." + +I said nothing, but I thought that would be a most inartistic breaking +away from the part of the rustic _Cicely_, and a dragging in of +scandalized Miss Morris. + +The girl was supposed to make the speech through blundering ignorance, +she alone not seeing its significance; and to my idea there was but one +way to deliver it, and that certainly was not with a hanging head and +shamefaced manner, thus showing perfect, if disapproving, knowledge of +its double meaning. + +When the opening night came a pleasant little thing happened to me. As I +entered with straw hat tied under chin and bundle in hand, I received a +modest little reception, what would about equal the slight raising of a +hat in passing a woman in a corridor; but the moment I had spoken the +first insignificant speech the house gave me as hearty a greeting as any +leading woman could wish for. + +I was startled and much confused for a few moments, but very pleased and +grateful withal, yet when I came off, Mr. Macaulay's pleasure seemed +twice as great as mine, and as I laughingly told him so, he said: "Well, +now I'm going to make a confession. Your letters gave me an impression +of--of--well, you are entirely unlike your letters--you are smaller, and +you look even younger than you really are. There isn't the very faintest +suggestion of the actress in your manner, and--and--to be honest, I was a +bit frightened over the engagement I had made. Then your having to open +in this insignificant part was against you. But they are no fools out +_there_, my girl. They have found you out already. Your eyes and voice +alone won that welcome, and I'd not be afraid to wager something now that +the last curtain falls to-night upon a new favorite." + +I was greatly pleased, but those broad lines were still hanging over me, +still disturbing me. + +At last the scene arrived. I gave the inquiring speech, with its wretched +double meaning, clearly and plainly, looking squarely and honestly into +the eyes of the person I addressed--the result was described as follows +by a morning paper: + +"That one speech proved the newcomer an actress of superior quality. +Clearly and simply given, the great guffaw that instantly responded to +the _double-entendre_ had scarcely risen, when the girl's perfect +honesty, her wide-eyed innocence, so impressed the audience that applause +broke from every part of the house. It was the most dramatic moment of +the evening, for that outburst was not merely approbation for the +actress, it was homage to the woman." + +So it came to pass that Mr. Macaulay's words came true--the curtain fell +upon a favorite, by grace of the warm and kindly hearts of the +Cincinnatians, who were quick to see merits and ever ready to forgive +errors. + +The Hebrew citizens, who are enthusiastic and most generous patrons of +the theatre, became especially fond of me, so much so indeed that the +company christened me "Rebecca," in jesting allusion to their favor, of +which I was nevertheless very proud, for better judges of matters +theatrical it would be hard to find. + +When my mother arrived, we settled down in our little rooms, where my +trunks, which had to be opened every day for the nightly change of +costume, had to stand one on top of another in order to make room for an +old battle-scarred piano that I had hired. + +I do not know its maker's name--no one knows--which was well for that +person, because his act in constructing such a thing placed him in the +criminal classes. It seemed to be a cross between a coffin and a +billiard-table, and there was just enough left of its rubber cover to +make an evil smell in the room. + +Had it not been for the generosity of the leader of the orchestra (Mr. +Navoni) I could not have enjoyed the luxury of even a few music lessons, +but he saw my willingness to learn--to practise when possible, and loving +music rapturously himself, he took a generous delight in helping others +to the knowledge he had such a store of. Therefore, for a ridiculously +small price, just enough, he said, to properly mark our relations as +master and pupil, he introduced me to my notes and lines and +ledger-lines, too (confound them!), and accidentals and sharps (which I +hated) and flats (which I liked), and I developed a great affection for +_c_, because I could always find it, while I hate _a_ to this hour +because of the trouble it gave me so long ago. + +One thing I am sure of, had anyone awakened me suddenly from a deep sleep +at that time I would instantly have exclaimed: "One _and_ two _and_ three +_and_." Mr. Navoni and his wife had the room directly over ours; of +course I knew every loud sound we made must penetrate to his room, and as +I could conceive of nothing more maddening than to have to listen to a +beginner's _one_, two, three--_one_, two, three, I tried to practise when +he was out, which was difficult, as our hours were the same. Then one +day, knowing he was composing a march for a special occasion, I closed +the piano and determined I would not disturb him with any noise of mine. + +Upstairs, then, Mr. Navoni sat, rumpled as to hair, fiery as to eye, with +violin on table and pen in hand. He hummed a little, tried one or two +bars on the violin, then savagely threw a few notes of ink on to his +ruled paper. Then he hummed a little, and seemed to listen, jotted down a +note or two, listened attentively, and then burst out: "Do you hear a +sound of practice from Miss Morris's room?" + +"No, dear," gently replied Mrs. Navoni, "she doesn't want to disturb you +at your work, she----" + +But a burst of wrath stopped her. Mr. Navoni was clattering down-stairs +and pounding on our door: "What does this mean? Get you to that devilish +bad piano and do your scales--_scales_, mind you--let the exercises wait +till the last! Interrupt me? Love I not music! nothing is sweeter to me +than the '_one_, two, three' of the beginner--_if_ the beginner is not a +fool--_if_ the beginner counts the '_one_, two, three' correctly! Damn! +yes, I say _damn_! look at the time lost! afraid to disturb me? How the +devil am I to compose that march they want with this room still as the +dead? Now I go back, and if you don't do those scales, all smooth and +even, and the exercises rightly timed, you--well, you know what you'll +get! I can hear, even if I am composing. So you get to work, quick now! +before I get back to my table!" + +And he tore off again, while, with clammy fingers, I sat down to the +wretched old piano, that was showing its teeth at me in a senile grin, +and feebly and uncertainly began to wobble up and down the keyboard. + +Mrs. Navoni afterward told me that when her husband returned to his work +he hummed to himself a few moments, jotted down a few notes, listened to +the sound of the rattling old piano, and, smiling and nodding, remarked: +"_Now_ I can do something--_one_, two, three--_one_, two, three--that's +right. I couldn't compose a bar with her wasting a precious hour down +there. She keeps good time, eh, doesn't she? Now I'll give the boys +something that will move their feet for them!" and he returned to the +march. + +The thing which I was to get if I failed to practise correctly was so +unusual that I feel I must explain it. Mr. Navoni wore an artificial foot +and leg of the cumbrous type then offered to the afflicted, and in the +privacy of his own room he used to remove the burdensome thing and lay it +on a chair by the couch on which he rested or read or wrote, and when I, +down-stairs, made a first mistake in my practice, he growled and kicked +viciously with his "for-true" leg, while a second blunder would make him +seize his store-leg and pound the floor. Then when I began again he would +whack the correct time with it with such emphasis that bits of my ceiling +would come rattling down about me and the gas-fixture threatened not to +remain a fixture. + +Another trick of his was to bring down his violin with him. How my heart +sank when I saw it, and, my lesson over, he requested me to play such or +such an exercise: "And keep to your own business, and leave my business +to me, if you please, Miss. _Now!_" + +I was then expected to go over and over that exercise and keep perfect +time, while he stood behind me and improvised on the violin, growing more +and more distracting every moment, and if that led my attention away from +my _one_, two, three, what a crack I got across the top of my ear from +his fiddle-bow, and a sharp order to: "Go back--go back! _one_, two, +three; _one_, two, three! Cry by and by, but now play! _One_, two, +three!" + +I should have thought myself a hopeless case, and given up, had I not one +morning overheard him boasting to some of the musicians: "That I was a +good enough leading woman, he supposed, but it was as a piano pupil that +I really counted for something. Why," he cried, "she has the most perfect +ear, and such steadiness--a whole band-wagon of instruments turned loose +on her wouldn't make her lose time!" + +I smiled and felt of my even then burning ear, but still his boast +encouraged me to return to my scales, which were wofully interrupted by +the necessity I experienced of clawing up with my nails several old keys +that were too weak to rise again having once been pressed down. + +When Mr. Navoni played, and he came to one of those tired-out ivories, he +put a _damn_ in the place of the absent note, but for obvious reasons I +could not do that. But Mr. Navoni was an earnest, determined, and +enthusiastic teacher, and I remember him gratefully and respectfully. + +The widow of the boarding-house differs from the widow of the Testament +in that the boarding-house widow's cruse of oil seems always "just out," +and her meal at a like low ebb. Neither my mother nor myself were used to +luxuries; we expected little, and, truth to tell, we got it. To say we +were nearly always hungry would be putting things quite mildly, but we +were _together_! and so 'twas better to feel a bit "gone" under the belt +than to be filled to repletion and live apart. + +I worked hard at all times, and five nights out of seven I had to study +till far on toward morning. The Saturday brought me a double performance, +and left me a wreck; thus I thought I had a right to a bit of a treat on +Sunday; and I can see the important air mother unconsciously assumed as +she went forth on her secret errand--secret that no offence might be +given to the economical landlady. + +When the matinée was over I brought home my personal offering for our +next day's comfort and pleasure--a copy of an illustrated weekly paper +and five cents' worth of candy, always something hard that would last us +long while we read. Thus on Saturday night, on the sill of the back +window, there stood a small can of oysters, while in the top drawer +rested a box marked handkerchiefs, but which held crackers, beside it a +folded paper, and on top of that the wee package of candy. + +I had a membership at the library on the corner, so we had books, too, +thank heaven! I have always been a fairly regular church-goer; in +Cincinnati the limitations of my wardrobe would have made me conspicuous. +I had but one street dress in the world, and constant wear in rain or +shine made it a very shabby affair. In novels the heroine who has but one +gown is always so exquisitely gloved and shod, and her veil and neck-wear +are so immaculately fresh, that no one notices the worn dress; but in +real life it's just the gloves and shoes and veils and ruffles that cost +the most money, yet their absence stamps you ill-bred in the eyes of +other women. Therefore I knew the inside of but one church in Cincinnati, +"Christ's Episcopal," and only knew that in the spring, when I had +fluttered forth in new gown and gloves and things; so Sundays were given +over to a late breakfast, a little reading in the Bible, a good long +reading of secular matter, sweetened by candy, a calm acceptance (that +was puzzling to the Navonis) of a shadowy dinner, a short walk if weather +permitted, then, oh, then! a locked door, a small tea-pot, a tiny +saucepan (we had not the bliss of owning a chafing-dish), and presently +we sat enjoying, to the last spoonful, a hot and delicious stew, a pot of +tea, that brought to mind many stories and made old jokes dance forth +with renewed youth, and kept us loitering over our small banquet in a +quite disgraceful way. Then back to our novels again till bed-time, and +next day, all fresh and rested, I began my "one _and_ two _and_ three +_and_" before breakfast, and thus won approval from Navoni and started a +new week's work under fair auspices. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTIETH + + New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington and Mr. + Johnson--Mr. Ellsler's Mild Assistance--I Journey to New York, and + Return to Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly. + + +To say I made a success in Cincinnati is the barest truth. Almost at +once--the third night of the season, to be exact--I received my first +anonymous gift: a very beautiful and expensive set of jewelry, pale-pink +corals in combined dead and burnished gold. They rested in their +satin-lined nest and tempted me. The sender wrote: "Show that you forgive +my temerity by wearing my offering in the third act." + +_I did not wear them in any act_, and yet, oh, eternal feminine! I "tried +them on"--at least I put one ring in my ear and held the pendant against +my throat, "just to see" how they _would_ have looked, you know. + +Flowers came over the footlights, the like of which I had never seen in +my life before--great baskets of hot-house beauties, some of them costing +more than I earned in a week. Then one night came a bolder note, with a +big gold locket. A signature made it possible for me to return that gift +next morning. + +All that sort of thing was new to me, and, naturally, pleasing--yes, +because earned approbation pleases one, even though it be not quite +correctly expressed. It soon became whispered about that I sent back all +gifts of jewelry, and lo! one matinée, with a splendid basket of white +camelias, fringed about with poinsettia leaves, there came a box of +French candied fruit. My! what a sensation it created in the +dressing-room. I remember some of the ladies (we dressed in one great +long room there) took bits of peach and of green figs to show their +friends, while I devoted myself to the cherries and apricots. That seemed +to start a fashion, for candies, in dainty boxes, came to me as often as +flowers afterward, and, to my great pride and pleasure, were often from +women, and my Saturday five cents' allowance was turned over to mother +for the banqueting fund--that meant a bit of cheese for supper. + +At the time of the season's opening there was a man in Cincinnati who was +there sorely against his will, a wealthy native of the city, a lawyer who +would not practise, a traveler in distant lands, he had lived mainly for +his own pleasure and had grown as weary of that occupation as he could +possibly have grown had he practised the law. Tired of everything else, +he still kept his liking for the theatre. Living in New York in the +winter, at Cape May in the summer, he only came to his old home when +someone was irritating enough to die and need burying in state, or when +some lawsuit required his attention, as in this instance. So, being +there, and not knowing what else to do, he had gone dully and moodily to +the theatre, saying to his cousin companion: "I'll take a look at +Macaulay's new leading lady, and then I'll sleep through the rest of the +evening comfortably, for no one can talk to me here as they do at the +hotel"--and the country _Cicely_ had appeared, and, to use Mr. +Worthington's own words: he had sat up straight as a ramrod and as +wide-awake as a teething baby for the rest of the evening. + +Between acts he had made inquiries as to the history of the new actress, +only to find that, like most happy women, she had none. She came from +Cleveland, she lived three doors away with her mother--that was all. On +that first night he had said: "Good Lord, Will, what is that girl doing +out here in the West? I must see her in a better part. What's on +to-morrow night? Secure our seats for the season, that will save a lot +of trouble;" and incidentally it made a lot of annoyance for me. + +Next night I played what actresses call a "dressed part," which, in spite +of suggestion, does not mean that there are parts that are not dressed, +only that the character wears fine clothes instead of plain ones. It was +a bright, light comedy part. The audience was enthusiastic, though, of +course, I was only supporting the star. Then Mr. Worthington exclaimed: +"That girl ought to be in New York this very moment!" + +"Do you think so?" questioned his inseparable. + +"Do I think so?" mocked his cousin. "Yes, I know it. I know the theatres +foreign--their schools and styles, as well as I know the home theatres +and their actors. I believe I've made a discovery!" + +A beautiful mass of flowers came to me that night with Mr. Worthington's +visiting card, without message. The third night I played a tearful part; +the papers (as the women put it) "went on awful," and Mr. Worthington, +snapping his glasses into their case, said, as he rose: "I shall never +rest till this Clara Morris faces New York. She need clash with no one, +need hurt no one, she is unlike anyone else, and New York has plenty of +room for her. I shall make it my business to meet her some way or other, +and preach New York until she accepts the idea and acts upon it." + +His visit to Cincinnati was prolonged; his young cousin, Mr. Will +Burnett, thought he was on the high-road to crankiness on the subject. +Then Mr. Worthington discovered we had a common friend in lawyer Egbert +Johnson, and he was presented in proper form to my mother (oh, wise Mr. +Worthington), and winning her approval by praise of her wonderful chick +(where is the mother that does not readily believe her goose a swan?), +she in her turn presented him to me, and for the first time I listened to +a suggestion of coming to New York. + +To say I was amused at the idea would be putting it mildly indeed, for I +was tickled to such laughter that tears came to my eyes. He was annoyed, +but I laughed on. He waited--I was called upon for some heavy tragic +parts. He came again--I laughed still. + +"Good heavens!" I cried, "I'm not pretty enough!" + +He said: "You have your eyes and voice and expression, and you don't seem +to be suffering much here from your lack of beauty." + +"N-no," I answered, naïvely, "you see, all the women in this company are +rather plain." + +He laughed, but he continued to urge me to try for an engagement in New +York. + +"I don't know enough," I faltered. + +"You lack polish of manner, perhaps," he admitted, "but you will acquire +that quickly, while no one can acquire your fire and strength and pathos! +For God's sake, let me do one unselfish act in my life--let me serve you +in this matter. I will go to the managers in New York and speak for you." + +But that offer I curtly declined, asking him how long my reputation would +remain unassailed if I allowed him to act for me. + +In spite of all his praise of my work, I should have remained unmoved had +Mr. Johnson not joined forces with Mr. Worthington, and calmly assured me +that he, too, knew the New York theatres and actors, and he honestly +believed I had a chance of acceptance by the public, if only a manager +would give me an opening, for, said he: "Worthington is right this time, +you really are an exceptionally clever girl, so why should you bury +yourself in small Western cities?" + +"Oh!" I indignantly cried, "Cleveland and Cincinnati are very big cities, +indeed!" + +"Yes," smiled Mr. Johnson, "but New York is quite a bit larger, and +besides you would like to be accepted by the metropolis of your country, +would you not?" + +And straightway my heart gave a bound, my cheeks began to burn, the +leaven was working at last--my ambition was awakened! I wondered day and +night, could I act well enough to please New York? I thought not; I +thought yes! I thought--I thought there could be no harm just to ask the +managers if they had an opening. But there my courage failed me--I could +not. I never had written to a manager in my life, save to answer a +letter. Finally, I wrote to Mr. Ellsler--he knew all the New York +managers (few then)--and told him I was about to ask my first favor at +his hands. Would he write to one or two managers for me, or give me a +line of introduction to them? and his unexpected opposition to my plans, +the cold water he cast upon my warm hopes, instead of crushing my spirit +utterly, aroused the old dogged determination to do what I had undertaken +to do--make a try for a New York opening! + +The controversy finally ended in my receipt of a letter from Mr. Ellsler +informing me he had written to four managers, and said what he could for +me--which proved to be mighty little, as I afterward saw two of the four +letters, as they were in duplicate, though one was to a stranger, one to +an acquaintance, and two to friends. He simply asked: "If they had an +opening for a young woman, named Clara Morris, for leading or +leading-juvenile business." That was all; not a word of recommendation +for ability or mention of years of thorough experience--not even the +conventional expression of a personal obligation if they were able to +consider my application. + +Had I been a manager, and had I received such a letter, I know I should +have cast it aside, thinking: "Oh, that's a duty letter and amounts to +nothing. If the girl had any recommendations for the position he would +have said so." Still, some answers were returned, though Mr. Wallack +ignored his copy. Mr. Jarrett (of Jarrett & Palmer) wrote Mr. Ellsler +that they were bound to spectacular ("Black Crook") for the year to come, +and had no earthly use for an actress above a soubrette or a walking +lady. Mr. Edwin Booth wrote: "If you had only addressed me a few days +earlier. I remember well the young woman of whom you speak. I have +unfortunately" (this last word was crossed out)--"I have just closed with +Miss Blanche DeBar--old Ben is persistent and has great confidence in +her, and, as I said, I have just closed with her for the coming season. +With," etc., etc. + +Then there was a wee bit of paper--little, niggly-naggly, jetty-black, +impishly vindictive-looking writing on two short-waisted lines of about +eleven words each. That was from Mr. Daly, and it snapped out this +information: "If you send the young woman to me I will willingly consider +proposal. Will engage no actress without seeing her. A. Daly." + +These letters were blithely sent to me by Mr. Ellsler, who evidently +looked upon the question as closed, but that was where we differed. I +considered it a question just fairly opened. I admit Mr. Daly's calm +ordering of me from Cincinnati to his office in New York for inspection +staggered me at first, but there was that line: "I will willingly +consider the proposal;" that was all I had to trust to; not much, heaven +knows! "Yet," I argued, "he is evidently a man who says much in little; +at all events, though the chance is small, it is the only one offered, +and, if I can stand the expense, I'll go and take that chance." + +I would have to obtain leave of absence; I would have to pay a woman for +at least two performances, even if I got off on Saturday night; I would +have to stop one night in a hotel at New York, and, oh, dear, oh, dear! +would I dare to risk so much--to spend all my little savings toward the +summer vacation for this trip that might end disastrously after all? I +read again: "_Will engage no actress without seeing her._" Well, that +settled the matter. Suddenly I seemed to hear my old Irish washerwoman +saying: "Ah, well! God niver shuts one dure without opening anither!" I +laughed a bit and decided to risk my savings--nothing venture, nothing +win! + +That very night I asked leave of absence; the time was most favorable--I +obtained it. I found next day an actress to take my place on Monday and +Tuesday evenings. Then mother and I emptied out our flat and old +pocket-books. I brought from its secret hiding-place the little roll of +bills saved for summer's idle time, and we put all in a pile. Then I drew +out a week's board in advance and gave it to mother; drew out enough to +pay the woman who took my place, and all the rest, to the last dollar, +was required for the expenses of my solitary journey to the great +beckoning city by the sea. + +As I closed my pocket-book, I said to myself: "There, I have shut one +door with my own hand, but I'll trust God to open another for me before +vacation arrives." + +There's an old saw that gravely states: "It never rains but it pours," +and surely business opportunities "poured" upon me at that time, for in +that very week I received two offers of engagements, and one of them, had +not the New York bee been buzzing so loudly in my bonnet, would have +driven me quite wild with delight. That was from Mr. Thomas Maguire, of +San Francisco, and the salary was to me enormous. One hundred dollars a +week in gold, a benefit, and no vacation at all, unless I wished it. I +temporized. I wished to gain time enough to learn my fate in New York +before deciding. But Mr. Maguire was in haste, and as I hurried from the +theatre to start on my journey, a long envelope was placed in my hands. I +opened it on the cars, and found signed contracts for the leading +business at San Francisco, with an _extra_ benefit added as an inducement +for me to accept. + +So I journeyed onward to tempt Fate, a little forlorn and frightened at +first, but receiving so many courtesies and little kindnesses from my +more fortunately placed fellow-travelers, that I quite forgot to be +either frightened or forlorn--but was amazed at the beauty of the stately +river we crossed, whose ripples caught the glowing color of the sky and +broke them into jewels; and beyond that silvery curtain of haze stretched +the great city of my dreams, all circled round and guarded by living +waters. + +Then I was ashore again and clambering into the great swaying coach of +the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the conductor having told me it was right next +door to the theatre. I breakfasted, took from my bag a new gray veil, a +pair of gray gloves, a bit of fresh ruffling, and a needle and thread, +with which I basted the ruffle into the neck of my gown; put on the veil +and gloves, that being all the preparation I could make by way of toilet +to meet the arbiter of Fate, said "Our Father," and coming to "Amen" with +a jerk, discovered I had not been conscious of the meaning of one single +word, and whispering with shame, "only lip service," remorsefully +repeated again, and with absolute sincerity, that prayer which expresses +so simply, so briefly, all our needs, physical and spiritual; that places +us at once in the comforting position of a beloved child asking with +confidence for a father's aid. A prayer whose beauty and strength share +in the immortality of its Divine composer. + +And then I rose and went forth, prepared to accept success or defeat, +just as the good Lord should will. + +As I passed around the hotel and approached the theatre on Twenty-fourth +Street, an enormous upheaval of ice blocked the way--ice piled shoulder +high in front of the theatre door, and on one side of the glittering mass +stood a long, tall, thin man, as mad as a hornet, while on the other +side, stolidly, stupidly silent, stood a squat Irishman, holding an +ice-man's tongs in one hand and his shock of red hair in the other. The +long, flail-like arms of the tall man were in wild motion. In righteous +wrath he was trying to make the bog-trotter understand that the ice was +for the hotel, whose storage door was but a few feet to his right, when +he saw me making chamois-like jumps over the blocks of ice trying to +reach the door. With black-browed courtesy he told me to use the second +door, that morning, to reach the box-office. + +I had, all unconsciously, formed an idea of Mr. Daly, and I was looking +for a small, dark, very dark, nervously irritable man, and was therefore +frankly amused at the wrath of the long, thin man, whose vest and whose +trousers could not agree as to the exact location of the waist-line, and +laughed openly at the ice-scene, winning in return as black a scowl as +any stage-villain could well wear. Then I cheerfully remarked: "I'm +looking for Mr. Daly; can you tell me where I am likely to find him?" + +"You want Mr. Daly?" he repeated. "Who are you?" + +"I'll tell Mr. Daly that, please," I answered. + +He smiled and said: "Well, then, tell _me_--I'm Mr. Daly--are you----" + +"Yes," I answered, "I'm the girl come out of the West, to be inspected. +I'm Clara Morris." + +He frowned quickly, though he held out his hand and shook mine heartily +enough, and asked me to come into his office. + +It was a cranny in the wall. It held a very small desk and one chair, +behind which was a folding stool. As he entered, I laughingly said: "I +think I'll lean here, I'm not used to sitting on the floor," but to my +surprise, as he brought forth the stool, he curtly replied: "I was not +going to ask you to sit on the floor," which so amused me that I could +not resist asking: "Are you from Scotland, by chance, Mr. Daly?" and he +had frowningly said "No!" before the old, old joke about Scotch density +came to him. + +Then he said, with severity: "Miss Morris, I'm afraid your bump of +reverence is not well developed." + +And I laughed and said: "There's a hole there, Mr. Daly, and no bump at +all," and though the words were jestingly spoken, there was truth and to +spare in them, and there, too, was the cause of all the jolts and jars +and friction between us in our early days together. Mr. Daly was as a god +in his wee theatre, and was always taken seriously. I knew not gods and +took nothing under heaven seriously. No wonder we jarred. Every word I +spoke that morning rubbed Mr. Daly's fur the wrong way. I offended him +again and again. He wished to show me the theatre, and, striking a match, +lit a wax taper and held it up in the auditorium, at which I exclaimed: +"Oh, the pretty little match-box! Why, it's just a little toy +play-house--is it not?" + +Which vexed him so I was quite crushed for a minute or two. One thing +only pleased him: I could not tear myself away from the pictures, and I +praised, rapturously, a beautiful velvety-shadowed old engraving. We grew +quite friendly over that, but when we came to business he informed me I +was a comedy woman, root and branch. + +"But," I said, "ask Mr. Edwin Booth, or Mr. Davenport, or Mr. Adams!" + +He waved me down. "I won't ask anyone," he cried; "I never made a mistake +in my life. You couldn't speak a line of sentiment to save your soul!" + +"Why, sentiment is my line of business--I play sentiment every week of my +life," I protested. + +"Oh, you know what I mean," he said, "you can _speak_ and _repeat_ the +lines, but you couldn't give a line of sentiment naturally to save your +life--your forte is comedy, pure and simple." + +It all ended in his offer to engage me, but without a stated line of +business. I must trust to his honor not to degrade me by casting me for +parts unworthy me. He would give me $35 a week (knowing there were two to +live on it), _if I made a favorable impression he would double that +salary_. + +A poor offer--a risky undertaking. I had no one to consult with. I had in +my pocket the signed contract for $100 in gold and two benefits. I must +decide now, at once. Mr. Daly was filling up a blank contract. +Thirty-five dollars against $100! "_But if you make a favorable +impression_ you'll get $70," I thought. And why should I not make a +favorable impression? Yet, if I fail now in New York, I can go West or +South, not much harmed. If I wait till I am older, and fail, it will ruin +my life. + +I slipped my hand in my pocket and gave a little farewell tap to the +contract for $100. I took the pen; I looked hard at him. "There's a heap +of trusting being asked for in this contract," I remarked. "You won't +forget your promise about doubling the salary?" + +"I won't forget anything," he answered. + +I looked at the pen, it was a stub, the first I ever saw; then I said: +"That's what makes your writing look so villainous. I can't sign with +that thing--I'd be ashamed to own my signature in court, when we come to +the fight we're very likely to have before we are through with each +other." + +He groaned at my levity, but got another pen. I wrote Clara Morris twice, +shook hands, and went out and back to my home--a Western actress with an +engagement in a New York theatre for the coming season. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST + + John Cockerill and our Eccentric Engagement--I Play a Summer Season at + Halifax--Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at Last. + + +Mr. Worthington passed out of my life after he had done me the service he +set out to do. It had been an odd notion to step down from his carriage, +as it were, and point out to a girl, struggling along a rough and dusty +path, a short cut to the fair broad highway of prosperity; but I thank +him heartily, for without his urging voice, his steadily pointing hand, I +should have continued plodding along in the dust--heaven knows how long. + +One of the few people I came to know well in Cincinnati was John A. +Cockerill. At that time he was the city editor on the _Enquirer_, and my +devoted friend. We were both young, poor, energetic, ambitious. We +exchanged confidences, plans, hopes, and dreams, and were as happy as +possible so long as we were just plain friends, but as soon as sentiment +pushed in and an engagement was acknowledged between us, we, as the +farmer says: + + "Quarrel'd and fit--and scratched and bit--" + +For John was jealous of my profession, which made my temper hot, and we +were a queer engaged pair. I used to say to him: "It's just a question +which one of us suicides first!" + +Yet on some days we would forget we were engaged and be quite cheerful +and happy; and when I came back from New York, I cried: "Congratulate me, +John, I've got an engagement, so we can't nag each other to death for a +year at least!" and though that gave a lovely opening for a quarrel he +passed it by, congratulating me very gently instead, but very sadly, +adding: "You are getting so far ahead of me, dear--and you will learn to +despise a man who comes toiling always behind you!" + +A statement that came so dangerously near the truth that it threw me into +a passion, and we had a battle royal then and there. However, we parted +in a gale of laughter, for as John suddenly discovered he was overstaying +his intended short visit, he sprang up and grabbed his hat and exclaimed: +"Well, good-by, Clara, we haven't indulged in much sentiment to-day, +but," drawing a long, satisfied breath, "we've enjoyed a good lusty old +row all the same!" + +No wonder we laughed. We were a rare engaged couple. Lovers? why Cupid +had never even pointed an arrow at us for fun! We were chums--good +fellows in sunny weather; loyal, active friends in time of trouble, and, +after I came to New York, and found quarreling at length, with pen and +ink, too fatiguing, I broke the engagement, and we were happy ever +after--our friendship always standing firm through the years; and when, +in the _Herald's_ interests, he started on that last long journey to +report upon the Japanese-Chinese War, he said to me: "I never understood +the meaning of the word friendship until that day when you flung all your +natural caution--your calm good sense aside, and rushed through the first +cheering message that reached me after that awful St. Louis shooting: +'You acted in self-defence, I _know_--command any service from your +faithful friend,' that's what you said, over your full name, while as yet +you knew absolutely nothing. And when I realized that, guilty or +innocent, you meant to stand by me, I--well, you and my blessed mother +live in a little corner of my heart, just by your two loyal selves." + +And when he left me he carried on either cheek as affectionate a kiss as +I knew how to put there, and again, and for the last time, we parted in a +gale of laughter, as he cried: "You would have seen me in the bottomless +pit before you would have done that in Cincinnati!" + +"Oh, well," I replied, "we both preferred quarreling to kissing in those +days!" + +"Speak for yourself!" he laughed, and so we parted for all time. + +I had returned to my work in Cincinnati; had thanked the Washington and +San Francisco managers for their offers of engagements, and was putting +in some spare moments in worrying about the summer, when (without meaning +to be irreverent) God opened a door right before me. Never, since I had +closed a small geography at school, had I heard of "Halifax," save as a +substitute for another place beginning with H, but here, all suddenly, I +was invited to Halifax--not sent there in anger, for, oh, incredible! for +a four, perhaps six, weeks' summer engagement. Was I not happy? Was I not +grateful? One silver half-dollar did I recklessly give away to the Irish +washerwoman, who had said: "God niver shuts one dure without openin' +anither!" I could not help it, and she, being in trouble at the time, +declared, with hope rising in her tired old eyes, that she would "at onct +burn a waxen candle before the blissed Virgin!" Poor soul! I hope her +loving offering found favor in the eyes of the gentle Saint she honored! + +I had a benefit in Cincinnati before the season closed, and so it came +about that I was able to get my mother a spring gown and bonnet that she +might go home in proper state to Cleveland for a visit; while I turned my +face toward Halifax, the picturesque, to play a summer engagement, and +then to make my way to New York and find a resting-place for my foot in +some hotel, while I searched for rooms to which my mother might be +summoned, for I had determined I could board no longer. + +If we had rooms we could make a little home in them. If we had still to +go hungry, we could at least hunger after our own fashion, and endure our +privations in decent privacy. So, with plans all made, I landed at +Halifax and felt a shock of surprise, followed by a pang of +homesickness, at the first sight of the scarlet splendor of the British +flag waving against the pale blue sky, when instinctively my eyes had +looked for the radiant beauty of Old Glory. The next thing that impressed +me was the astonishing number of people who were in mourning. Men in +shops, in offices, on the streets, were wearing crêpe bands about their +left arms, and women, like moving pillars of crêpe, dotted the walks +thickly, darkened the shops, and gloomed in private carriages. What does +it mean? I asked. I never before saw so many people in black. And one +made answer: "Ah, your question shows you are a stranger, or you would +know that there are few well-to-do homes and _no_ business house in +Halifax that does not mourn for at least one victim of that great mystery +of the sea, the unexplained loss of the City of Boston--that monster +steamer, crowded with youth and beauty, wealth, power, and brains!" + +I recalled then how, at the most fashionable wedding of the year in +Cincinnati, the bride and groom had been dragged from the just-beginning +wedding-breakfast, and rushed off at break-neck speed that they might be +in time for the sailing of the City of Boston, and after her sailing no +word ever came of her. What had been her fate no man knew--no man knows +to-day. The ocean gave no sign, no clew, as it often has done in other +disasters. It sent back no scrap of wood, of oar, of boat, of mast, of +life-preserver--nothing, nothing! No fire had been sighted by other +ships. Had she been in collision with an iceberg, been caught in the +centre of a tornado, had she run upon a derelict, been stricken by +lightning, been blown up by explosion? No answer had ever come from the +mighty bosom of the deep, that will keep its grim secret until the awful +day when, trembling at God's own command, it will give up its dead! +Meantime thousands of tender ties were broken. The awful mystery +shrouding the fate of the floating city turned more than one brain, and +sent mourners to mad-houses to end their ruined lives. Halifax was a very +sad city that summer. + +I met in the company there Mr. Leslie Allen (the father of Miss Viola +Allen), Mr. Dan Maginnis (the Boston comedian), and Mr. John W. Norton. +The future St. Louis manager was then leading man, and the friendship we +formed while working together through those summer weeks was never +broken, never clouded, but lasted fair and strong up to that very day +when, sitting in the train on his way to New York, John Norton had, in +that flashing moment of time, put off mortality. + +He had changed greatly from the John Norton of those early days. He had +known cruel physical suffering, and while he had won friends and money, +shame and bitter sorrow had been brought upon him by another. No wonder +the laughing brightness had gone out of him. It was said that he believed +in but two people on earth--Mary Anderson and Clara Morris, and he said +of them: "One is a Catholic, the other an Episcopalian; they are +next-door neighbors in religion; they are both honest, God-fearing women, +and the only ones I bow my head to." Oh, poor man! to have grown so +bitter! But in the Halifax days he loved his kind, and was as full of fun +as a boy of ten, as full of kindness as would be the gentlest woman. + +Mr. Maginnis had his sister-in-law with him, a helpless invalid. She knew +her days were numbered, yet she always faced us smilingly and with +pleasant words. She was passionately fond of driving, but dreaded lonely +outings; so clubbing together, that no one might feel a sense of +obligation, we four, Dan and his sister, John Norton and I, used evenly +to divide the expense of a big, comfortable carriage, and go on long, +delightful drives about the outskirts of the gray old hilly city. + +The stolid publicity of Tommy Atkins's love-making had at first covered +us with confusion, but we soon grew used to the sight of the scarlet +sleeve about the willing waist in the most public places, while a loving +smack, coming from the direction of a park bench, simply became a sound +quite apropos to the situation. + +One yellow-haired, plaided and kilted young Highlander, whom I came upon +in a public garden, just as he lifted his head from an explosive kiss on +his sweetheart's lips, startled at my presence, flushing red, lifted his +hand in a half-salute, and at the same moment, in laughing apologetic +confusion, he--winked at me! And his flushing young face was so bonnie, +that had I known how I believe in my heart I'd have winked back, just +from sheer good-fellowship and understanding. + +In that short season I had one experience, the memory of which makes me +pull a wry face to this day. I played _Juliet_ to a "woman-_Romeo_"--a so +plump _Romeo_, who seemed all French heels, tights, and wig, with _Romeo_ +marked "absent." I little dreamed I was bidding a personal farewell to +Shakespeare and the old classic drama, as I really was doing. + +One other memory of that summer engagement that sticks is of that +performance of Boucicault's "Jessie Brown, or the Siege of Lucknow," in +which real soldiers acted as supernumeraries, and having been too well +treated beforehand and being moved by the play, they became so hot that +they attacked the _mutineers_ not only with oaths but with clubbed +muskets; and while blood was flowing and heads being cracked in sickening +earnest on one side of the stage, a sudden wall-rending howl of derisive +laughter rose from that part of the theatre favored by soldiers. I saw +women holding programmes close, close to their eyes, and knew by that +that something was awfully wrong. + +The Scotch laddies were pouring over the wall, coming to the rescue of +the starving besieged. I looked behind me. The wall, a stage wall, was +cleated down the middle to keep the join there firm, and no less than +three of the soldiers had had portions of their clothing caught by the +cleats as they scaled the wall. The cloth would not tear, the men were +too mad to be able to see, and there they hung, kicking like fiends +and--well, the words of a ginny old woman, who sold apples and oranges in +front of the house, will explain the situation. She cried out, at the top +of her voice: "Yah! yah! why do ye no pull down yer kilties, instead o' +kickin' there? yah! yer no decent--do you ken?" and the curtain had to +come whirling down before the proper time to save the lives of the men +being pounded to death, and the feelings of the women who were being +shamed to death. + +A surgeon had to attend to two heads before their owners could leave the +theatre, and after that an officer was kind enough to come and take +charge of the men loaned to the manager. + +Then I bade the people, whom I had found so pleasant, good-by--Mr. Louis +Aldrich arriving as I was about leaving, keen, clever, active, full of +visions, of plans, just as he is to-day. I and my little dog-companion +made our way to New York. A lady and gentleman, traveling acquaintances, +advised me to go to the St. Nicholas, and as all hotels looked alike to +me I went there. My worst dread was the dining-room. I could not afford +to take meals privately, yet how could I face that great roomful of +people alone! At last I resolved on a plan of action. I went up to the +head waiter--from his manner an invisible crown pressed his brow; his +eyes gazed coldly above my humble head, his "Eh?--beg pardon!" was +haughty and curt, yet, believe it or not, when I told him I was quite +alone, and asked could he place me at some quiet retired table, he became +human, he looked straightly and kindly at me. He himself escorted me, not +to a seat in line with the kitchen smells or the pantry quarrels, as I +had expected, but to a very retired, very pleasant table by an open +window, and assured me the seat should be reserved for me every day of my +stay, and only ladies seated there. I was grateful from my heart, and I +mention it now simply to show the general willingness there is in America +to aid, to oblige the unprotected woman traveler. + +Naturally anxious to find, as quickly as possible, a less expensive +dwelling-place, I showed my utter ignorance of the city by the blunder I +made in joyfully engaging rooms in a quiet old-fashioned brick house +because it was on Twenty-first Street and the theatre was on +Twenty-fourth, and the walk would be such a short one. All good New +Yorkers will know just how "short" that walk was when I add that to reach +the neat little brick house I had first to cross to Second Avenue, and, +alas! for me on stormy nights, there was no cross-town car, then. + +However, the rooms were sunny and neatly furnished; the rent barely +within my reach, but the entire Kiersted family were so unaffectedly kind +and treated me so like a rather overweighted young sister that I could +not have been driven away from the house with a stick. I telegraphed to +mother to come. She came. + +To the waiter who feeling the crown upon his brow yet treated me with +almost fatherly kindness, I gave a small parting offering and my thanks; +and to the chambermaid also--she with the pure complexion, bred from +buttermilk and potatoes, and the brogue rich and thick enough to cut +with a knife--who had "discoursed" to me at great length on religion, on +her own chances of matrimony, on the general plan of the city, +describing the "lay" of the diagonal avenues, their crossing streets and +occasional junctures, in such confusing terms that a listening +city-father would have sent out and borrowed a blind man's dog to help +him find his home. Still she had talked miles a day with the best +intentions, and I made my small offering to her in acknowledgment, and +leaving her very red with pleasure, I departed from the hotel. That +blessed evening found my mother and me house-keeping at last--_at last_! +And as we sat over our tea, little Bertie, on the piano-stool at my +side, ate buttered toast; then, feeling license in the air, slipped +down, crept under the table, and putting beseeching small paws on +mother's knee, ate more buttered toast--came back to me and the +piano-stool, and bringing forth all her blandishments pleaded for a lump +of sugar. She knew it was wrong, she knew _I_ knew it was wrong, but, +good heavens! it was our house-warming--Bertie got the sugar. So we were +settled and happily ready to begin the new life in the great strange +city. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND + + I Recall Mr. John E. Owens, and How He "Settled my Hash." + + +Just previous to my coming East I met, for the first time, Mr. John E. +Owens. He was considered a wealthy man, and was at the height of his +popularity as a comedian. He was odd, even his marriage seemed an +expression of eccentricity, and one felt as if one had received a dash of +cold water in the face when the hot-tempered, peppery, and decidedly +worldly Mr. Owens presented the little orthodox Quakeress, with a +countenance of gentle severity, as his wife. + +She wore the costume of her people, too, and watched him above her +knitting-needles with folded lips and condemning eye as he strutted and +fumed and convulsed his audience. She was said to be a most tender and +gentle nurse and, indeed, a devoted wife, but she certainly seemed to +look down upon theatrical life and people. + +Mr. Owens was telling me she was a clever business woman, with a quick +eye for a good investment, when I jestingly answered: "That seems to be a +peculiarity of the sect--thee will recall the fact that William Penn +showed that same quality of eye in his beautiful and touching relations +with the shrewd and knowing Indians," and in the middle of his laugh, his +mouth shut suddenly, his eyes rolled: "Oh, Lord!" he said, "you've done +for yourself--she heard you, your fate's fixed!" + +"But," I exclaimed, "I was just joking." + +"No go!" he answered, mournfully, "the eye that can see the main chance +so clearly is blind to a joke. She has you down now on her list of the +ungodly. No use trying to explain--I gave that up years ago. Fact of the +matter is, when that Quakeress-wife of mine puts her foot down--I--well, +I take mine up, but hers stays right there." + +Mr. Owens was of medium height and very brisk in all his movements, +walking with a short and quick little step. He had a wide mouth, good +teeth, and a funny pair of eyes. The eyeballs were very large and round, +and he showed an astonishing amount of their whites, which were of an +unusual brilliancy and lustre; this, added to his power of rolling them +wildly about in their sockets, made them very funny; indeed, they +reminded many people of a pair of large peeled onions. + +I think his most marked peculiarity was his almost frantic desire to +provoke laughter in the actors about him. He would willingly throw away +an entire scene--that is, destroy the illusion of the audience--in order +to secure a hearty laugh from some actor or actress whom he knew not to +be easily moved to laughter; and what was more astonishing still, if an +actress in playing a scene with him fell from tittering into helpless +laughter and failed to speak her lines, he made no angry protest, but +regarded the situation with dancing eyes and delighted smiles, seeming to +accept the breakdown as proof positive that he was irresistible as a +fun-maker. + +For some reason I never could laugh at "Solon Shingle." Mr. Owens had +opened in that part, and as I stood in the entrance watching the +performance, my face was as grave as that of the proverbial judge. He +noticed it at once, and paused a moment to stare at me. Next morning, +just as he entered and crossed to the prompt-table at rehearsal, I, in +listening to a funny story, broke out in my biggest laugh. Open flew the +star's eyes, up slid his eyebrows. + +"Ha! ha!" said he, "ha! ha! there's a laugh for you--by Jove, that's a +laugh as is a laugh!" + +I turned about and faced him. He recognized me instantly. "Well, blast my +cats!" he exclaimed, "say, you young hyena, you're the girl that wouldn't +laugh at me last night. I thought you couldn't, and just listen to your +roars now over some tomfoolery. What was the matter with me, if you +please, mum?" + +I stood in helpless, awkward embarrassment, then, drawing in his lip and +bulging out his eyes until they threatened to leap from their places, he +advanced upon me, exclaiming: "Spare me these protestations and +explanations, I beg!" then tapped me on the chest with his forefinger +and, added, in a different tone: "My young friend, I'll make you laugh or +I'll cut my throat!" next turned on his heel, and called: "Everybody +ready for the first act? Come on, come on, let's get at it!" + +Rehearsal began and Mr. Owens did not have to cut his throat. + +Funny in many things, it was the old farce of "Forty Winks" that utterly +undid me, and not only sat me violently and flatly down upon the entrance +floor, but set me shrieking with such misguided force that next day all +the muscles across and near my diaphragm were too lame and sore for me to +catch a breath in comfort. Perhaps that's not the right word, and I may +not be locating the lamed muscles properly, but if you will go to see +some comedian who will make you laugh until you cry, and cry until you +scream, and laugh and cry and scream until you only breathe in gasps and +sobs, you will next morning know exactly which muscles I have been +referring to--even if you haven't got a diaphragm about you. + +But really the mad absurdities Mr. Owens indulged in that night might +have made the very Sphinx smile stonily. As a miserly old man, eating his +bread-and-cheese supper in his cheap little bedroom, and retiring for the +night only to be aroused by officers who are in pursuit of a flying man, +and think they have now found him. Not much to go upon, that, but, oh, if +you could have seen his ravening hunger; have seen his dog-like snaps at +falling crumbs; his slanting of the plate against the light to see if any +streak of butter was being left; his scooping up of bread-crumbs from +his red-handkerchief lap, and eager licking up of the same; have seen him +sorting out his money and laying aside the thin, worn pennies to give the +waiter; breaking off the hardened grease that in melting had run down the +candle's side, putting it away in his valise, "to grease his boots next +winter" (a line he introduced for my especial benefit). + +Having gone up-stage and taken off his shoes, he suddenly bethought him +that there might be a few crumbs on the floor, and taking his candle, +down he came to look, and turning his back to the audience, they screamed +with sudden laughter, for two shining bare heels were plainly showing +through his ragged black woollen socks. He paid no heed, but sought +diligently, and when he found a crumb he put his finger to his lip to +moisten it, and pouncing upon the particle, conveyed it to his mouth, and +mumbled so luxuriously one almost envied him. Then, remarking that it was +too cold to undress, he undressed, and as his coat came off he started +toward a chair, saying, querulously: "He couldn't abide a man that wasn't +neat and careful about his clothes," and down he pitched the coat in a +heap upon the floor in front of the chair. His vest he dumped beside +another seat, as he dolorously declared: "He had neat habits ever since +his mother had taught him to put his clothes carefully on the chair at +night." + +And so he went up and down and about, until that stage was one litter of +old clothes. Blowing out his candle he got into bed, and, shivering with +cold, tried frantically to pull the clothes over his poor shoulders--but +all in vain. At last a tremendous jerk brought the quilt and sheet about +his shoulders, only to leave his ancient black feet facing the audience, +all uncovered. And so went on the struggle between feet and shoulders +until, worn out, the old man finally "spooned" himself with knees in +chest, and so was covered and fell asleep, only to be aroused by +officers, and turned into driveling idiocy by a demand "for the girl." + +It was at the point when, sitting up in bed, trying, with agonizing +modesty, to keep covered up, his eyes whitely and widely rolling, he +pleadingly asked: "N-n-now I, leave it to you--do I look like a seducer?" +that my knees abandoned me to my fate, and sat me down with a vicious +thud that nearly shook the life out of me. And John Owens sat in bed and +saw my fall and rejoiced with a great joy, and said: "Blast my cats--look +at the girl! there, now, that's something like laughing. I'd take off my +hair and run around bald-headed for her!" + +I was called upon to play blind _Bertha_ to Mr. Owens's _Caleb Plummer_ +in the "Cricket on the Hearth," and I was in a great state of mind, as I +had only seen one or two blind persons, and had never seen a blind part +acted. I was driven at last by anxiety to ask Mr. Owens if he could make +any suggestions as to business, or as to the walk or manner of the blind +girl. But he was no E. L. Davenport, he had no desire to teach others to +act, and he snappishly answered: "No--no! I can't suggest anything for +you to do--but I can suggest something for you not to do! For God's sake +don't go about playing the piano all evening--that's what the rest of 'em +do!" + +"The piano?" I repeated, stupidly. + +"Yes," he said, "the piano! D----d if they don't make me sick! Here they +go--all the '_Berthas_'!" + +He closed his eyes, screwed up his face dismally, and advancing, his +hands before him, began moving them from left to right and back, as +though they were on a keyboard. It was very ridiculous. + +"And that's what they call blindness--playing the piano and tramping +about as securely as anybody!" + +Ah, ah! Mr. Owens, you did make a suggestion after all, though you did +not mean to do it, but I found one all the same in that last contemptuous +sentence, "_tramping about as securely as anybody_." It quickened my +memory--I recalled the piteous uncertainty of movement in the blind; the +dread hesitancy of the advancing foot, unless the afflicted one was on +very familiar ground. I tried walking in the dark, tried walking with +closed eyes. It was surprising how quickly my fears gathered about my +feet. Instinctively I put out one hand now and then, but the fear of +bumping into something was as nothing to the fear of stepping off or +down, or falling through the darkness--oh! + +Then I resolved to play _Bertha_ with open eyes. It was much the more +difficult way, but I was well used to taking infinite pains over small +matters, and believing that the open, unseeing eye was far more pathetic +than the closed eye, I proceeded to work out my idea of how to produce +the unseeing look. By careful experiment I found that if the eyes were +very calm in expression, very slow in movement, and at all times were +raised slightly above the proper point of vision, the effect was really +that of blindness. + +It was unspeakably fatiguing to keep looking just above people's heads, +instead of into their faces, as was my habit, but where is the true actor +or actress who stops to count the cost in pain or in inconvenience when +striving to build up a character that the public may recognize? Says the +ancient cook-book: "First catch your hare, and then--"; so with the +actor, first catch your idea, your desired effect, and _then_ reproduce +it (if you can). But in the case of blind _Bertha_ I must have reproduced +with some success the effect I had been studying, for an old newspaper +clipping beside me says that: "The doubting, hesitating advance of her +foot, the timid uncertainty of her occasional investigating hand spelled +blindness as clearly as did her patient unseeing eyes," and for my reward +that wretched man amused himself by pulling faces at me and trying to +break me down in my singing of "Auld Robin Grey," until I was obliged to +sing with my eyes tight shut to save myself from laughter; and when the +curtain had fallen he said to me: "I'll settle your hash for you some +night, young woman, you see if I don't--you just wait now!" And the next +season, in Cincinnati, in very truth, he did "settle my hash" for me, to +his great delight and my vexation. + +He was so very, very funny as _Major Wellington de Boots_ in "Everybody's +Friend"; his immense self-satisfaction, his stiff little strut, his +martial ardor, his wild-eyed cowardice were trying enough, but when he +deliberately acted _at_ you--oh, dear! He would look me straight in the +eye and make faces at me, until I sobbed at every breath. Then he had a +wretched little trick of rising slowly on his toes and sinking back to +his heels again, while he cocked his head to one side so like a knowing +old dicky-bird that he simply convulsed me with laughter. + +I was his _Mrs. Swansdown_, and I had kept steady and never lost a line, +until we came to the scene where, as my landlord and would-be husband, he +brought some samples of wall-paper for me to choose from. Where, in +heaven's name, he ever found those rolls of paper I can't imagine. They +were not merely hideous but grotesque as well, and were received with +shouts of laughter by the house. + +With true shopman's touch, he would send each piece unrolling toward the +footlights, while holding up its breadth of ugliness for _Mrs. +Swansdown's_ inspection and approval, and every piece that he thus +displayed he greeted at first sight with words of hearty admiration for +its beauty and perfect suitability, until, catching disapproval on the +widow's face, he in the same breath, with lightning swift hypocrisy, +turned his sentence into contemptuous disparagement, and fairly shook his +audience with laughter at the quickness of his change of opinion. + +At last he unfurled a piece of paper whose barbarity of design and +criminality of color I remember yet. The dead-white ground was widely and +alternately striped with a dark Dutch blue and a dingy chocolate brown, +and about the blue stripes there twined a large pumpkin-colored +morning-glory, while from end to end the brown stripes were solemnly +pecked at by small magenta birds. The thing was as ludicrous as it was +ugly--an Indian clay-idol might have cracked into smiles of derision over +its artistic qualities. + +Then Mr. Owens, bursting into encomiums over its desirability as a +hanging for the drawing-room walls of a modest little retreat, caught my +frown, and continued: "Er--er, or perhaps you'd prefer it as trousering?" +then, delightedly: "Yes--yes, you're quite right, it _is_ a neat +thing--cut full at the knee, eh? Close at the foot, yes, yes, I see, +regular peg-tops--great idea! I'll send you a pair at once. Oh, good +Lord! what have I done! I--I--mean, I'll have a pair myself, _Mrs. +Swansdown_, cut from this very piece of your sweet selection!" + +Ah, well! that ended the scene so far as my help went. The shrieking +audience drowned my noise for a time, but, alas, _it_ recovered directly, +having no hysterics to battle with, while I buried my head deep in the +sofa-pillows and rolled and screamed and wept and bit my lips, clinched +my hands, and vainly fought for my self-control; while all the time I saw +a pair of trousers cut from that awful wall-paper, and Mr. Owens just +bulged his white shiny eyes at me and pranced about and rejoiced at my +downfall, while the audience, seeing what the trouble was, laughed all +over again, and--and--well, "my hash" was very thoroughly "settled," even +to the entire satisfaction of Mr. Owens's self. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD + + From the "Wild West" I Enter the Eastern "Parlor of Home Comedy"--I + Make my First Appearance in "Man and Wife." + + +The original Fifth Avenue Theatre was a tiny affair, with but small +accommodation for the public and none at all for the actor, unless he +burrowed for it beneath the building; and indeed the deep, long basement +was wonderfully like a rabbit-warren, with all its net-work of narrow +passageways, teeming with life and action. The atmosphere down there was +dreadful--I usually prefer using a small word instead of a large one, but +it would be nonsense to speak of the "air" in that green-room, because +there was none. Atmosphere was there stagnant, heavy, dead, with not even +an electric fan to stir it up occasionally, and the whole place was +filled with the musty, mouldy odor that always arises from carpets spread +in sunless, airless rooms. Gas, too, burned in every tiny room, in every +narrow slip of passageway, and though it was all immaculately clean, it +was still wonderful how human beings endured so many hours imprisonment +there. + +It was on a very hot September morning that the company was called +together in the green-room of the Fifth Avenue Theatre. This first "call" +of the season is generally given over to greetings after the vacation, to +chattings, to introductions, to welcomes, and a final distribution of +parts in the first play, and a notification to be on hand promptly next +morning for work. With a heavily throbbing heart I prepared for the +dreaded first meeting with all these strange people, and when I grew +fairly choky, I would say to myself, "What nonsense, Mr. Daly or the +prompter will be there, and in the general introductions you will, of +course, be included, and after that you will be all right--a smile, a +bow, or a kind word will cost no more in a New York theatre than in any +other one," which goes to prove what a very ignorant young person I was +then. In looking back to that time, I often drop into the habit of +considering myself as another person, and sometimes I am sorry for the +girl of that day, and say: "You poor thing, if you had only known!" or +again, "What wasted trust--what needless sorrow, too!" But I was then +like the romping, trusting, all-loving puppy-dog who believes every +living being his friend, until a kick or a blow convinces him to the +contrary. + +I had two dresses, neither one really fit for the occasion, but I put on +the best one, braided my mass of hair into the then proper _chatelaine_ +braids, and found comfort in them, and encouragement in a fresh, +well-fitting pair of gloves. At half-past ten o'clock I entered the +underground green-room. Two young men were there before me. I slightly +bent my head, and one responded doubtfully, but the other, with the +blindness of stone in his eyes, bowed not at all. I sat down in a +corner--the stranger always seeks a corner; can that be an instinct, a +survival from the time when a tribe fell upon the stranger, and with the +aid of clubs informed him of their strength and power? Anyway, as I said, +I sat in a corner. There was the carpet, the great mirror, the cushioned +bench running clear around the room, and that was all--oh, no! on the +wall, of course, there hung that shallow, glass-covered frame or cabinet +called, variously, "the call-board," the "call-case," or even the +"call-box." It is the official voice of the manager--when the "call-case" +commands, all obey. There, in writing, one finds the orders for next +day's rehearsal; there one finds the cast of characters in the plays; +there, too, the requests for the company's aid, on such a day, for such a +charity benefit appears. Ah, a great institution is the "call-case," +being the manager's voice, but not his ears, which is both a comfort and +an advantage at times to all concerned. + +That day I glanced at it; it was empty. The first call and cast of the +season would be put up presently. I wondered how many disappointments it +would hold for me. Then there was a rustle of skirts, a tapping of heels, +a young woman gayly dressed rushed in, a smile all ready for--oh! she +nodded briefly to the young men, then she saw me--she looked full at me. +The puppy-dog trust arose in me, I was a stranger, she was going to bow, +perhaps smile! Oh, how thankful I am that I was stopped in time, before I +had betrayed that belief to her. Her face hardened, her eyes leisurely +scorched up and down my poor linen gown, then she turned frowningly to +the glass, patted her bustle into shape, and flounced out again. I felt +as though I had received a blow. Then voices, loudly laughing male +voices, approached, and three men came in, holding their hats and mopping +their faces. They "bah-Joved" a good deal, and one, big and noisy, with a +young face topped with perfect baldness, bowed to me courteously, the +others did not see me. + +Where, I thought, was the manager all this time? Then more laughter, and +back came my flouncy young woman and two of her kind with her; pretty, +finely dressed, badly bred women, followed by one whom I knew instantly. +One I had heard much of, one to whom I had a letter of introduction--I +have it still, by the way. She was gray even then, plain of feature, but +sweet of voice and very gentle of manner. I lifted my head higher. Of +course she would not know me from sole-leather, but she would see I was a +stranger and forlornly alone, and besides, being already secure in her +position in the company--she was its oldest member--and therefore, in a +certain measure, a hostess, and as my mere presence in the green-room +showed I was a professional of some sort or quality, both authority and +kindness would prompt her to a bow, a smile, perhaps a pleasant word. I +looked hungrily at her, her bright, small eyes met mine, swept swiftly +over me, and then she slowly turned her black silk back upon me, the +stranger in her gate; and as I swallowed hard at the lump Mrs. Gilbert's +gentle indifference had brought to my throat, my old sense of fun came +uppermost, and I said to myself: "No morning is lost in which one learns +something, and I have discovered that covering a club neatly in velvet +improves its appearance, without in the least detracting from the force +of its blow." + +And then the passage resounded with laughter and heel-taps, the small +room filled full; there was a surging of silken gowns, a mingling of +perfumes and of voices, high and excited, and, I must add, affected; much +handshaking, many explosive kisses, and then, down the other passageway, +came more gentlemen. They were a goodly crowd--well groomed, well +dressed, manly fellows, and all in high good-humor, except Mr. Davidge, +but, in mercy's name! who ever saw, who would have wished to see "rare +old Bill" in a good humor? + +Such gay greetings as were exchanged around about and even over me, since +my hat was twice knocked over my eyes by too emphatic embracings in such +crowded quarters--and still no manager, no prompter. When they quieted +down a bit, everyone took stock of me. It would have been a trying +position even had I been properly gowned, but as it was the +ill-suppressed titters of two extravagantly gowned nonentities and the +swift, appraising glances of the others kept me in agony. + +Suddenly a quick step was heard approaching. I nearly laughed aloud in +all my misery at their lightning-quick change of manner. Silence, as of +the grave, came upon them. They all faced toward the coming +steps--anxious-eyed, but with smiles just ready to tremble on to their +lips at an instant's notice. Never had I seen anything so like +trick-poodles. They were ready to do "dead dog," or jump over a chair, or +walk on two legs--ready, too, for either the bone or the blow. I knew +from their strained attitude of attention who was coming, and next +moment, tall and thin and dour, Mr. Daly stood in the doorway. He neither +bowed nor smiled, but crossly asked: "Is Miss Morris here?" + +Everyone looked reproachfully at everyone else for not being the desired +person. Then as the managerial frown deepened, from my corner I lifted a +rather faint voice in acknowledgment of my presence, saying: "Yes, sir, I +am here," and he gave that peculiar "huh!" of his, which seemed to be a +combination of groan and snort, and instantly disappeared again. + +Oh, dear! oh, dear! I had felt myself uncomfortable before, but now? It +was as if I had sprung up and shouted: "Say! I'm Miss Morris!" Everyone +gazed at me openly now, as if I were a conundrum and they were trying to +guess me. I honestly believe I should have broken down under the strain +in a moment more, but fortunately a slender little man made his silent +appearance at one of the doors and took off his immaculate silk hat, +revealing the thin, blond hair, the big, pale blue pop-eyes of James +Lewis. Twenty minutes ago my heart would have jumped at sight of him, but +I had had a lesson. I expected no greeting now, even from a former +friend. I sat quite still, simply grateful that his coming had taken the +general gaze from my miserable face. He shook hands all round, glanced at +me and passed by, then looked back, came back, held out his hand, saying: +"You stuck-up little brute, I knew you in aprons and pig-tails, and now +you ain't going to speak to me; how are you, Clara?" + +While I was huskily answering him, a big woman appeared at the door. Her +garments were aggressively rich, and lockets (it was a great year for +lockets) dangled from both wrists, from her watch-chain, and from her +neck-chain. She glittered with diamonds--in a street-dress which might +also have answered for a dinner-dress. I laughed to myself as I thought +what a prize she would be for pirates. Then I looked at her handsome face +and, as our eyes met, we recognized each other perfectly, but my lesson +being learned I made no sign, I had no wish to presume, and she--looked +over my head. + +M. Bènot, the Frenchman who died in harness early in the season, poor +little gentleman! came in then with the MSS. and the parts of the play, +"Man and Wife." Silence came upon the company. As M. Bènot called Mr. or +Miss So-and-so, he or she advanced and received the part assigned to +them. "Miss Clara Morris!" I rose stiffly--I had sat so long in my +corner--and received rather a bulky part. I bowed silently and resumed my +seat, but the place was for a moment only a black, windy void; I had seen +the name on my part--I was cast for _Blanche_, a comedy part! + +As I came back to my real surroundings, M. Bènot was saying: "Eleven +o'clock sharp to-morrow, ladies and gentlemen, for rehearsal." + +People began hurrying out. I waited a little, till nearly all were gone, +whispering "Miss Ethel for _Anne_, Miss Ethel for _Anne_" when the +handsome "Argosy of wealth" sailed up to me, and, in a voice of sweet +uncertainty, said: "I wonder if you can possibly recognize me?" + +"Oh, yes," I answered, smiling broadly, "we recognized each other at the +moment you entered, Miss Newton." + +She reddened and stammered something about "not being quite sure--and out +West, and now here," and as she was even prettier than when I had last +seen her, I told her so, and--we were happy ever after. + +Then I slipped out of the theatre and crossed to Twenty-first Street +safely, but could control my grief and pain, my mortification and my +disappointment, no longer. Tears would have their way, and I held my +sunshade low before my tear-washed, grieving face. Those little +ill-suppressed smiles at my clothes, those slightly lifted eyebrows, and +there was not even a single introduction to shelter me to-morrow, and as +to _Blanche_, oh, I thought "let her wait till I get home!" + +At last mother opened the door for me. I flung the hat from my aching +head, and as she silently tied a wet handkerchief about my throbbing +temples, I blurted out three words: "_A comedy part!_" and fell face +downward on the bed, and cried until there was not a tear left in me, and +considering my record as a shedder of tears, that's saying a good deal. +Afterward I knelt down and hid my shamed face in the pillow and asked +forgiveness from the ever-pitiful and patient One above, and prayed for a +clear understanding of the part entrusted to me. Oh, don't be shocked. I +have prayed over my work all my life long, and I can't think the Father +despises any labor that is done to His honor. And I humbly gave over my +further thought of _Anne_, and praying pardon for the folly of "kicking +against the pricks" and wasting my scant strength in useless passion, I +retired, at peace with myself, the world, and even _Blanche_. + +Next morning a curious thing happened. I heard, or thought I heard, the +words: "The first shall be last and the last shall be first," and I +called from my bed: "Did you speak to me, mother?" and she answered, +"No." + +As I sat over my coffee and rolls, I said, absently: "The first shall be +last, and the _last_ shall be first." + +"What do you mean?" mother asked. + +"Nothing," I said. "The words were in my ears when I awoke, and they keep +coming back to me." + +I rose and dressed for rehearsal. As I drew on my gloves I heard a +hurried voice asking for me in the hall. I recognized it as M. Bènot's. +My heart sank like lead--was even the comedy part to be taken from me? I +opened the door. Out of breath, the little man gasped: "I so come quite +quick for Monsieur Da-_lay_. He make me to ask you right away, very +quick, can you play that part of _Anne_?" + +My breath came in gasps, I might have been the runner! I answered, +briefly: "Yes!" + +"Then," said he, "here give you to me that other part, _Blanche_." + +I gave it joyously. + +"Take you now this of _Anne_ and make of the great haste to Monsieur +Da-_lay's_ office, before--_comprenez-vous_--before that you go on the +stage, or see anyone else, he want you to make some lies, I tink, so you +best hurry!" + +"Mother, mother!" I cried. As she ran, I held out to her the part, _Anne +Sylvester_, written large on it. She looked, and said: "The last shall be +first!" and kissing me, pushed me toward the stairs. + +I almost ran in my anxiety to obey orders; my mind was in a state of +happy confusion--what could it all mean? The announcement had been +distinctly made only yesterday that Miss Agnes Ethel would play _Anne_. +Was she ill? Had she met with an accident? And why should Mr. Daly wish +to see me privately? Could he be going to ask me to read the part over to +him? Oh, dear, heaven forbid! for I could much more successfully fly up +into the blue sky. + +The stairs that led down from the sidewalk to the stage-door passed +across the one, the only, window of the entire basement, which let a +modicum of light into a tiny den, intended originally for the janitor's +use, but taken by Mr. Daly for his private office. Here the great guiding +intelligence of the entire establishment was located. Here he dreamed +dreams and spun webs, watching over the incomings, the outgoings, the +sayings and the doings of every soul in the company. He would have even +regulated their thoughts, if he could. I once said to him, after a +rehearsal: "If you could, sir, while in the theatre at least, you would +force us all to think only 'Hail, Daly!'" + +He laughed a little, and then rather grimly remarked: "That speech made +to anyone else would have cost you five dollars, Miss Morris. But if you +have absolutely _no_ reverence, neither have you fear, so let it pass," +and I never said "Thank you" more sincerely in my life, for I could ill +afford jests at five dollars apiece. + +But that morning of the first rehearsal, as I hurried down the stairs, +the shade was drawn up high, and through the window I saw Mr. Daly +sitting, swinging about, in his desk-chair. Before I could tap, he called +for me to enter. He was very pale, very rumpled, very tired-looking. He +wasted no time over greetings or formalities, but curtly asked: "Can you +play _Anne Sylvester_?" + +And, almost as curtly, I answered: "Yes, sir!" + +The calm certainty of my tone seemed to comfort him; he relaxed his +seemingly strained muscles, and sank back into his chair. He passed his +long, thin fingers wearily across his closed eyes several times, then, as +he opened them, he asked, sharply: "Can you obey orders?" + +"Yes," I answered, "I've been obeying orders all my life long." + +"Well," he said, "can you keep quiet--that's the thing. Can you keep +quiet about this part?" + +I stared silently at him. + +"This thing is between ourselves. Now, are you going to tell the people +all about when you received it?" + +I smiled a little bitterly as I replied: "I am hardly likely to tell my +business affairs to people who do not speak to me." + +He looked up quickly, for I stood all the time, and asked: "What's that, +don't speak to you? Were you not welcomed----" + +I broke his speech with laughter, but he would not smile: "Were you not +properly treated? Who was lacking in courtesy?" + +"Oh, please," I hurried, "don't blame anyone. You see there were no +introductions made, and of course I should have remembered that the +hospitality of the East is more--er--well, cautious than that of the +West, and besides I must look very woolly and wild to your people." + +"Ah!" he broke in, "then in a measure the fault is mine, since worry and +trouble kept me away from the green-room. But Bènot should have made +introductions in my place--and--well, I'm ashamed of the women! cats! +cats!" + +"Oh, no!" I laughed, "not yet, surely not yet!" + +Suddenly he returned to the part: "You will tell the people that you were +to play _Anne_ in the first place." + +"But, Mr. Daly," I cried, "the whole company saw me receive the part of +_Blanche_." + +He gnawed at the end of his mustache in frowning thought. "One woman to +whom it belongs refuses the part," he said; "another woman, who can't +play it, demands it from me, and I want to stop her mouth by making her +believe the part was given to you before I knew her desire for it--do you +see?" + +Yes, with round-eyed astonishment, I saw that this almost tyrannically +high-handed ruler had someone to placate--someone to deceive. + +"You will therefore tell the people you received _Anne_ last night." + +I was silent, hot, miserable. + +"Do you hear?" he asked, angrily. "Good God! everything goes wrong. The +idiot that was to dramatize the story of "Man and Wife" for me has failed +in his work; the play is announced, and I have been up all night writing +and arranging a last act for it myself. If Miss Davenport thinks she has +been refused _Anne_, she will take her revenge by refusing to play +_Blanche_, and the cast is so full it will require all my people--you +_must_ say you received the part last night!" + +"Mr. Daly," I said, "won't you please trust to my discretion. I don't +like lying, even for my daily bread, but if silence is golden, a discreet +silence is away above rubies." + +He struck his hand angrily on the desk before him: "Miss Morris, when I +give an order----" + +Up went my head: "Mr. Daly, I have nothing to do with your private +affairs; any business order----" + +Heaven knows where we would have brought up had not a sudden darkness +come into the little room--a woman quickly passed the window. Mr. Daly +sprang to his feet, caught my fingers in a frantic squeeze, and pushing +me from the door rapidly, said: "Yes--yes--well, do your best with it. +I'm very glad Bènot found you last night!" Then turning to the new-comer, +who had not been present the day before, he cheerfully exclaimed: "Well, +you didn't lose to-day's train, I see! I have a charming comedy part for +you--come in!" + +She went in, and the storm broke, for as I felt my way through the +passage leading to the stage-stairs, I heard its rolling and rumbling, +and two dimly-seen men in front of me laughed, while one, pointing over +his shoulder, toward the office, sneered, meaningly: "Ethel stock is +going down, isn't it?" + +And almost I wished I was back in a family theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH + + I Rehearse Endlessly--I Grow Sick with Dread--I Meet with Success in + _Anne Sylvester_. + + +Up-stairs I found a bare stage, as is often the case for a first mere +reading of parts, and most of the company sitting on camp-stools, +chatting and laughing. Already M. Bènot had announced the change in the +cast, and people looked at me in perfect stupefaction: "Good heavens! +what a risk he is taking! Who on earth is she, anyway?" and I cleared my +throat in mercy to the speaker, who didn't know I stood behind her. + +That morning I was introduced to a number of the ladies and gentlemen, +but it was a mere baptism of water, not of the spirit. I was not one of +them. Understand, no one was openly rude to me, everyone bowed a +"good-morning," but, well, you can bow a good-morning over a large iron +fence with a fast-locked gate in it. That my dresses of gray linen or of +white linen struck them as being funny in September is not to be wondered +at, yet they must have known that necessity forced me to wear them, and +that their smiles were not always effaced quickly enough to spare me a +cruel pang. And my amazement grew day by day at their own extravagance of +dress. Some of the ladies wore a different costume each day during the +entire rehearsal of the play. How, I wondered, could they do it? Two of +them, Miss Kate Claxton and Miss Newton, had husbands to pay their bills, +I found, and Miss Linda Dietz--the gentlest, most sweetly-courteous +creature imaginable--had parents and a home; but the magnificence of the +others remained an unsolvable mystery. + +Another thing against me was, I could not act even the least bit at +rehearsal. Foreign actors will act in cold blood at a daylight rehearsal, +but few Americans can do it. I read my lines with intelligence, but gave +no sign of what I intended to do at night. Of course that made Mr. Daly +suffer great anxiety, but he said nothing, only looked at me with such +troubled, anxious eyes that I felt sorry for him. One gentleman, however, +decided that I was--not to put too fine a point upon it--"a lunk-head." +He treated me with supercilious condescension, varied occasionally with +overbearing tyranny. Just one person in the theatre knew that I was +really a good actress, of considerable experience, and that was James +Lewis; and from a tricksy spirit of mischief he kept the silence of a +graven image, and when Mr. Dan Harkins took me aside to teach me to act, +Lewis would retire to a quiet spot and writhe with suppressed laughter. + +One day he said to me: "Say, you ain't cooking up a huge joke on these +gas-balloons, are you, Clara? And upon my soul you are doing it well--you +act as green as a cucumber." + +And never did I succeed in convincing him that I had not engineered a +great joke on the company by deceptive rehearsing. One tiny incident +seemed to give Mr. Daly a touch of confidence in me. In the "Inn scene" a +violent storm was raging, and at a critical moment the candle was +supposed to be blown out by a gust of wind from the left door, as one of +the characters entered. They were using a mechanical device for +extinguishing the candle, and it was tried several times one morning, and +always, to my surprise, from the _right_ side of the stage. No one seemed +to notice anything odd, though the flame streamed out good and long in +the wrong direction before going out. At last I ventured, as I was the +principal in the scene: "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but is it not the +wind from the open door that blows that light out?" + +Then, quick and sharp, mine enemy was upon me: "This is _our_ affair, +Miss Morris." + +"Yes," I answered, "but the house will laugh if the candle goes out +_against_ the storm," and Mr. Daly sprang up, and, smiling his first +kindly smile at me, said: "What the deuce have we all been thinking +of--you're right, the candle must be extinguished from the _left_," and +as I glanced across the stage I saw Lewis doing some neat little dancing +steps all by himself. + +The rehearsals were exhausting in the extreme, the heat was unnatural, +the walk far too long, and, well, to be frank, I had not nearly enough to +eat. My anxiety was growing hourly, my strength began to fail, and at the +last rehearsals, white as wax from weakness, I had to be carried up the +stairs to the stage. Having such a quick study, requiring but few +rehearsals, I was from the fourth day ready at any moment to go on and +play my part. Fancy, then, what a waste of strength there was in forcing +me, day after day, to go over long, important scenes--three, five, even +seven times of a morning for the benefit of one amateur actress, who +simply could not remember to-day what she had been told yesterday. It was +foolish, it was risking a breakdown, when they had no one to put in my +place. Mr. William Davidge was the next greatest sufferer, and as an +experienced old actor he hotly resented being called back to go over a +scene, again and again, "that a 'walking vanity' might be taught her +business at his expense!" + +And though I liked and admired the "walking vanity" (who did not in the +least deserve the name), I did think the manner of her training was +costly and unjust, and one morning, just before the production of the +play, I--luckily as it would seem--lost my self-control for a moment, and +created a small sensation. In my individual case, fainting is always +preceded by a moment of total darkness, and that again by a sound in my +ears as of a rushing wind. That morning, as I finished the sixth +repetition of _Anne's_ big scene with _Lady Glenarm_, the warning whir +was already in my ears, when the order came to go over it again, "that +_Mrs. Glenarm_ might be quite easy." It was too much--a sudden rage +seized upon me: "_Mrs. Glenarm_ will only be quite easy when the rest of +us are dead!" I remarked as I took my place again, and when I received my +cue I whirled upon her with the speech: "Take care, _Mrs. Glenarm_, I am +not naturally a patient woman, trouble has done much to tame my temper, +but endurance has its limits!" + +It was given with such savage passion that Miss Dietz burst into +frightened tears and forgot utterly her lines, while a silence that +thrilled, absolute, dead, came upon the company for a moment. Hastily I +controlled myself, but there were whispers and amazed looks everywhere. +Mr. George Brown, who played the pugilist, said aloud to a group: "She's +done the whole crowd--she's an actress to the core!" + +Mr. Daly sat leaning forward at the prompt-table, white as he could well +be. His eyes were wide and bright, and, to my surprise, he spoke quite +gently to me as he said: "Spare yourself--just murmur your lines, Miss +Morris." And Miss Dietz said: "Oh, Mr. Daly, I am so glad I am prepared; +I should have fallen in my tracks if she had done that to me at night, +without warning." + +When I left the stage, one of the ladies swept her dress aside, and said: +"Sit here by me; how tired you must be!" It was the first friendly +advance made to me. Before rehearsal ended I overheard the young man with +the bald head saying: "She has sold us all, and I bet she will completely +change the map of the Fifth Avenue Theatre." + +"Oh, no, she won't," answered Lewis, shortly, "she's not that type of +woman!" + +"Well, at all events, on the strength of that outburst, I ain't afraid to +bet twenty good dollars that she makes pie out of Ethel's vogue!" Then, +seeing me, he removed his hat hurriedly, offering his shoulder for me to +lean upon as I descended the winding-stairs, and I said to myself: +"Yesterday this would have been a kindly service; to-day--to-day it is +not far from an humiliation." + +Hitherto I had known neither clique nor cabal in a theatre; now I found +myself in a network of them. The _favorite_--who, I had supposed, lived +only in the historic novel--I now met in real life, and found her as +charming, as treacherous, and as troublesome in the theatre as she could +ever have been in a royal court. There was no one to explain to me the +nature or progress of the game that was being played when I came upon the +scene; but I soon discovered there were two factions in the theatre, Miss +Agnes Ethel heading one, Miss Fanny Davenport the other. Each had a +following, but Miss Ethel, who had been all-powerful, had overestimated +her strength when she refused, point-blank, to play _Anne Sylvester_, +giving as her reason "the immorality of _Anne_." This from the lady who +had been acting all season in "Fernande" and "Frou-Frou"--as a gambler's +decoy and an adulterous wife abandoning child and home--satisfactorily +proved the utter absence of a sense of humor from her charming make-up. + +Mr. Daly, like every other man, could be managed with a little patient +_finesse_, but he would not be bullied in business affairs by any living +creature, as he proved when, rather than change the play to please the +actress he then regarded as his strongest card, he trusted a great part +to the hands of an unknown, untried girl, and gave out to the newspapers +that Miss Ethel had sprained her ankle, and, though in perfect health, +could not walk well enough to act. And, after my momentary outburst, the +anti-Ethelites suddenly placed me on one of the sixty-four squares of +their chess-board; but I knew not whether I was castle, knight, bishop, +or pawn, I only knew that I had become a piece of value in their game, +and they hoped to move me against Ethel. + +It was all very bewildering, but I had other things to think about, and +more important. My money had run so low I was desperately afraid I could +not get dresses for the play, and for the white mousseline necessary for +the croquet-party of the first act I was forced to go to a very cheap +department store, a fact the dress nightly proclaimed aloud from every +inch of its surface. Shawl dresses were the novelty of that season, and +at Stewart's I found a modestly priced dark-gray shawl overskirt and +jacket that I could wear over a black alpaca skirt for two acts. The +other two dresses I luckily had in my wardrobe, and when my new shoes, a +long gray veil, and two pairs of gray gloves were laid into the +dressing-room basket, I had in the whole world $2.38, on which we had to +live until my first week's salary came to me. But, oh, that last awful +day before the opening night. I was suffering bodily as well as mentally. +I had had an alarming attack of pleurisy. My mother had rung the bell and +left a message at the first house that carried a doctor's sign. He came; +he was far gone in liquor; he was obstinate, almost abusive--to be brief, +he blistered me shockingly; another doctor had to be called to dress and +treat the hideous blisters the first had produced; and the tight closing +of dress-waists about me was an agony not yet forgotten. But what was +that to the nervous terror, the icy chill, the burning fever, the deadly +nausea! I could not swallow food--I _could_ not! My mother stood over me +while, with tear-filled eyes, I disposed of a raw, beaten egg, and then +she was guilty of the dreadful extravagance of buying two chops, of which +she made a cup of broth, and fearing a breakdown if I attempted without +food five such acts as awaited me, she almost forced me to swallow it to +the last drop after my hat was on and I was ready to start. I always kiss +my mother good-by, and that night my lips were so cold and stiff with +fright that they would not move. I dropped my head for a moment upon her +shoulder, she patted me silently with one hand and opened the door with +the other. My little dog, escaping from the room, rushed to me, leaping +against my knees. I caught her up, and she covered my troubled, veiled +face with frantic kisses. I passed her to mother and crept painfully down +the steps. I glanced back--mother waved her hand and innocently called: +"Good luck! God bless you!" + +The astonishing conjunction of superstition and orthodox faith touched my +sense of the ridiculous. I laughed aloud, Bertie barked excitedly, I +faced about and went forward almost gayly to meet--what? As I reached +Broadway, I remember quite distinctly that I said aloud, to myself: +"Well, God's good to the Irish, and at all events I was born on St. +Patrick's day--so Garryowen forever!" + +The pendulum was swinging to the other extreme, I was in high spirits; +nor need you be surprised, for such is the acting temperament. + +I had not on that first night even the comfort of a dressing-room to +myself, but shared one of the tiniest closets with Mrs. Roberta Norwood, +in whose chic blonde person I failed utterly to see a future friend. The +terrible heat, the crowding, the strange companion, all brought back the +memory of that far-away first night of all in Cleveland; but now there +was no Mrs. Bradshaw to go to for advice or commendation. The sense of +utter loneliness came upon me suddenly, and I bent my head low over the +buckling of my shoe that my rising tears might not be noticed. + +We were directly beneath the auditorium parquet, and every seat flung +down by the ushers seemed to strike a blow upon our heads, while applause +shook dust into our eyes and hair. Forced occupation is the best cure for +nervousness, and in the hurried making-up and dressing I for the time +forgot my fright. Two or three persons had come to the door to speak to +Mrs. Norwood, and it seemed to me they were all made up unusually pale. I +looked at myself in the glass, I hesitated, at last I turned and asked if +I wore too much color--if I was too red, and the answer I received was: +"That's a matter of taste." + +Now it was not a matter of taste, but a matter of business. She was +familiar with the size and the lighting of the theatre, and I was not, +yet either from extreme self-occupation or utter indifference she allowed +me to go upon that tiny stage painted like an Indian about to take the +war-path. Truly I was climbing up a thorny stem to reach the flower of +success. + +The overture was at its closing bars, all were rushing to the stairs for +the first act. I stopped behind the dressing-room door and bent my head +for one dumbly pleading moment, then muttering "Amen--amen," I, too, +hurried up the stairs to face the awful first appearance before a New +York audience. + +I had always been rehearsed to enter with the crowd of guests. The cue +came, and as I stepped forward, a strong hand caught my arm. Mr. Daly had +suddenly changed his mind, he held me fast till all were on, then let me +go, whispering, "Now--now," and I went on alone. + +I had to retire to the back of the stage and wait a few moments till +spoken to. Never shall I forget the sort of horror the closeness of the +audience caused me, I felt I should step upon the upturned faces; I +wanted to put out my hands and push the people back, and their use of +opera-glasses filled my eyes with angry tears. Suddenly I understood the +meaning of the lightly painted faces. I raised my handkerchief and wiped +some of the red from my cheeks, while somewhat bitterly, I am afraid, I +thought that "love ye one another" and "thy neighbor as thyself" had been +relegated to the garret with "God bless our home." + +Then the astonishing beauty of the women on the stage struck me with +dismay; their exquisite lacy dresses, their jewel-loaded fingers. Oh! I +thought, how can I ever hope to stand with them. I grew sick and cold. +Then there dully reached my ears the words of _Lady Lundy_: "I +choose--Anne Sylvester." It was my cue. I came slowly down; no one knew +me, no one greeted me. I opened my lips, but no sound came. I saw a +frightened look on Miss Newton's face; I tried again, and in a husky +whisper, answered: "Thank you; I'd rather not play." + +Out in front one actor friend, John W. Norton, watched and prayed for a +success for me; when he heard the hoarse murmur, he dropped his head and +groaned: "A failure--total and complete!" But I also had noted that +hoarse croak, and it had acted like a mighty spur. I was made desperate +by it. I threw up my head, and answered my next cue with: "No, Lady +Lundy, nothing is the matter; I am not very well, but I will play if you +wish it." + +I gave the words so bell-clear and with so much insolent humility that a +round of applause of lightning quickness followed them. It was the first +bit of genuine hearty kindness I had received in the city of New York. In +my pleasure I forgot the character of _Anne_ completely, and turned to +the audience a face every feature of which, from wide, surprised eyes to +more widely-smiling lips, radiated such satisfaction and good-fellowship +that they first laughed aloud and then a second time applauded. + +At last! I was starting fair, we had shaken hands, my audience and I; my +nerves were steady, my heart strong, the "part" good. I would try hard, I +would do my best. I made my whispered appointment to meet _Geoffrey_, and +when I returned and stood a moment, silently watching him, there came +upon the house the silence that my soul loves--the silence that might +thrill a graven image into acting, and I was not stone. + +Our scene began. _Anne_, striving desperately to restrain her feelings, +said: "You are rich, a scholar, and a gentleman; are you something else +besides all these--_are you a coward and a villain, sir?_" + +Clear and distinct from the right box, in suppressed tones, came the +words: "Larmes de la voix! larmes de la voix!" Many glanced at the box, a +few hissed impatiently at the new mayor, Oakey Hall, who had spoken. Our +interview was interrupted by _Lady Lundy_ (Miss Newton) and _Sir Patrick +Lundy_ (Mr. Lewis). I was dismissed by the first and left the stage. +Applause broke forth--continued. Mr. Lewis and Miss Newton began to +speak--the applause redoubled. I turned angrily. "What bad manners!" I +said. Mr. Daly ran up to me, waving his hands: "Go on! go on! It's you, +you fool!" + +"I know it," I replied, "but I'm not going to insult any actor by taking +a call in the middle of his scene." + +"Confound you!" he said, "will you do as I tell you?" He caught me, +whirled me about and, putting his hand between my shoulders, literally +pitched me on to the stage, where I stood ashamed and mortified by what I +honestly felt to be a slight to those two waiting to proceed. + +After that the evening's triumph, like the rolling snowball, grew as it +advanced. At the end of the quarrel act with _Mrs. Glenarm_ the curtain +was raised on the stage picture--once, twice, three times. Then M. Bènot +said to Mr. Daly: "They want her," and Mr. Daly answered, sharply: "I +know what they want, and I know what I don't want--ring up again!" + +He did so; no use, the applause went on. Then Mr. Daly said to me: "Take +_Mrs. Glenarm_ on with you, and acknowledge this call." + +We went on together; retired; more applause. Again we went on together; +no use, the applause _would_ not stop. "Oh, well, ring up once more," +said Mr. Daly, "and here, you, take it yourself." + +I went on alone, and the audience rose as one individual. I saw them, +all blurred through happy tears. I held my hands out to them, with a very +passion of love. The house blossomed with white waving handkerchiefs in +answer. The curtain fell and, before I moved, rose once more, and then, +as I live by bread! I saw pass between me and those applauding people a +little crying child carrying a single potato in her hand. Of course that +was nerves; but I saw her, I tell you I saw her! and surely I should know +myself! + +In the fourth act, which was a triumph for all concerned in it--and that +meant nearly everyone in the cast--I received a compliment that I prize +still. There is a certain tone which should be reserved for short +important speeches only in strong and exciting scenes, where, by force of +contrast, it has a great effect; so, in tones low, level, clear and cold +as ice, _Anne_ had scarcely taken her solemn oath: "I swear it, on my +honor as a Christian woman, sir!" when from end to end of their railed-in +semicircle the musicians broke into swift applause. Catching the effect, +their foreign impetuosity made them respond more quickly than could the +Americans who seconded their action, while mere recognition from these +play-worn, _blasé_ men was to me veritable incense. In the last act, Mrs. +Gilbert, as _Hester Detheridge_, the supposed dumb woman, proved herself +an artist to the fingertips. Later I saw many _Hesters_, but never one to +equal hers. + +At last, and late, far too late, the play ended in a blaze of glory. The +curtain was raised for final compliments. All the actors in the play had +been summoned--we all stood in line, a bowing, smiling, happy +line--facing a shouting, hat, handkerchief, or cane-waving crowd of +pleased, excited people. As I saw how many eyes were turned my way, with +a leap of the heart I repeated: "If you make a favorable impression I +will--yes, I will double that salary." + +Surely, I thought, no one can doubt that I have made a favorable +impression, and, oh, mother, we will be so happy! Just then I caught the +eye of a young girl--I could have touched her outstretched hand, she was +so close--she gave me a lovely smile, and taking from her bosom a bunch +of scarlet carnations she threw them herself. They fell on the stage. +One of the actors picked them up and, turning, handed them to _Blanche_. +I heard the disappointed "Oh!" and caught her eye again, when, +regardless of all the rules and regulations forbidding communication +with the audience, I smiled and kissed my hand to her. As the curtain +fell, in an instant everyone was talking with everyone else. I had begun +alone--well, I must end alone. I slipped down the staircase least used, +and at its foot met Mr. George Brown, who was waiting for me. He took my +hands in his and gave me both commendation and congratulation, though +they were stayed and braced with unconscious profanity; and I squeezed +his hands hard and said: "You are so good, oh! you are so good! but +please take care, I'm afraid you'll get forfeited." When he cried: +"D----n the forfeit, it's worth a few dollars to speak as you feel +sometimes, so good-night!" + +I scrambled into my street-clothes, caught up the inevitable bag, and +fairly rushed from the theatre, and as I came up from that place of +mouldy smell and burnt-out air, and lifted my face to the stupendous +beauty of the heavens, sniffing delightedly at the cool, pure night air, +suddenly I thought how delicious must have been the first long breath +young Lazarus drew when, obeying the Divine command, he "came forth" from +the tomb. + +Tired, excited, I hurried to carry the news to the two who awaited me--my +mother and my dog. At the corner of Twenty-third Street and Broadway I +had to pass around a party of ladies and gentlemen who stood talking +there, and a lady said as I passed: "No, no! it's Morris, I tell you; +see, here it is--Clara Morris." She held up a folded programme, pointing +out the name to a gentleman beside her. I laughed happily. Odd bits of +the evening's happenings kept appearing before me like pictures. +Sometimes I saw the unknown young girl's smiling face--and the scarlet +flowers I failed to receive. Sometimes 'twas Mr. Daly's angry one as he +pitched me on to the stage to acknowledge a compliment I did not want, +great as it was. Most often I saw the faces of the lovely women of the +company. What a galaxy of beauty they made! The stately Newton, the +already full-blown, buxom Davenport, the tall, slender, deer-eyed Dietz, +the oriental Volmer, the auburn-haired Claxton, the blond Norwood! There +were just two women in that company who were not beauties--Mrs. Gilbert +and Miss Morris; even they were wholesome, pleasant women, who did not +frighten horses by any means, but still if you speak of beauty--why, +next! please! + +At last I saw the lighted windows that told me home was near. Then up the +stairs, where there bounded upon my breast the little black-and-tan +bundle of love and devotion, called Bertie the loyal, whose fervid +greetings made the removal of my hat so difficult a job that it was +through the tangle of hat, veil, and wriggling dog I cried at last: "It's +all right, Mumsey--a success! Lots and lots of 'calls,' dear! and, oh! is +there anything to eat--_I am so hungry!_" + +So, while the new actress's name was floating over many a dainty +restaurant supper, its owner sat beneath one gas-jet, between mother and +pet, eating a large piece of bread and a small piece of cheese; and, +thankful for both, she talked to her small circle of admirers, telling +them all about it, and winding up supper and talk with the declaration: +"Mother, I believe the hearts are just the same, whether they beat +against Western ribs or Eastern ribs!" + +Then, supper over, I stumbled through my old-time "Now I lay me," and +adding some blurred words of gratitude (God must be so well used to sleep +thanks, but very wide-awake entreaties!) I fell asleep, knowing that +through God's mercy and my own hard work I was the first Western actress +who had ever been accepted by a New York audience, and as I drowsed off, +I murmured to myself: "And I'll leave the door open, now that I have +opened it--I'll leave it open for all others." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH + + I Am Accepted by the Company--I am Warned against Mr. Fisk--I Have an + Odd Encounter with Mr. Gould. + + +The following morning we were called to the theatre at eleven o'clock to +have the play cut "judiciously," as old actors used to say. It was very +loosely constructed, and, besides cutting, the entire drama required a +tightening-up, as it were. + +Mr. Daly was the first to greet me and offer hearty and genial +congratulations. Everyone followed his example, and that morning I was +admitted into the family circle and came into my just inheritance of +equality and fraternity. + +A little surprised, but very happy, I gave back smile for smile, +hand-pressure for hand-pressure; for being held off at arm's length by +them all had hurt worse I'm sure than they knew, therefore when they +offered me kindly greeting I did not stop to study out the _cause_ of +this _effect_, but shut my eyes and opened my mouth, and took what luck +had sent me, and thankfully became so much one of them that I never had a +clashing word with a member of the company--never saw the faintest cloud +darken our good-fellowship. + +That morning, as the cutting was going on, I advanced and offered my +part, but Mr. Daly waved me away. "No," he said, "there's plenty of +useless matter to take out, but the public won't want _Anne_ cut, they +have none too much of her now." + +He gave but few compliments, even to those he liked, and he did not like +me yet, therefore that gracious speech created a sensation among the +other hearers and was carefully treasured up by me. + +Another of his sayings of that morning I recall. In conversation with one +of the ladies, I remarked: "As a Western woman, I suppose I have various +expressions to unlearn?" when Mr. Daly turned quickly from the +prompt-table, saying, sharply: "Miss Morris, don't say that again. You +are a New York woman now--please remember that. You ceased to be a +Westerner last night when you received the New York stamp." + +I thought him jesting, and was about to make some flippant reply, when +one of the ladies squeezed my arm and said: "Don't, he will be angry; he +is in earnest." + +And he was, just as he was in earnest later on when we had become good +friends, and I heard him for the first time swear like a trooper because +I had been born in Canada. And when I laughed at his anger, he was not +far from boxing my ears. + +"It's a damn shame!" he declared; "in the first place you are an American +to the very marrow of your bones. In the next place you are the only +woman I know who has a living, pulsing love of country and flag! Oh, the +devil! I won't believe it--you born in a tu'penny ha'penny little +Canadian town under that infernal British flag! See here, if you ever +tell anyone that--I'll--I'll never forgive you! Have you been telling +that to people?" + +I answered him: "I have not--but I have permitted the assertion that I +was born in Cleveland to go uncorrected," and, with the sweet frankness +of friendship, he answered that I had more sense than he had given me +credit for. But, small matter that it was, it annoyed him greatly, and I +still have notes of his, sent on my birthdays, in which he petulantly +refers to my unfortunate birth-place, and warns me to keep silent about +it. + +Like many other great men--and Mr. Daly was a great man--he often made +mountains out of mole-hills, devoting to some trifle an amount of +consideration out of all proportion to the thing considered. + +On the first night of the season Mr. Daly had said to me: "One word, +Miss Morris, that I had forgotten before--Mr. James Fisk, unfortunately, +as landlord, has the right of entrance into the green-room. He doesn't +often appear there, but should he come in, if you are present I desire +you should instantly withdraw. I do not wish you to be introduced to him +under any circumstances." + +I felt my face flushing red as I answered: "I have no desire to meet +either Mr. Fisk or any other gentleman in the green-room!" But Mr. Daly +said, hurriedly: "Don't misunderstand me, there's no time for +explanations now, only do as I ask you. You will recognize him when I +tell you he is very blond and very like his pictures," and away flew Mr. +Daly to attend to things enough to drive most men crazy. + +Now, that speech did not mean that Mr. Fisk was a monster of ill-breeding +or of immorality, but it did mean that that was Mr. Daly's "tat" to Mr. +Fisk's "tit" in a very pretty little "tit-for-tat" quarrel between them. + +Mr. Daly very seldom tasted defeat--very, very seldom came out second +best in an encounter; but there had been a struggle anent the renting of +the theatre: Mr. Fisk, as landlord, refusing to renounce his right of +entrance by the stage-door to any theatre he owned--nothing could move +him, no argument, no entreaty, no threat; not even an offer of more rent +than he himself asked. To Mr. Daly the right of entrance of an outsider +back of the stage was almost unbearable, even though the privilege was +seldom used and never abused. He declared he would not sign any agreement +holding such a clause. He gave up the theatre rather than yield, and +then, with a large company already engaged, he sought in vain for a house +to shelter it. Now, the city is broken out all over, close and fine, with +theatres, like a case of well-developed measles; but then 'twas +different. Mr. Daly could find no other theatre, and he was compelled to +accept the Fifth Avenue with the hated clause compromised thus: Mr. Fisk +was to have the right of entrance to the green-room, but was never to go +upon the stage or behind the scenes; an ending to the struggle that +pleased the company mightily, for they were all very fond of Jimmy Fisk, +or "The Prince," as he was called. + +He never forgot them on benefit nights; whether the beneficiary was man +or woman there was always a gift ready from the "Railroad Prince." + +He looked like a man well acquainted with his tub. His yellow hair +crisped itself into small waves right from its very roots. His blue eyes +danced with fun, for he was one of nature's comedians. His manner was +what he himself would describe as "chipper." No one could talk five +minutes with him without being moved to laughter. + +His own box was the right upper one, and as I first had him pointed out +to me, yellow-haired, laughing, flashing now and then a splendid ring, I +wondered if he really was the stalking-horse of the dark little man with +the piercing eyes who sat for one act well back of the redundant and +diffuse Mr. James Fisk. Wishing to make sure of the dark man's identity, +I asked who he was. "Oh," was the answer, "he's gone now, but I suppose +it was Gould, rooting out the 'Prince' to talk shop to him!" then, +thrusting out a contemptuous under-lip, my informant added: "He's no +good--he has nothing to do with the theatre! Scarcely ever comes to a +performance, and doesn't see anything when he does. He couldn't tell any +one of us apart from the others if he tried--and he's not likely to try. +You want to keep your eye on Jimmie. If he likes you, you're in for +flowers and a present, too, on your benefit!" + +Imagine, then, my amazement on the third night of the season when this +occurred: In one act I made my exit before the curtain fell--all the +other characters being still upon the stage. Having a change of dress +there, I always hurried down-stairs as quickly as possible, and passing +in one door and out of the other, crossed the green-room to reach my +dressing-room. That evening as I ran in I saw a gentleman standing near +the opposite door. I turned instantly to retreat, when a voice called: +"If you please." I paused, I turned. The gentleman removed his hat, and +coming to the centre of the room held out his hand, saying: "Miss +Morris--you _are_ Miss Morris?" + +I smiled assent and gave him my hand. His small, smooth fingers closed +upon mine firmly. We stood and looked at each other. He was small, and +dark of hair and of beard, and his piercing eyes seemed to be reading me +through and through. He spoke presently, in a voice low and +gentle--almost to sadness. + +"I wanted to speak to you," he said; "I'm not going to waste time telling +you you are a wonderful actress, because the papers have already done +that, and all New York _will_ do it, but I see you are an honest girl and +alone here----" + +"No--oh, no!" I broke in, "my mother, too, is here!" + +A faint smile seemed to creep about his bearded lips, there was a +distinct touch of amusement in his voice as he said: "I-n-d-e-e-d! a +valiant pair, no doubt--a truly valiant pair! but," his small fingers +closed with surprising strength about mine in emphasis of his words, +"but, oh, my honest little woman, you are going to see trouble here!" He +glanced down at the hateful cheap dress I wore, he touched it with the +brim of his hat: "Yes, you will have sore trouble on this score, to say +nothing of other things; but don't let them beat you! When your back is +to the wall, don't give up! but at a last pinch turn to me, Clara Morris, +and if I don't know how to help you out, I know somebody who will! +She----" + +Steps, running steps, were coming down the passageway, then tall, +dead-white with anger, Mr. Daly stood in the doorway. He almost gasped +the words: "What does this mean, sir?" then angrily to me: "Leave the +room at once!" + +Flushing at the tone, I bent my head and moved toward the door, when, +calm and clear, came the words: "Good-night, Miss Morris, please +remember!" + +Mr. Daly seemed beside himself with anger. "Mr. Gould," he cried (my +heart gave a jump at the name; to save my life I could not help glancing +back at them), "how dare you pass the stage-door? You have no more right +here than has any other stranger! Your conduct, sir----" + +The gray, blazing eyes of the speaker were met by Mr. Gould's, calm, +cold, hard as steel, and his voice, low and level, was saying: "We will +not discuss my conduct here, if you please--your office perhaps," as I +fled down the entry to my own room. + +Mr. Daly sent for me at the end of the play to demand my story of the +unexpected meeting. Had I received any note, any message beforehand? Had +we any common acquaintance? What had he said to me--word for word, what +had he said? + +I thought of the gentle voice, the piercing eyes that had grown so kind, +the friendly promise, and somehow I felt it would be scoffed at--I +rebelled. I would only generalize. He had called me an honest girl, had +said the city praised me; but when I got home I told my mother all, who +was greatly surprised, since she had had only the newspaper Gould in her +mind--a sort of human spider, who wove webs--strong webs--that caught and +held his fellow-men. + +His words came true. I saw trouble of many kinds and colors. More than +once I thought of his promise, but I had learned much ill of human nature +in a limited time, and I was afraid of everyone. Knowing much of poor +human nature now, and looking back to that evening, recalling every tone, +every shade of expression, I am forced to believe Mr. Jay Gould was +perfectly honest and sincere in his offer of assistance. + +If this incident seems utterly incredible at first, it is because you are +thinking of Mr. Gould wholly in his character of "The Wizard of Wall +Street;" but turn to the domestic side of the man, think of his undying +love for, his unbroken loyalty and devotion to, the wife of his choice, +who, as mother of his little flock, never ceased to be his sweetheart. + +Is it so improbable, then, that his heart, made tender by love for one +dear woman, sheltered and protected, might feel a throb of pity for +another woman, unsheltered and alone, whose poverty he saw would be a +cruel stumbling-block in her narrow path? I think not. + +Who that "she" was whose aid he would have asked in my behalf I do not +know, can never know; but it always gives me an almost childish pleasure +to imagine it was the sweet, strong woman who was his wife. At all +events, Mr. Gould that night furnished me with a pleasant memory, and +that is a thing to be thankful for. + +The first time I saw Mr. Fisk in the green-room he was surrounded by a +smiling, animated party, and as he advanced a step, expectantly, I +disappeared. I have been told that he laughed at his own disappointment +and the suddenness of some claim upon my attention. The second time, I +was in the room when he entered, and at my swift departure he reddened +visibly, and, after a moment, said: "If you were not all such good +friends of mine, I should think someone had been making a bugaboo of me +to scare that young woman." + +"Oh," laughed one of the men, "she's from the West and is a bit wild +yet." + +"Well," he replied, "it doesn't matter where she's from, New York's got +her now and means to keep her. I'd like to offer her a word of welcome +and congratulation, but she won't give a chap any margin," and he resumed +his conversation. + +The third time, he was alone in the room, and as I backed hastily out he +followed me. I ran--so did he--but as that was too ridiculous I stopped +at his call and, turning, faced him. He removed his hat and hurriedly +said: "I beg your pardon for forcing myself upon your attention, Miss +Morris, but any man with a grain of self-respect would demand an +explanation of such treatment as I have received from you. Come now, you +are a brave girl, an honest girl--tell me, please, why you avoid me as if +I were the plague. Why, good Lord! your eyes are all but jumping out of +your head! Are you afraid even to be seen listening to me?" Suddenly he +stopped, his own words had given him an idea. His eyes snapped angrily. +"Well, I'll be blessed!" he exclaimed; then he came closer. He took my +hand and asked: "Miss Morris, have you been putting these slights on me +by order?" + +I was confused, I was frightened; I remembered the anger Mr. Gould's +presence had aroused, and this was an actual breech of orders. I +stammered: "I--oh, I just happened to be busy, you know." + +I glanced anxiously about me; he replied: "Yes, you were very busy +to-night, sitting in the green-room doing nothing--yet you ran as if I +were a leper. Tell me, little woman--don't be afraid--have you been +obeying an order?" + +"If you please--if you please!" was all I could say. + +He looked steadily at me, lifted my hand to his lips, and said, with a +compassionate sigh: "Bread and butter comes high in New York, doesn't it, +child? There, I won't worry you any longer, but Brother Daly and I will +hold a little love-feast over this matter." And with a laugh he returned +to the green-room, where I could hear him singing "Lucy Long" to himself. + +A fortnight later, finding him again surrounded by the company, he +laughingly called out to me: "Don't run away, the embargo is raised. It +won't cost you a cent to shake hands and be friendly!" And as I seated +myself in the place he made beside him, he added, low: "And no advantage +taken of it outside the theatre." + +He used so many queer, old-fashioned words, such as "chipper," +"tuckered," "I swan!" "mean tyke," etc., that I once said to him: "I'm +afraid you have washed your face in a pail by the pump ere this, Mr. +Fisk?" + +He laughed, and responded: "I'm afraid I used to be sent back to do it +better, when I had first to break the ice to get to the water in the +pail, Miss Guesswell!" + +And then he gave a funny imitation of a boy washing his face in icy +water, by wetting his fingers and drawing a circle about each eye and +his mouth. He called his wife Lucy. Heaven knows whether it really was +her name, but he always referred to her as Lucy. He was very fond of +her, in spite of appearances, and proud of her, too. He said to me once: +"She is no hair-lifting beauty, my Lucy, just a plump, wholesome, +big-hearted, commonplace woman, such as a man meets once in a lifetime, +say, and then gathers her into the first church he comes to, and seals +her to himself. For you see these commonplace women, like common-sense, +are apt to become valuable as time goes on!" + +When anyone praised some wife, he would look up and say: "Wife--whose +wife? What wife? Bring your wives along, I ain't afraid to measure my +Lucy with 'em. For, look here, you mustn't judge Lucy by her James!" + +A divorce case was before the courts, and it was much discussed +everywhere. The wife had been jealous and suspicious, and blond hairs +(she was very dark herself) and strange hair-pins held a ludicrous +prominence in the evidence. "Ah!" said Fisk, "that's not the kind of a +wife I have! Never, _never_ does Lucy surprise me with a visit, God bless +her! No, she always telegraphs me when she's coming, and I--I clear up +and have a warm welcome for her, and then she's pleased, and that pleases +me, and we both enjoy our visit. Hang'd if we don't! And just to show you +what a hero--yes, a _hero_--she is, and, talking of hair-pins, let me +tell you now. You know those confounded crooked ones, with three infernal +crinkles in the middle to keep them from falling out of the hair? Those +English chorus-girls wear them, I'm told. Well, one day Lucy comes to see +me. Oh, she had sent word as usual, and everything was cleared up (I +supposed) as usual, and George, my man, was laying out some clothes for +me, when Lucy, smoothing her hand over the sofa-cushion, picks up and +holds to the light an infernal crinkled hair-pin. George turned white and +looked pleadingly at me. I saw myself in court fighting a divorce like +the devil; and then, after an awful, perspiring silence, my Lucy +says--she that has worn straight pins all her life: 'James, that is a +lazy and careless woman that cares for your rooms. It's three weeks +to-day since I left for home, and here is one of my hair-pins lying on +the sofa ever since!' + +"If she had put it in her hair I should have thought her really deceived +in the matter, but when she dropped it in the fire, I knew she was just a +plain hero! I walked over and knelt down and said: 'Thank you, Lucy,' +while I pretended to tie her shoe. George was so upset that he dropped +the studs twice over he was trying to put into a shirt-front. Oh, I tell +you my Lucy can't be beat!" + +The time he won the name of "Jubilee Jim," when the whole country was +laughing over his triumphant visit to Boston with his regiment, he made +this unsmiling explanation of the matter: + +"You see, the Ninth and I were both tickled over the invitation to visit +Boston, and as there were so many of us I paid the expenses myself. +Being proud of the regiment and anxious it should be acquainted with all +real American institutions, I arranged for it to stay over Sunday, for +there were dozens of the boys who had never even seen a slice of real +Boston brown-bread or a crock-baked bean--and a Boston Sunday breakfast +was to be the educational feature of the visit. Everything was lovely, +until the Ninth suddenly felt a desire to pray, as well as to eat, and +I'll be switched on to a side-track if the minister of that big church +didn't begin to kick like a steer, and finally refuse to let us pray in +his shop. Now, if there's anything that will make a man hot as blazes in +a minute, it's choking him off when he wants to pray. Some sharply +pointed and peppery words were exchanged on the subject. I suppose our +numbers rather muddled up his schedule, but if he'd said so quietly I +could have straightened out his heavenly time-table so that there would +have been no collision between trains of prayer. But no, instead of +that, he slams the doors of his church in our visiting faces, and, in +act at least, tells us to go to--what's that polite word now that means +h--? What--what do you call it _sheol_? Shucks! that word won't become +popular--hasn't got any snap to it! Well, the boys were mighty blue, +they thought the visit was off. But I got 'em into the armory, and I +said, what amounted to this, I says: 'This visit ain't off; Boston is +right as a trivet, and wants us! We ain't bucking against the city, but +against that sanctified stingyike who don't want anyone in heaven but +his own gang; but you see here, when the Ninth Regiment wants to pray, +I'm d----d if it don't do it. Who cares for that church, anyway, where +you'd be crowded like sardines and have your corns crushed to agony! +We'll go to Boston, boys, and we'll praise the Lord on the Common, if +they'll let us, and if they won't, we'll march out to the suburbs and +have a perfect jubilee of prayer!' And what do you think," he cried, +grinning like a mischievous boy, as he twisted the long, waxed ends of +his mustache to needle-like points, "what do you think--we prayed out of +doors, with all female Boston and her attendants looking on and saying +_amen_; and, oh, by George! I sent a man to see, and 'stingyike's' +church was nearly empty! Ha! ha! I tell you what it is, when a New York +soldier wants to pray, he prays, or something gives!" After that he was +Jubilee Jim. + +His growing stoutness annoyed him greatly, yet he was the first to poke +fun at what he called his "unmilitary figure." One evening I said: "Mr. +Fisk, I'm afraid you have cast too much bread upon the waters; it's said +to be very fattening food when it returns?" + +"Well, I swan!" he answered, "I'll never give another widow a pass over +any road of mine--whether she's black, mixed, or grass, for that's about +all the breadcasting I do." + +This was not true, for he was very kind-hearted and generous, especially +to working people who were in trouble. His "black widow" was one in full +mourning, his "mixed widow" was the poor soul who had only a cheap black +bonnet or a scanty veil topping her ordinary colored clothing to express +her widowed state, while the "grasses" were, in his own words: "All those +women who were not married--but ought to be." + +Whenever he gave a diamond or an India shawl to a French opera-bouffe +singer the world heard of it, and the value grew and grew daily, and that +publicity gratified his strange distorted vanity, but the lines of +widows, sometimes with hungry little flocks hanging at their skirts, that +he passed over roads, the discharged men he "sneaked" (his own word) back +into positions again, because of their suffering brood, he kept silent +about. + +He never got angry at the papers, no matter what absurdity they printed +about him. At the time of the riot some paper declared he had left his +men and had climbed a high board fence in order to escape from danger. In +referring to the article at the theatre one evening, he said, in +reproachful tones: "Now wasn't that a truly stupid lie?" He rose, and +placing his hands where his waist should have been, he went on +mournfully: "Look at me! I look like a sprinter, don't I? If you just +could see me getting into that uniform--no offence, ladies, I don't mean +no harm. Oh, Lord, who has a small grammar about them? Well, when I'm in +the clothes, it takes two men's best efforts, while I hold my breath, to +clasp my belt--and they say I climbed that high fence! Say, I'd give five +thousand dollars down on the nail if I had the waist to do that act +with!" + +He was not only a natural comedian, but he had an instinct for the +dramatic in real life, and he was quick to grasp his opportunity at the +burning of Chicago. _His_ relief train must be rushed through first--_he_ +must beg personally; and then--and then, oh, happy thought! all the city +knew the value he placed upon the beautiful jet black stallion he rode +in the Park. Out, then, he and his stall-mate came--splendid, fiery, +satin-coated aristocrats! And taking their places before a great express +wagon, went prancing and curvetting their way from door to door, Mr. Fisk +stopping wherever a beckoning hand appeared at a window. And bundles of +clothing, boxes of provisions, anything, everything that people would +give, he gathered up with wild haste, and brief, warm thanks, and rushed +to the express offices for proper sorting and packing. Of course that +personal service was not really necessary. A modest man would not have +done it, but he was spectacular. His act pleased the people, too, and +really many were moved to give by it. Their fancy was caught by the +picture of the be-diamonded Jubilee Jim placing himself and his valuable +horses at the service of the terror-stricken, homeless Chicagoans. + +Though he was himself the butt of most of his jokes, he often expressed +his opinions in terms as conclusive and quite as funny as those of his +world-famous reply to the sanctimonious fence-committee, who, claiming +that the laying of his railroad had destroyed the greater part of the old +fence about a country graveyard, demanded that he should replace it with +a new one. Scarcely were the words out of their lips than, swift as a +flash, came the characteristic answer: "What under heaven do you want a +fence round a graveyard for? The poor chaps that are in there can't get +out, and, I'll take my Bible oath, those that are out don't want to get +in! Fence around a graveyard! I guess not; I know a dozen better ways of +spending money than that!" + +I heard much of his generosity on benefit nights, but personally I never +tested it. Before my benefit night arrived, Mr. Edward Stokes had caught +Mr. Fisk on a walled-in staircase, as in a trap, and had shot him down, +and then, in that time of terror and excitement, Jubilee Jim proved that +whatever else he had been called--man of sin, fraud, trickster, clown--he +was _not_ a coward! With wonderful self-control he asked, as the +clothing was being cut from his stricken body: "Is this the end of me; am +I going to die, doctor?" + +And when the man addressed made an evasive and soothing answer, that his +hopeless eyes contradicted, James Fisk testily continued: "I want to +know the truth!" Then, more gently: "I'm not afraid to die, doctor, but +_I am_ afraid of leaving things all at sixes and sevens! This is the end +of me, isn't it? Well, do what you can, and, George, send for ---- and +for ---- [his lawyers], and I will do what I can. When can Lucy get +here?" + +And so he quickly and calmly made all possible use of his ebbing +strength--of the flying moments--disproving at least one charge, that of +cowardice. He was dying, and crowds were waiting about the hotel where he +lay, hungry for any morsel of news from the victim's bedside. That was +the situation as I went to the theatre. I dressed and went through one +act, then, as I came upon the stage in the second act, I faced Mr. Fisk's +private box. I glanced casually at it, and stopped stock-still, the words +dying on my lips. A shiver ran over me--someone had entered the box since +the first act and had lowered the heavy red curtains and drawn them close +together. + +No one could fail to understand. The flood of light, the waves of music +reached to the edge of the box only--within were silence, darkness! The +laughing owner would enter there no more, forever! + +With swelling throat I stood looking up. Another actor entered, saw the +direction of my eyes, followed it, and next moment tears were on his +cheeks. Then people in the house, noticing our distress, glanced in that +same direction, and here and there a man rose and slipped out. Here and +there a handkerchief was pressed to a face, for without a word being +spoken all knew, by the blank, closed box, that Mr. Fisk was dead. + +I never knew a more trying evening for actors, for all knew him +well--liked him and grieved for him. I was the only mere acquaintance, +yet I was deeply moved and found it hard to act as usual before that +mute, blank box--hard as though the body of its one-time owner lay +within. + +So he made his exit--dramatic to the last. A strange character--shrewd, +sharp, vain, ostentatious, loving his diamonds, velvet coats, white +gloves. The monumental silver water-pitchers in his private boxes were +too foul to drink from generally, but then the public could see the mass +of silver. A bit of a mountebank, beyond a question, but with a temper so +sunny and a heart so generous that in spite of all his faults Jubilee Jim +had a host of friends. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH + + A Search for Tears--I Am Punished in "Saratoga" for the Success of "Man + and Wife"--I Win Mr. Daly's Confidence--We Become Friends. + + +The people who have known happiness without the alloying _if_ or _but_ +are few and far between. "Yes, of course we are happy--but," "I should be +perfectly and completely happy--_if_," you hear people saying every day; +and so in my case, having been admitted into fellowship with the men and +women of the company, who were a gracious and charming crowd, and +receiving hearty approval each night from the great Public, by whose +favor I and mine existed, I was grateful and would have been quite +happy--_but_ for a brand-new difficulty that suddenly loomed up, large, +and wide, and solid before me. + +Never in my life had I been in a play of a longer run than one week. +Imagine, then, my misery when I found this play, that was already old to +me at the end of the first week, was likely to go on for a long time to +come. It was not mere _ennui_ over the repetition of the same lines, +night after night, that troubled me, it was something far more serious. I +had made my hit with the public by moving the people's feelings to the +point of tears; but to do that I had first to move my own heart, for, try +as I would, no amount of careful acting had the desired effect. _I_ had +to shed tears or _they_ would not. Now that is not an easy thing to do to +order, in cold blood. While the play is new one's nerves are strained +almost to the breaking point--one is over-sensitive and the feelings are +easily moved; then the pathetic words I am speaking touch my heart, tears +rush to my eyes, tears are heard in my voice, and other hearts respond +swiftly; _but_ when you have calmed down, when you have repeated the +lines so often that they no longer mean anything to you, what are you to +do then? + +Really and truly there were days when I was nearly out of my mind with +terror lest I should not be able to cry that night; for those tears of +mine had a commercial value as well as an artistic, and Mr. Daly was +swift to reproach me if the handkerchief display in front was not as +great as usual. This sounds absurd perhaps to a reader, but heaven knows +it was tragic enough to me. I used to agonize all day over the question +of tears for the night, and I have seen the time when even my own +imaginary tomb failed to move me. + +One night, when my eyes were dry as bones, and my voice as hard as stone, +and Mr. Daly was glaring whitely at me from the entrance, I had suddenly +a sort of vision of that dethroned actress whom, back in Cleveland, I had +seen uncrowned. I saw her quivering face, her stricken eyes, and a sudden +rush of tears blinded me. Later, Mr. Daly said: "What a tricky little +wretch you are. I thought you were going to throw that scene away, +without a single tear to-night. I suppose you were doing it to aggravate +me, though?" + +Goodness knows I was grateful enough myself for the tears when they did +come, and I got an idea from that experience that has served me all the +years since. Everything else--love, hate, dignity, passion, vulgarity, +delicacy, duplicity, all, everything can be assumed to order; but, for +myself, tears are not mechanical, they will not come at will. The heart +must be moved, and if the part has lost its power then I must turn to +some outside incident that _has_ power. It may be from a book, it may be +from real life--no matter, if only its recalling starts tears to weary +eyes. + +Thus in "Alixe" it was not for my lost lover I oftenest wept such racing +tears, but for poor old _Tennessee's partner_ as he buried his worthless +dead, with his honest old heart breaking before your eyes. While in +"Camille" many and many a night her tears fell fast over the memory of a +certain mother's face as she told me of the moment when, returning from +the burial of her only child, the first snowflakes began to whirl through +the still, cold air, and she went mad with the anguish of leaving the +little tender body there in the cold and dark, and flung herself from the +moving carriage and ran, screaming, back to the small rough pile of earth +to shelter it with her own living body. + +So there is my receipt for sudden tears. I being--thank heaven--a +cheerful body, and given to frequent laughter, may laugh in peace up to +the last moment, if I have only stowed away some heart-breaking incident +that I can recall at the proper moment. It seems like taking a mean +advantage of a tender heart, I know--what Bret Harte would call "playing +it low down" on it; but what else could I do? I leave it to you. What +could _you_ do to make yourself cry seven times a week, for nine or ten +months a year? + +Then there was another great change in the new life. I was used to +rehearsing every day, and, lo! when once a play was on here, there +followed weeks, perhaps months, when there were no rehearsals. Mercy! I +could never afford to waste all that time; but what could I do? "One +_and_ two _and_ three _and_," I could not afford; but, oh, _if_ I could +take some French lessons, _what_ a help they would be to me in the proper +pronunciation of names upon the stage. But I did not want lessons from +some ignorant person, or someone who had a strange dialect. I have all my +life had such a horror of _unlearning_ things. I knew a real French +teacher would charge me a real "for-true" price, and my heart was +doubtful--but see how fate was good to me. There was in Tenth Street a +little daughter of a well-known French professor--he taught in a certain +college. The daughter was eager to teach. The father said: "Who will +trust so young a girl to instruct them? If you only had a first and +second pupil, you would be self-supporting. French teachers are in great +demand, but where shall you find that first pupil--tell me that, _ma +fille_. No matter how small your charge, the question will be, where have +you taught? No one will wish to be the first pupil." + +But, fine old French gentleman as he was, he was mistaken nevertheless, +for I was willing, nay, eager, to be that first pupil, and she found my +name of so much value to her in obtaining a full class that she became +absolutely savage in her fell determination to make me speak her beloved +language correctly. In spite of her eighteen years she looked full +fourteen, and her dignity was a fearful thing to contemplate, until she +had a chocolate-cream in one cheek and a dimple in the other, then +somehow the dignity broke in the middle and the lesson progressed through +much laughter. + +She was not beautiful, but pretty and charming to such an extent that, +within the year, she became Madame, carried her own chocolates, and was +absolutely vicious over irregular verbs. Dear little woman--I remember +her gratefully, and also remember that, later on, I paid just six times +as much per lesson to an elaborate person, well-rouged, who taught me +nothing, lest she might offend me in the act. I know this to be true, +because one day I deliberately mispronounced and let tenses run wild, to +see if she would have the honesty or courage to correct me; but she +looked a trifle surprised, rearranged her bangles, and let it all pass. I +then resigned my position as pupil, that she might give her very +questionable assistance as teacher to some other scholar, shorter of +temper, and more sensitive to rebuke or correction than I was. + +At the theatre I think everyone liked me well enough, save Mr. Daly. He +disliked me because I simply could not learn to treat him with reverence. +I had the greatest admiration for him, I showed him respect by obeying +him implicitly, but if he was funny I laughed, if he gave me an +opportunity to twist his words absurdly I accepted it as gleefully as if +he had been the gas-man. + +But two things happened, and lo! my manager's attitude toward me changed +completely. Mr. Daly was convinced that no man or woman could bear +decently a sudden success. He was positive that no head could stand it. +When I made no demand for my promised increase of salary, but went +pinching along as best I could, he only said to himself: "She will be all +the worse when her head does begin to turn." + +One day a certain newspaper man looked in at his office, and said: "Oh, I +have something here about the play, and I've given a few pretty good +lines to your _find_ (Clara Morris): do you want to look at them?" + +"I want them cut out!" sharply ordered Mr. Daly. + +"Cut out?" repeated the surprised man. "Why, she's the play--or mighty +near it. I thought you'd want her spoken of most particularly?" + +And then Mr. Daly made his famous speech: "I don't want individual +successes, sir, in my theatre! I want my company kept at a level. I put +them all in a line, and then I watch, and if one head begins to bob up +above the others, I give it a crack and send it down again!" + +I had heard that story in several forms, when one day I spoke of it to +Mr. Daly, and he calmly acknowledged the speech, as I have given it +above, adding the words: "And next week I'm going to give Mr. Crisp's +head a crack, he's bobbing up, I see!" + +The play of "Saratoga," by Mr. Bronson Howard, had been read to the +company, and, after the custom of actors the world over, they began to +cast the characters themselves--such a part for Lewis, such a one for +Miss Davenport. The splendid Irish part for Amy Ames (of course, with her +wonderful brogue), etc.; almost everyone remarking that there was nothing +for me. Lewis said: "Well, Clara, you're out of this play, sure. Will you +study Greek or the Rogue's Vocabulary? for I'll wager a hat to a hair-pin +you'll be turning a good head of hair gray over some nonsense of the +kind--good Lord!" + +For M. Bènot was holding toward me a thin little part, saying: "For you, +Miss Morris." + +Mr. Daly stood at the far end of the room; he was watching me. The part +was a walking lady of second quality. It was an indignity to give it to +me. Like lightning I recalled the terms of my contract--I realized my +helplessness. + +I rolled up the small part, calmly rose, and smiling a comprehending +smile into Mr. Daly's disappointed eyes, for which he could have choked +me, I sauntered out of the room. At home I wept bitterly. It was +undeserved! I had borne so much from gratitude, and here I was being +treated just as a fractious, brain-turned, presuming person might have +been treated for a punishment. However, my tears were only seen at home. +At the theatre I rehearsed faithfully and good-temperedly, and writhed +smilingly at the expressions of surprise over the cast, and for one +hundred nights I was thus made to do penance for having made a success in +"Man and Wife." Truly I had got a good "crack" for bobbing up; still my +patient, uncomplaining acceptance of the part had made an impression on +Mr. Daly, and he often expressed his regret, later on, for the error he +made as to the possible turning of my head. + +Then came the second happening. To Mr. Daly a confidant was an absolute +necessity of existence. If they had tastes in common, so much the happier +for Mr. Daly, but such tastes were not imperatively demanded, neither was +sex of importance--male or female would answer; but the one great, +indispensable, and essential quality was the ability to respect a +confidence, the power to hold a tongue. + +In the early weeks of the season he had been drifting into a friendship +with a man in the company, and had told him, in strictest confidence, of +a certain plan he was forming, and twenty-four hours later he heard that +plan being discussed in one of the dressing-rooms. It had traveled by way +of husband to wife, wife to friend, friend to her husband, and husband +No. 2 was busy in explaining it to all and sundry. + +That ended the career of one gentleman as friend and confidant to Mr. +Daly. One day after rehearsal I was detained on the stage to discuss a +fashion-plate he was tearing from a magazine. A short poem caught his +eye. He glanced at it carelessly, then looked more closely at the lines, +and began to mumble the words: + + "She of the silver foot--fair goddess--" + +His brows were knit, his eyes looked away, dreamily. Again he repeated +the words, adding, impatiently: "I can't place that silver foot--the bow, +the lyre, yes; but the foot? Oh, probably it's a mere figure of speech," +and he turned to the plate again, when I said: "Perhaps it means +_Thetis_, you know, silver-footed queen--daughter of old sea-god." + +His whole face lit up with pleasure. "That's it," he said, "that's whom +it means; but are you sure the word 'queen' belongs right there?" + +"No," I laughed, "I have grave doubts about my 'queen,' but I'm solid as +a rock on the rest of the line." + +Then he repeated, with lingering enjoyment: "'Thetis, silver-footed, +_silver-footed_, daughter of old sea-god.' Do you know I often wonder why +someone does not make a play of mythological characters--a play after the +modern method I mean." + +"Oh," I broke in, "then I shall have a rest, for I am not beautiful +enough for even a walking-lady divinity." + +"Ah," he said, kindly, "you are not going to do any more walking +ladies--divine or human. I have already in my possession a play with a +great part for you. Boucicault wrote it, and----" + +He stopped suddenly, all the brightness went out of his face. He played +nervously with his watch-guard. He started out with: "Miss Morris, I +wish--" stopped, frowned; then impatiently took up the picture-plate, +pointed out which dress he wanted me to wear, and curtly dismissed me. + +I understood him perfectly. In a genial moment he had unintentionally +given me some information which he now regretted, though he would not +stoop to ask my silence; and he felt sure that I would at once boast of +the great part that was to be mine; and I went home, one broad smile of +malicious satisfaction, for in spite of my seemingly-careless speech, I +had, by long and careful training, acquired the fine art of holding my +tongue about other people's affairs, even though I ascended to the roof +to babble to the city of my own; and Mr. Daly would be again +disappointed, as he had been the day I accepted, without protest, the +walking-lady part. + +That night he barely nodded in silent recognition of my "Good-evening, +sir." Next morning he kept his eyes averted from me when he gave me any +stage directions; but whenever or wherever we women formed a little group +to chat, there Mr. Daly, like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly sprang into +evidence. It was very funny--he was simply waiting for me to repeat my +interesting information. + +Two, three days passed, then a certain kindness began to show in his +manner toward me. Quite suddenly, and of course unasked, he gave me a +dressing-room to myself. I was delighted! Hesitatingly, I tapped at the +door of his office. I had never stood there before, save by order. I +said: "I will not come in, Mr. Daly, I only wished to thank you for the +room you have given me. It will be a great comfort, for we are terribly +crowded in the other one." + +But he rose, took my hand, and said: "You deserve anything and everything +this theatre can provide for you." Drawing me to a chair, he placed me in +it, while still speaking: "And I am proud of you. You are a girl in ten +thousand! For you can respect a confidence." + +I was very much embarrassed by such unexpected warmth, and laughing +nervously I said: "Even when the confidence was unintentional and deeply +regretted?" + +"Ah!" he answered, "you saw that, did you? Well, I've been listening and +waiting to hear about the 'new play' ever since, but not a word have you +dropped, and I did not ask for silence either. You are a woman worth +talking to, and I shall never be afraid to tell you things I am going to +do, and----" + +And straightway he told me all about the new play--its good points, its +bad ones, and where he feared for it; and to show you how true was his +judgment, the play, which later on gave me a great personal success, was +itself a failure from the very causes he then indicated. + +And so it came about that Mr. Daly, putting aside his dislike for +me--coming to enjoy my sense of the ridiculous, instead of resenting +it--confided many, many plans and dreams, likes and dislikes, hates and +loves to me. We quarreled spitefully over politics, fought furiously over +religion, wickedly bowed down and worshipped before odds and ends of +lovely carvings or precious _cloisonné_, to whose beauty I first +introduced him, and hung in mutual rapture over rare old engravings. + +Thus I came to know him fairly well. A man with unbounded ambition, a man +of fine and delicate tastes, with a passionate love of beauty--in form, +color, sound. I have known him to turn a sentence, exquisitely, word by +word, slowly repeating the line, as though he were tasting its beauty, as +well as hearing it. Interested in the occult and the inscrutable--a man +of many tastes, but of one _single purpose_--every power and acquirement +were brought to the service of the stage. + +In love he was mutability personified. In friendship, always exigent. Now +sullenly silent, now rapidly talkative, whimsical, changeable, he was +ever lavishly generous and warm-hearted. And it is a comfort to know that +in one respect at least I proved satisfactory during the friendship that +lasted as long as I remained in the theatre, since I never, even by +chance, betrayed his confidence. + +When we had finally parted, a man one day mentioned me to Mr. Daly, +expecting to bring forth some disparaging remark. There was a pause while +my former manager gazed out at the heavily falling rain, then he said, +quietly: "When you drop a thing in a well, it can go no further. Clara +Morris is a sort of human well, what you confide to her goes no further. +Some people call that 'discretion,' I call it loyalty. I--I guess you'll +get a wetting on the way home." And acting on that hint the surprised +gentleman withdrew. He told me himself of the occurrence, and I confess +that Mr. Daly's words gave me a thrill of pleasure. + +After those two occurrences I found my theatrical life pleasanter, for I +love my kind and wish to live at peace with them--and Mr. Daly's dislike +had disturbed and distressed me; therefore, when that had been conquered, +great was my contentment. A sympathetic word, a comprehending glance, a +friendly smile, proving ample indemnification for former injuries. + +Nor could I be made to accept at full value the cruel gibes, the bitter +sarcasms reported to me as coming from Miss Agnes Ethel. For some reason +there was a distinct effort made to arouse in me an enmity against that +lady. Unpleasant stories had been repeated to me during the run of "Man +and Wife"; some of them had wounded me, but I had only listened silently. +Then one night I met her--a slender, auburn-haired, appealing creature, +with clinging fingers, sympathetic voice, and honest eyes--a woman whose +charming and cordial manner not only won my admiration, but convinced me +she was incapable of the brutalities charged to her. + +So when "Jezebel" was announced, and it was known that Mr. Daly desired +Miss Ethel and me both to appear in it, great interest was aroused, only +to be crushed by Miss Ethel's refusal to play the part allotted to her. I +think she was in error, for the two parts were perfectly balanced. Mine +was the wicked, even murderous adventuress; hers the gentle, sweet, and +triumphant wife. I had the first act; she was not in that, but Mr. +Daly's idea was that her victory in the last act--where I was simply +pulverized for my sins--evened things up. But Miss Ethel listened to the +advice of outside friends. Her relations with Mr. Daly were already +strained, and her second refusal of a part was the beginning of the end. + +Mr. Daly himself informed me that she said her part was secondary, but +that the real difficulty sprang from an earlier wrangle between them, +with which I had nothing to do. Yet there were persons who, with great +indignation, informed me that Miss Ethel had positively "refused to +appear upon the stage in any play with me--a mere vulgar outsider!" + +But "vulgar outsider" was just a touch too strong; "malice had o'erleaped +self" and fallen on the other side. The silly story even reached some of +the papers, but that did not increase my belief in its truth. + +Mr. Daly and Miss Ethel parted company before, or at, the end of the +season, and while I never worked with her, later on I privately received +such gracious courtesies from her kindly hands that the name of Agnes +Ethel must ever ring pleasantly in my ears. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH + + A Study of Stage-Management--I Am Tricked into Signing a New Contract. + + +Before I came under the management of Mr. Daly, I may say I never really +knew what stage-management meant. He was a young man then; he had had, I +believe, his own theatre but one season before I joined his forces, yet +his judgment was as ripe, his decisions were as swift and sure, his eye +for effect was as true, his dramatic instinct as keen as well could be. + +We never exchanged so much as a frown, let alone a hasty word, over work. +I realized that he had the entire play before his "mind's eye," and when +he told me to do a thing, I should have done it, even had I not +understood why he wished it done. But he always gave a reason for things, +and that made it easy to work under him. + +His attention to tiny details amazed me. One morning, after Mr. Crisp had +joined the company, he had to play a love-scene with me, and the +"business" of the scene required him to hold me some time in his embrace. +But Mr. Crisp's embrace did not suit Mr. Daly--no more did mine. Out he +went, in front, and looked at us. + +"Oh," he cried, "confound it! Miss Morris, relax--relax! lean on him--he +won't break! That's better--but lean more! lean as if you needed support! +What? Yes, I know you don't need it--but you're in love, don't you see? +and you're not a lady by a mile or two! For God's sake, Crisp, don't be +so stiff and inflexible! Here, let me show you!" + +Up Mr. Daly rushed on to the stage, and taking Crisp's place, convulsed +the company with his effort at acting the lover. Then back again to the +front, ordering us to try that embrace again. + +"That's better!" he cried; "but hold her hand closer, tighter! not quite +so high--oh, that's too low! Don't poke your arm out, you're not going to +waltz. What in ---- are you scratching her back for?" + +It was too much; in spite of the awe in which Mr. Daly was held, +everyone, Crisp included, screamed with laughter, while Mr. Daly fumed +and fretted over the time that was being wasted. + +One of my early experiences of his way of directing a rehearsal made a +deep impression upon me. In the play of "Jezebel" I had the title part. +There were a number of characters on in the scene, and Mr. Daly wanted to +get me across the stage, so that I should be out of hearing distance of +two of the gentlemen. Now, in the old days, the stage-director would +simply have said: "Cross to the Right," and you would have crossed +because he told you to; but in Mr. Daly's day you had to have a _reason_ +for crossing the drawing-room, and so getting out of the two gentlemen's +way--and a reason could not be found. + +Here are a few of the many rejected ideas: There was no guest for me to +cross to in welcoming pantomime; no piano on that side of the room for me +to cross to and play on softly; ah, the fireplace! and the pretty warming +of one foot? But no, it was summer-time, that would not do. The ancient +fancy-work, perhaps? No, she was a human panther, utterly incapable of so +domestic an occupation. The fan forgotten on the mantel-piece? Ah, yes, +that was it! you cross the room for that--and then suddenly I reminded +Mr. Daly that he had, but a moment before, made a point of having me +strike a gentleman sharply on the cheek with my fan. + +"Oh, confound it, yes!" he answered, "and that's got to stand--that blow +is good!" + +The old, old device of attendance upon the lamp was suggested; but the +hour of the day was plainly given by one of the characters as three +o'clock in the afternoon. + +These six are but few of the many rejected reasons for that one cross of +the stage; still Mr. Daly would not permit a motiveless action, and we +came to a momentary standstill. Very doubtfully, I remarked: "I suppose a +smelling-bottle would not be important enough to cross the room for?" + +He brightened quickly--clouded over even more quickly: "Y-e-e-s! N-o-o! +at least, not if it had never appeared before. But let me see--Miss +Morris, you must carry that smelling-bottle in the preceding scene, +and--and, yes, I'll just put in a line in your part, making you ask some +one to hand it to you--that will nail attention to it, you see! Then in +this scene, when you leave these people and cross the room to get your +smelling-bottle from the mantel, it will be a perfectly natural action on +your part, and will give the men their chance of explanation and +warning." And at last we were free to move on to other things. + +Above all was he eager to have his stage present a home-like interior. +Never shall I forget my amazement when I first saw a piece of furniture +occupying the very centre of the stage, while I with others were reduced +to acting in any scrap of room we could "scrooge" into, as children say. + +Long trains were fashionable then, and it was no uncommon sight to see +the lover standing with both feet firmly planted upon his lady's train +while he implored her to fly with him--the poor man had to stand +somewhere! Miss Davenport, in one of her comedy scenes, having to move +about a good deal on the crowded stage, finally wound her trailing skirts +so completely about a chair that, at her exit, the chair went with her, +causing a great laugh. + +One night a male character, having to say boastfully to me: "I have my +hand upon a fortune!" I added in an undertone: "And both feet upon my +white satin dress!" at which he lost his grip (as the boys say) and +laughed aloud--said laugh costing him a forfeit of fifty cents, which +really should have been paid by me, as I was the guilty cause of that +disastrous effect. But the gentleman was not only gallant but well used +to being forfeited, and unconcernedly paid the penalty exacted. + +But really it was very distressing trying to make your way between pieces +of furniture--stopping to release your skirts from first one thing and +then another, and often destroying all the effect of your words by such +action. One evening I petulantly observed to Mr. Daly: "I see now why one +is only _woolly_ in the West--in the East one gets the wool all rubbed +off on unnecessary pedestals and centre-divans." + +He laughed first, then pulled up sharply, saying: "Perhaps you did not +notice that your comment contained a criticism of my judgment, Miss +Morris? If I think the furniture necessary, that is sufficient," and I +gave him a military salute and ran down-stairs. At the foot Mr. George +Brown and one of the pretty young women stood. She was saying: "Now if +any of _us_ had said there was too much crowding from that rubbishy old +furniture, he would have made us pay a nice forfeit for it, but Miss +Morris gets off scot-free!" + +"Yes, I know," said Mr. Brown, "but then she amused him first with the +idea of rubbing the Western wool off here, and you can't very well laugh +and then turn around and forfeit the person who made you do it." + +And so I learned that if no detail was too small for Mr. Daly to consider +carefully in his preparation of a play, so no detail of daily life in his +theatre was too small for notice, consideration, and comment, and I +resolved to try hard to curb my careless speech, lest it get me into +trouble. + +Early during that first week my friend, John Norton, said to me: "Have +you spoken to Mr. Daly about your salary yet?" + +"Good gracious, no!" I answered. + +"Well, but you should," he persisted; "that is only business. You have +made a great hit; he promised you to double thirty-five dollars if you +made a favorable impression." + +"Well," I cried, "wait till salary-day, and very likely I'll get it; he +will keep his word, only, for mercy's sake, give him a chance! It would +insult him were I to remind him, now, of his promise." + +I was content to wait, but Mr. Norton was anxious. Monday came and, +tremblingly, I opened my envelope to find thirty-five dollars--no more, +no less. I knew what anyone else would do, I knew I was valuable to Mr. +Daly, but, oh, those years and years of repression--for so long a time +_to be seen--not heard_, had been the law of my weary life, and now the +old thrall was upon me, I simply could not demand my right. + +The tears fell fast as I went home, with that miserable wage in my hand. +We were in such dreadful straits for clothing. Other needs we could hide, +but not the need of outer garments. I was quite sick with disappointment +and anxiety, yet I would not permit Mr. Norton to go and speak for me, as +that would mean gossip as to his right to interfere. + +I used to plan out exactly what I was going to say, and start a little +earlier to the theatre, that I might have time to see Mr. Daly and remind +him of his promise, and then, when I got there, unconquerable shame +overcame me--I _could_ not! + +Then one night Mr. Daly asked me to sign a contract for five years, with +a certain rise in salary each year. I utterly refused. I knew that would +mean absolute bondage. He said he would raise my salary now, if I would +sign; and I did actually whisper, that he had not kept his promise about +this year's salary. + +He curtly answered: "Never mind this year--sign for five, and this season +will then take care of itself!" + +"No," I said, and yet again "No!" "Mr. Daly," I cried, "I shall be +grateful to you all the days of my life for giving me this chance in New +York--you are treating me badly, but I am grateful enough not to rebel. I +will play for you every season of my life, if you want me; I will never +consider an offer without first telling you of it, but you must engage me +but for one season at a time." + +"Then you can go!" he said. "All my people are engaged from three to five +years--I will not break my rule for anyone; so now you can choose!" + +"Pardon me," I answered, huskily, "you chose for me when you told me to +go!" I bowed to him and went out, sore at heart and deeply wounded, for I +was keeping silent as to his broken promise out of sheer gratitude for +the opening he had given me. + +The letter-box for the company hung near his private office. One night, +as he unlocked his door, he saw old man Keating (the stage-door man) +sorting out letters for the various boxes. One caught Mr. Daly's eye, +bearing the name of Wallack. He took it from Keating's hand; it was +addressed to Clara Morris. No one ever called Mr. Daly a dull man, and +when he put two and two together, even in a hurry, he knew quite well +that the result would be four; and when he put the words, "Wallack's +Theatre," and the address, "Clara Morris," together he knew equally well +the result would be an offered engagement. Then Mr. Daly put back the +letter and said sharply to the reverent Keating: "Whatever you do, don't +let Miss Morris pass you when she comes in. Stop her before she takes her +key. Remember, whether early or late, stop her anyway, and send her to my +room. Tell her it is urgent--you understand? Before she gets her key (by +the letter-box) I _must_ see her!" + +Yes, he understood, for when I came in I was switched away from the +key-board in a jiffy and rushed by the elbow to the governor's office, +and even held there until the summons to enter answered the knock of the +determined and obedient Keating. + +Inside, Mr. Daly, smiling benignly, greeted me as one greets a naughty, +spoiled child, and pulling me by my fingers toward his desk, showed me a +contract outspread: "A contract for _one_ season," he said, giving me a +light tap on my ear. "Though you must promise silence on the subject, for +there would be an outcry of favoritism if it were known that I broke a +rule for you! Salary? oh, the salary is only fifty-five dollars, but we +will balance that by my assistance in the matter of wardrobe. Whenever +you have five dresses to buy I will provide three, which will belong to +me afterward, of course--and--and just sign now, for I'm in a great +haste, child, as I have an appointment to keep! Oh, you don't want any +time to think over an engagement of just one season! You obstinate little +block! and, by the way, I'll add five dollars a week to your present +salary for the rest of the season, if you sign this--yes, that's the +right place!" + +So pinched, so tormented were we for money that I signed instantly to +secure that immediate poor little five dollars a week rise! Signed and +went out to find, awaiting me in the letter-box, a better offer from Mr. +Lester Wallack. + +And let me say right here that about the middle of the season I found +that some young actresses, who handed me cards on the stage, and in laced +caps and aprons appeared as maids in my service, were receiving for their +arduous duties a higher salary than I received as leading woman and their +play-mistress. "It's a strange world, my masters, a very strange world!" + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH + + I Go to the Sea-shore--The Search for a "Scar"--I Make a Study of + Insanity, and Meet with Success in "L'Article 47." + + +I had got safely through my first dreaded vacation. I had had two +wonderful weeks at the seaside, where, with Mr. and Mrs. James Lewis and +George Parkes, I had boarded with Mrs. By Baker, whom we left firmly +convinced of our general insanity--harmless, but quite hopeless cases she +thought us. Awed into reverent silence I had taken my first long look at +the ocean; that mighty monster, object of my day-dreams all the years, +lay that day outstretched, smiling, dimpling, blinking like the babe of +giants, basking in the sun. + +I had inhaled with delight the briny coolness of its breath, and with my +friends had engaged in wild romps in its waves, all of us arrayed +meanwhile in bathing dresses of hideous aspect, made from gray flannel of +penitential color and scratchiness, and most malignant modesty of cut; +which were yet the eminently proper thing at that time. + +I almost wonder, looking at the bathing dresses of to-day, that old +Ocean, who is a lover of beauty, did not dash the breath out of us, and +then fling us high and dry on the beach, where the sands might quickly +drift over our ugly shells and hide them from view. + +All this happened, and much more, before I came to the play "L'Article +47," famous for its great French court scene, and for the madness of its +heroine. I am so utterly lacking in self-confidence that it was little +short of cruelty for Mr. Daly to tell me, as he did, that the fate of the +play hung upon that single scene; that the production would be expensive +and troublesome, and its success or failure lay absolutely in my hands. + +I turned white as chalk, with sheer fright, and could scarcely force +myself to speak audibly, when asked if I could do the part. + +I answered, slowly, that I thought it unfair for Mr. Daly first to reduce +me to a state of imbecility, through fear, and then ask me to make a +close study of violent madness--since the two conditions were generally +reversed. + +The people laughed, but there was no responsive smile on my lips, as I +entered upon a period of mental misery that only ended with the +triumphant first night. + +I did all I could do to get at _Cora's_ character and standing before the +dread catastrophe--feeling that her madness must to some extent be tinged +by past habits and personal peculiarities. I got a copy of the French +novel--that was not an affectation, but a necessity, as it had not then +been translated, and I was greatly impressed with the minute description +of the destruction done by the bullet _George_ had fired into her face. +Portions of the jaw-bone had been shot away; the eye, much injured, had +barely been saved, but it was drawn and distorted. + +As the woman's beauty had been her letter of introduction to the gilded +world, indeed had been her sole capital, that "scar" became of tremendous +value in the make-up of the part, since it would explain, and in some +scant measure excuse, her revengeful actions. + +Still, as the play was done in Paris, the "scar" was almost ignored by +that brilliant actress, Madame Rousseil. I had her photograph in the part +of _Cora_, and while she had a drapery passed low beneath her jaws to +indicate some injury to her neck or breast, her face was absolutely +unblemished. + +To my mind that weakened _Cora's_ case greatly--she had so much less to +resent, to brood over. + +I took my trouble to Mr. Daly, after I had been out to the mad-house at +Blackwell's Island, and had gained some useful information from that +awful aggregation of human woe. He listened to Bèlot's description of +_Cora's_ beauty and its wrecking "scar"; he looked condemningly at the +Rousseil picture, and then asked me what I wanted to do. + +I told him I wanted a dreadful scar--then I wanted to veil it always; and +he broke in with, "Then why have the scar, if it is to be veiled?" + +But I hurried on: "My constant care to keep it covered will make people +imagine it a hundred times worse than it really is. Then when the veil is +torn off by main force, and they catch a glimpse of the horror, they will +not wonder that her already-tottering brain should give way under such a +blow to her vanity." + +Mr. Daly studied over the matter silently for a few moments, then he +said: "Yes, you are right. That scar is a great factor in the play; go +ahead, and make as much of it as you can." + +But right there I came up against an obstacle. I was not good at even an +eccentric make-up. I did not know how to proceed to represent such a +scar, as I had in my mind. + +"Try," said Mr. Daly. I tried, and with tear-reddened eyes announced my +failure, but I said: "I shall ask Mr. Lemoyne to help me--he is the +cleverest and most artistic maker-up of faces I ever saw." + +"Yes," said Mr. Daly, "get him to try it after rehearsal; you have no +time to lose now!" + +Only too well I knew that; so at once I approached Mr. Lemoyne, and made +my wants known. I had not the slightest hesitation in doing so, because, +in spite of his sinful delight in playing jokes on me, he was the +kindest, most warm-hearted of comrades; and true to that character he at +once placed his services at my disposal, though he shook his head very +doubtfully over the undertaking. + +"You know I never saw a scar of such a nature in my life," he said, as he +lighted up his dressing-room. + +"Oh," I said, "you, who can change your nose or your mouth or your eyes +at will, can make an ugly scar, easily enough," and off went hat and +veil, and Mr. Lemoyne, using my countenance for his canvas, began work. + +He grew more and more glum as he wiped off and repainted. One scar was +too small--oh, much too small. Then the shattered jaw-bone was described. +Again he tried. "Clara," he said, "I can't do it, because I don't know +what I am aiming at!" + +"Oh, go on!" I pleaded, "make a hideous scar, then I'll learn how from +you, and do it myself." + +He was patience and kindness personified, but when at last he said he +could do no more, I looked in the glass, and--well, we both laughed +aloud, in spite of our chagrin. He said: "It looks as though some +street-boy had given you a swat in the eye with a chunk of mud." + +I mournfully washed it off and begged him to try just once +more--to-morrow; and he promised with a doleful air. + +I had tears in my eyes as I left the theatre, I was so horribly cast +down, for if Mr. Lemoyne could not make up that scar no one could. But he +used too much black--that was a grave mistake, and--oh, dear! _now_ what? +Men were peeling up the stone walk. I could not go home by the Sixth +Avenue car as usual, without a lot of bother and muddy shoes. I was just +tired enough from rehearsal and disappointed enough to be irritated by +the tiniest _contretemps_, and I almost whimpered, as I turned the other +way and took a Broadway car. I dropped into a corner. Three men were on +my side of the car. I glanced casually at them, and, "Goodness mercy!" +said I to myself, "what are they gazing at--they look fairly frightened?" + +I followed the direction of their eyes, and, I gasped! I felt goose-flesh +creeping up my arms! On the opposite side sat a large and handsome +mulatto woman, a small basket of white linen was on her knees, her face +was turned toward the driver, and oh, good God! not so long ago, her +throat had been cut almost from ear to ear! + +The scar was hideous--sickening, it made one feel faint and frightened, +but I held my quivering nerves with an iron hand--here was my scar for +_Cora_! I must study it while I could. It had not been well cared for, I +imagine, for the edges of the awful gash were puckered, as though a +gathering thread held them. There was a queer, cord-like welt that looked +white, while the flesh either side was red and threatening; and then, as +if she felt my eyes, the woman turned and faced me. A dull color rose +slowly over her mutilated throat and handsome face, and she felt hastily +for a kerchief, which was pinned at the back of her dress-collar, and +drew the ends forward and tied them. + +I kept my eyes averted after that, but when I left the car weariness was +forgotten. I stopped at a druggist's shop, bought sticking-plaster, +gold-beaters' skin, and absorbent cotton, and with springy steps reached +home, materials in hand, model in memory--I was content, I had found my +scar at last! + +If you are about to accuse me of hardness of heart in using, to my own +advantage, this poor woman's misfortune, don't, or at least wait a moment +first. + +When I had gone through the asylum's wards and the doctor had called my +attention to this or that exceptional case and had tried to make clear +_cause_ and _effect_; when I had noted ophidian's stealth in one and +tigerish ferocity in another, I suddenly realized that to single one of +these unfortunates out, then to go before an indifferent crowd of people +and present to them a close copy of the helpless afflicted one, would be +an act of atrocious cruelty. I could not do it! I would instead seize +upon some of the general symptoms, common to all mad people, and build up +a mad-scene with their aid, thus avoiding a cruel imitation of one of +God's afflicted. + +So in this scar I was not going exactly to copy that riven throat, but, +with slender rolls of cotton, covered and held by gold-beaters' skin, I +was going to create dull white welts with angry red spaces painted +between--with strong sticking-plaster attached to my eyelid, I was going +to draw it from its natural position. Oh, I should have a rare scar! yet +that poor woman might herself see it without suspecting she had given me +the idea. + +Oh, what a time of misery it was, the preparation of that play! Poor Mr. +Daly--and poor, poor Miss Morris! + +You see everything hung upon the mad-scene. Yet, when we came to that, I +simply stood still and spoke the broken, disjointed words. + +"But what are you going to do at night?" Mr. Daly cried. "Act your scene, +Miss Morris." + +Act it, in cold blood, there, in the gray, lifeless daylight? with a +circle of grinning, sardonic faces, ready to be vastly amused over my +efforts? He might better have asked me to deliver a polished address in +beautiful, pellucid Greek, to compose at command a charming little +_rondeau_ in sparkling French, or a prayer in sonorous Latin--they would +have been easier for me to do, than to gibber, to laugh, to screech, to +whisper, whimper, rave, to crouch, crawl, stride, fall to order in +street-clothes, and always with those fiendish "guyers" ready to assist +in my undoing. Yet, poor Mr. Daly, too! I was sorry for him, he had so +much at stake. It _was_ asking a good deal of him to trust his fate +entirely, blindly to me. + +"Oh!" I said, "I would if I could--do please believe me! I want to do as +you wish me to, but, dear Mr. Daly, I can't, my blood is cold in +daylight, I am ashamed, constrained! I cannot act then!" + +"Well, give me some _faint_ idea of what you are going to do," he cried, +impatiently. + +"Dear goodness!" I groaned, "I am going to try to do all sorts of +things--loud and quiet, fast and slow, close-eyed cunning, wide-eyed +terror! There, that's all I can tell about it!" and I burst into harassed +tears. + +He said never another word, but I used to feel dreadfully when, at +rehearsals, he would rise and leave the stage as soon as we reached the +mad-scene. + +Then it happened we could not produce the play on Monday. An old comedy +was put on for that one night. I was not in it, and Mr. Daly, seeing how +near I was to the breaking-point with hard work and terror, tried to give +me a bit of pleasure. He got tickets for my mother and me, and sent us to +the opera to hear Parepa and Wachtel. I was radiant with delight; but, +alas, when did I ever have such high spirits without a swift dampening +down. Elaborately dressed as to hair, all the rest of my little best was +singularly plain for the opera. Still I was happy enough and greatly +excited over our promised treat. + +Mother and I set out to go to Miss Linda Dietz's home, where we were to +pick her up, and, under escort of her brother, go over to the Academy of +Music. We could not afford a carriage, so we had to take one of the +'busses then in existence. Mr. Daly had sent me, with my box tickets, a +pair of white gloves, and with extreme carefulness I placed them in my +pocket, drawing on an old pair to wear down to Fifteenth Street, where I +would don the new ones at Miss Dietz's house. How I blessed my +fore-thought later on! + +Long skirts were worn, so were bustles. A man in the omnibus was in +liquor; he sat opposite me, right by the door. I signaled to stop. Mother +passed out before me--I descended. The man's feet were on my dress-skirt. +I tried to pull it free--he stupidly pulled in the door. The 'bus +started--I was flung to the pavement! + +I threw my head back violently to save my face from the cobbles, my hands +and one knee were beating the cruel stones. Mother screamed to the +driver, a gentleman sprang to the horses, stopped them, picked me up, and +even then had to thrust the drunken man's feet from my torn flounce. I +had faintly whispered: "My glass--my fan!" and the gentleman, placing me +in mother's arms, went out into the street and found them for me. I sat +on a bench in the Park: I was shaken and bruised and torn and muddy, but +I would not go home--not I, I was going to hear Parepa and Wachtel! + +The gentleman simply would not leave us; he gave me his arm to Miss +Dietz's house, and I needed its aid, for each moment proved I was worse +hurt than I had at first thought. There, however, when with my heartiest +thanks we parted from our good Samaritan, the Dietz family, with dismayed +faces, received us. They were kindness personified. I was sponged and +arnicaed and plastered and sewed and brushed, and at last my ankle's hurt +being acknowledged, it was tightly bound. The new white gloves safely +came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set +forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the +crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight +over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome +fan--applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten--saw me close my eyes. +She thought it was the pain of my ankle, but it was a sudden memory of +_Cora_ and the mad-scene. As the whirlwind of applause roared about me, I +sickened with a mortal terror of the ordeal awaiting me. I hope I may +always thrust Satan behind me with the whole-hearted force I used in +thrusting "L'Article 47" behind me on that occasion. I returned to "Il +Trovatore." I enjoyed each liquid jewel of a note, helped to raise the +roof, afterward declined supper, hastened home, romped my dog, and put +her to bed. Got into a dressing-gown, locked myself in my room, and had +it out with _Cora_, from A to Z. Tried this walk and that crouch; read +this way and that way. Found the exact moment when her mind began to +cloud, to waver, to recover, to break finally and irretrievably. +Determined positively just where I should be at certain times; allowed a +margin for the impulse or inspiration of the moment, and at last, with +the character crystal-clear before me, I ended my work and my vigil. + +After turning out the gas I went to the window and looked at the sky. The +stars had gone in; low down in the east a faint, faint band of pink held +earth and sky together. I was calm and quite ready to rest. All my +uncertainty was at an end. What the public would do I could not know; +what I would do was clear and plain before me at last. + +Poor Mr. Daly! I sighed, for I knew _his_ anxiety and uneasiness were not +allayed. Bertie, tired of waiting for me, had curled her loving little +body up in my pillow--a distinct breach of family discipline. A few +moments later, feeling her small tail beating a blissful tattoo on my +feet, I muttered, laughingly: "A little prayer, a little dog, and a +little rest," and so sank into the sound sleep I so desperately needed, +in preparation for the ever-to-be-dreaded first night of "L'Article 47" +of the French Penal Code. + +The house was packed. Well-known people were seen all through the +theatre. Act I. represented the French Court with a trial in full +swing--it played for one hour, lacking three minutes. I was on the stage +ten minutes only. I was told Mr. Daly shook his head violently at the +curtain's fall. + +The next act I was not in at all, but it dragged, and when that was over +Mr. Daly's peculiar test of public feeling showed the presence of +disappointment. Like many other managers, he often placed men here and +there to listen to the comments made by his patrons, but his quickest, +surest way of judging the effect a new play was making, was by watching +and listening at the very moment of the curtain's fall. If the people +instantly turned to one another in eager speech, and a bee-like hum of +conversation arose, he nodded his head with pleased satisfaction--he knew +they were saying, "How lovely!" "That was a fine effect!" "We've had +nothing better for a long time!" "It's just divine!" "It's great!" etc. + +When they spoke slowly and briefly, he shook his head; but when they sat +still and gazed steadily straight ahead of them, he called a new play for +rehearsal next morning. + +That second act had made him shake his head; the third came on with +_Cora's_ rejected love, her strangling tears of self-pity, her whirlwind +of passion, ending with that frantic and incredible threat. The people +caught at it! I suppose the swiftness of its action, the heat and fury +following so close upon the two slow, dull acts, pleased and aroused +them. The curtain went up and down, up and down, call after call, and +when at last it was allowed to remain down, myriads of bees might have +been swarming in front, and Mr. Daly, nodding and smiling as I rushed +past on my way to change my gown, said: "Hear 'em--hear the bees +buzz--that's good! Now if only you----" + +I waited not for the rest--too well I knew how to complete the sentence: +"If only I could safely hive those swarming bees" for him. Could I? Oh, +could I? for the moment was at hand, the "mad-scene," so dreaded, so +feared! + +Three things I had counted upon to help my effects: the crouch, the +laugh, the scar. The crouch had just done splendid service at the end of +Act III. Would the other two be as effective? + +I went up to the stage; I was to be discovered lying on a lounge. Miss +Davenport, magnificently handsome in person and gown, beside me; the +others at the gambling-table. As she took my hand she gave a sharp little +cry: "Heavens!" she said, "you might be dead, you are like ice!" She +touched my forehead, asking, "Are you ill? Why, your head is burning, +hot! hot! hot! Mr. Daly, just touch her hands and head!" + +He looked down on me in silence; two pairs of frightened eyes met; he +gave a groan; threw out his hands helplessly; stepped off the stage, and +signaled the curtain up on what was to make or break the play--and he +knew no more what to expect than did one of the ushers out in front. + +Under cover of the music and the applause accompanying the curtain's +rise, I caught myself muttering, vaguely: "The power and the glory--the +power and the glory," and knew that involuntarily I was reaching out for +the old staff on which I had leaned so many times before. + +The scene was on--the laughing cynicism of the _Baroness_--the chatter of +the players--then, at last, _George_ and _Cora_ were alone! + +My terror had slipped from me like a garment, I was in the play once +more; save for just one awful moment! _George_ had torn the veil from my +disfigured face, and, casting in my teeth the accusation: "You are mad!" +had left me there alone, standing, stunned by the word! That was the +moment of actual dethronement of reason, and, as I slowly, stupidly +turned my eyes, I saw Mr. Daly's white face thrust forward eagerly. His +gray eyes wide and glowing, his thin hand tightly grasping the lapel of +his coat, his whole being expressing the very anguish of anxiety! + +One moment I felt I was lost! I had been dragged out of the play at the +crucial moment! I clasped my hands across my eyes: "The kingdom and the +power!" I groaned--I faced the other way! The low, eerie music caught my +attention and awakened my imagination, in another second I was as mad as +a March hare. The first time the low, gibbering laugh swelled into the +wild, long-sustained shrieking _ha! ha!_ a voice said, low and clear: +"Oh, dear God!" + +Yet I who had heard the genuine laugh at the mad-house knew this to be +but a poor, tame, soulless thing, compared to that Hecate-like +distillation--the very essence of madness, that ran through that real +gibber of laughter. + +Yet it was enough. At the end there came to me one of those moments God +grants now and then as a reward for long thirst, way-weariness, and +heart-sickness patiently borne! One of those foolishly divine moments you +stand with the gods and, like them, are young and fair and powerful! Your +very nerves thrill harmonious, like harp-strings attune--your blood +courses like quicksilver for swiftness, like wine for warmth, and on that +fair peak of Triumph, where one tarries but by moments, there is no +knowledge of sin or suffering, of death or hate; there is only sunshine, +the sunshine of success! love for all those creatures who turn smiling +faces on you, who hold their hands to you with joyous cries! + +There is no question of deserts, of qualifications! No analysis, no +criticism then--they follow later! That is just a moment of delicious +madness; and to distinguish it from other frenzies it is called--a +Dramatic Triumph! + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH + + I Am too Dull to Understand a Premonition--By Mr. Daly's Side I See the + Destruction of the Fifth Avenue Theatre by Fire. + + +How shall I call that strange influence that dumbly tries to warn, to +prepare? + +Many of us have had experience of this nameless something whose efforts +are but rarely heeded. The something that one morning suddenly fills the +mind with thoughts of some friend of the far past, who is almost entirely +forgotten--persistent thoughts not to be shaken off. + +You speak of the matter, and your family exclaim: "What on earth ever +brought him to your mind?" and that night you either hear of the old +friend's death or he sends you a letter from the other side of the world. + +I had an acquaintance who one day found herself compelled, as it were, to +talk of thefts, of remarkable robberies. She seemed unable to turn her +mind to any other subject. If she looked at a lock, she thought how easy +it would be to force it; at a window, how readily a man might enter it. +Her people laughed and told her she was hoodooed; but next day she was +robbed of every jewel she had in the world. What was it that was trying +dumbly to warn her? + +It was on the 1st of January that my mind became subject to one of those +outside seizures. The snow was banked high in the streets--had been so +for days. The unexpected sale of the house in Twenty-first Street had +forced me to new quarters; I was at that moment in Twenty-fourth Street. +As I raised my head from kissing my mother a Happy New Year, I remarked: +"The streets are in a terrible condition for a great fire--are they +not?" + +"Let us hope there won't be a great fire," replied mother, and began to +pour out the coffee. + +A little later the French lady coming in, to pass the compliments of the +day, I was immediately moved to ask her if our fire service here was not +superior to that of Paris? And I was greatly pleased at her joyous +acquiescence, until I discovered that her remarks had reference to our +larger fireplaces--there are always certain drawbacks accompanying a +foreign landlady. + +Then I went to the matinée--for, lo, the poor actress always does double +work on days of festivity for the rest of the world, and all occasions of +legalized feasting find her eating "a cold bite." We were doing a play +called "False Shame," known in England as "The White Feather," a very +light three-act play. The dresses and scenery were beautiful; Mr. Daly +provided me with one gown--a combination of sapphire-blue velvet and +Pompadour brocade that came within an ace of making me look handsome, +like the rest. + +He remarked upon its effect, and I told him I felt compelled to look +well, since I had nothing else to do; but the day had gone by when such +remarks could anger him. He laughed good-humoredly and said: "All the +same, Miss, that scene at the organ is mighty pretty and taking, too." + +For, look you, in the theatre "a little knowledge is not a dangerous +thing." Complete knowledge is, of course, preferable; but, ah, how far a +very little will go, and here was my poor tum-tumming, "one _and_ two +_and_ three _and_," filling Mr. Daly's very soul with joy, because +forsooth, in a lovely old English interior, all draped in Christmas +greens, filled with carved-wood furniture, big logs burning in an +enormous fireplace, wax candles in brass sconces, two girls are at the +organ in dinner dress, who, nervously anxious about a New Year carol, +with which they are going to surprise their guests at mid-night, seize +the moment before dinner to try said carol over. + +Miss Davenport, regal in satin, stood, music in hand, the fire-light on +her handsome face. I, seated at the organ in my precious blue and +brocade, played the accompaniment, and sang alto, and, though terror over +this simple bit of work brought me to the verge of nervous prostration, +the scene was, from the front, like a stolen peep into some beautiful +private home, and it brought an astonishing amount of applause. But if I +had not "_one_ two threed" in Cincinnati on that grinning old piano, +where would the organ-scene have been? Ah, a little knowledge, if spread +ever so thin by a master hand like Mr. Daly's, will prove useful. + +So don't refuse to learn a little because you fear you cannot afford to +study thoroughly--if you are an actress. + +While I was sitting through a long wait that day I fell into a brown +study. The theatre dresser, who was very fond of me and gave me every +spare moment of her time, came into my room and twice addressed me before +I came out of my reverie. + +"What in the world are you thinking of, Miss Clara?" she asked, and I +answered with another question: "Mary, were you ever in a great fire?" + +"No," she said; "were you?" + +"Yes," I answered; "I have been twice burned out from shelter at dead of +night," and I told her of that hotel fire at 3 A.M., where there was but +one stairway to the street; of the mad brutality of the men; of the +terrible and the ludicrous scenes; of my own escape, quite alone, in bare +feet and one white garment; of my standing across a leaking hose, while a +strange man pulled my right arm, frantically crying, "You come with me! +my mother's got a blanket to wrap you up in!" and Mr. Ellsler, who had +just arrived, seized my left arm, dragging me his way and shouting, "Come +over to the house and get to bed quick, before you die of exposure!" +while I felt the water spraying my forlornly shivering shins, and was +more nearly torn asunder than was ever the Solomon baby. + +"Oh, my!" said Mary, "how dreadful!" + +"Yes," I said, musingly, "and what a fire this place would make--all +these partitions of painted pine!" + +"Oh, don't!" protested Mary. + +"But," said I, "you know that's what theatres are built for--to burn is +their natural end!" and then I was called, and went up-stairs to saunter +through another act of the mild little play. + +I owned but little jewelry then, but what I had was noticeably good. My +rings, including the handsome pearl one Mr. Daly had given me as a +souvenir of "47," I had to remove from my fingers for the last act, and +when the curtain had fallen and I had rushed myself into street garments, +and was leaving the dressing-room in haste to join my waiting mother at +dinner, Mary called to me: "Miss Clara, you are leaving your diamond +rings--but never mind," she picked them up and dropped them, one by one, +into a little box: "I'll lock the door myself, you run along, the rings +will be safe enough--run!" and the answering words I heard swiftly +leaving my lips were absolutely involuntary and dictated by no thought of +mine. They were: + +"Yes, as far as theft is concerned, they are safe enough, but in case of +fire? Better give them to me, Mary. Oh!" for the girl had dropped one on +the floor. It was a bit of Oriental enamel set about with tiny sparks of +diamonds. I put the others on, but would not wait for her to pick up the +rolling truant, and away I went. + +At the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street I came to a +stand-still before two great snow-banks, and I thought again what they +might mean in case of a fire. + +I reached home at a brisk pace, ran up-stairs, threw off my cloak, and +had drawn my dress-waist half off, when, without a preliminary knock, the +door was flung open and my landlord, Mr. Bardin, white with the +excitement that had wiped out his knowledge of English, stood +gesticulating wildly and hurling French at me in seething masses. I +caught "_le feu!_" "_le feu!_" many times repeated; then "_le théâtre!_" +and with a cry I seized his arm and shook him. + +"What is it?" I cried, "do you mean fire?" + +He nodded, and again came the words: "_le théâtre!_" + +"Good heaven and earth! you don't mean _my_ theatre, do you?" and then +two great horses, hurling a fire-engine around the corner into our street +made swift and terrifying answer. With a piercing cry I caught up my +cloak, and throwing off somebody's restraining hands I dashed down-stairs +and into the street, racing like mad, giving sobbing cries, and utterly +unconscious for over two blocks' space that my waist was unclosed and my +naked throat and chest were bare to the wintry wind. + +At the corner of the street at Sixth Avenue I wrung my hands in anguish, +crying, "Oh, dear God! I knew it! I knew it!" for there, stalled in the +snow, was the engine, so desperately needed a little further on! And as I +resumed my run I said to myself: "What is it that has tried so hard to +tell me--to warn me? Tried all the day--and I would not understand--and +now it's too late!" + +Why I ran I do not know--it was not curiosity. I felt, somehow, that if I +could get there in time I might do something--God knows what! As I neared +the theatre the crowd grew more dense, yet to my gasping: "Please, oh, +please!" an answer came in a quick moving aside to let pass the woman +with the white, tear-wet face. I broke through the cordon and was making +for the stage-door, when a rough hand caught me by the shoulder. There +was an oath, and I was fairly hurled back toward the safety line. + +"Oh, let me alone!" I cried, "I want to go to my room! It will take me +but a moment!" + +Again the rough hand reached out for me, when a strange man threw his arm +in front of me protectingly: "Take care what you're about!" he said. "Be +a little gentle--she has a right close to the line, she's one of the +company! Can't you see?" + +"Oh," grunted the policeman, "well, I didn't know, and I couldn't let her +kill herself!" + +"No," said the stranger, "but you had no call to pitch her about as you +did!" And just then a long, thin hand caught mine, and Mr. Daly's voice +said: "Come here, child!" and he led me across the street and up some +steps, and there, opposite the burning building, I could realize the +madness of my act in trying to enter. The front of the building stood +firm, but beyond it, within, all was seething flame. It was like some +magnificent spectacular production--some Satanic pantomime and ballet, +and every now and then a whirling flame, crowned with myriad sparks, +sprang madly up into the very sky like some devilish _première danseuse_; +while the lesser fiends joined hands and circled frenziedly below. + +Mr. Daly never spoke a word. He had not released my fingers, and so we +stood, hand in hand, watching silently over the torment of his beloved +theatre--the destruction of his gathered treasures. I looked up at him. +His face gleamed white in the firelight; his eyes were wide and strained; +his fingers, icy cold, never lessened their clinching grasp on mine. Then +came the warning cry firemen are apt to give when they know the roof is +going. I had heard it often, and understood that and their retreating +movement. Mr. Daly did not, and when, with a crackling crash, the whole +roof fell into the roaring depths, his hand, his body, relaxed suddenly; +a sort of sobbing groan escaped his pale lips. But when the column of +glowing sparks flew high into the air he turned away with a shiver and +gave not one other look at the destroyed building. + +Not one word was spoken on the subject. Glancing down he noticed I had no +rubbers on and that streams of water were running in the street: + +"Go home, child!" he said, speaking quickly and most kindly. A crowd of +reporters came up to him: "Yes," he said, "in one moment, gentlemen," +then to me: "Hurry home, get something to eat--you could have had no +dinner!" + +He gave one heavy sigh, and added: "I'm glad you were with me, it would +have been worse alone." He pushed me gently from him. As I started down +the street he called: "I'll send you word some time to-night what we're +to do." + +I left him to the reporters; I had not spoken one word from the moment I +had begged to enter my dressing-room. I felt strangely sad and forlorn as +I dropped, draggled and tired, into a chair. I said to mother: "It's +gone! the only theatre in New York whose door was not barred against me, +and--I--I think that at this moment I know just how a dog feels who has +lost a loved master," and, dropping my face upon my hands, I wept long +over the destruction of my first dramatic home in New York, the little +Fifth Avenue Theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTIETH + + We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New Theatre--Our + Astonishing Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a Great Triumph. + + +My first thought on awaking the next morning was one of dismay, on +recalling the destruction of the little "P.H.C."--that being the actors +contraction of Mr. Daly's somewhat grandiloquent "Parlor Home of Comedy." +My grief over the burning of the pretty toy theatre was very real, and I +would have been an astonished young woman had anyone prophesied that for +me, personally, the disaster was to prove a piece of unqualified good +luck. + +And, by the way, that expression "good luck" reminds me of one of the +incidents of the fire. That morning, when the firemen went to the ruins +to examine into the state of the standing front wall, they looked upward, +and there, all alone, on the burned and blackened space, smiling down in +friendly fashion upon them, was the picture of Clara Morris--a bit +charred as to frame and smoky as to glass, but the photograph (one taken +by Kurtz), absolutely uninjured, being the one and only thing saved from +the ruins. The firemen very naturally wanted it for their engine-house, +and Mr. Daly said that for it many were claiming, pleading, demanding, +bartering--but all in vain. His superstition was aroused. Not for +anything in the world, he cried, would he part from his "luck," as he +ever after called the rescued picture. So there again appeared the malice +of inanimate things, for how else could one account for the plunging of +that line, the entire length of the staircase, of splendidly framed +pictures of loveliness, into the fiery depths, while the plain and +unimportant one kept its place in calm security? + +Mr. Daly had a very expensive company on his hands. He had amazed other +managers by his "corner" on leading men. With three already in his +company he had not hesitated to draw on Boston for Harry Crisp, and on +Philadelphia for Mr. Louis James; and when he added such names as George +Clark, Daniel Harkins, George DeVere, James Lewis, William Lemoyne, +William Davidge, A. Whiting, Owen Fawcett, George Parkes, F. Burnett, H. +Bascombe, J. Beekman, Charles Fisher, George Gilbert, etc., one can +readily understand that the salary of the men alone must have made quite +an item in the week's expenses, and added to the sharp necessity of +getting us to work as quickly as possible. And in actual truth the ruins +of the little theatre were not yet cold when Mr. Daly had, by wire, +secured a week for us, divided between Syracuse and Albany, and we were +scrambling dresses together and buying new toilet articles--rouge, +powders, and pomades, and transforming ourselves into "strolling +players"; though, sooth to say, there was precious little "strolling" +done after we started, for we were all rushing for rooms, for food, for +trains, through a blizzard that was giving us plenty of delaying +snow-drifts. And while the company was cheerfully "barn-storming," Mr. +Daly was doing his best to find shelter for us in New York, engaging the +little one-time church on Broadway. He had painters, paper-hangers, +scrub-women, upholsterers, climbing over one another in their frantic +efforts to do all he desired to have done in about one-half the +regulation time allowed for such work; and while they toiled day and +night with much noise and great demonstration of haste, he sat +statue-still in a far corner, mentally reviewing every manuscript in his +possession, searching eagerly for the one that most nearly answered to +the needs of the moment. Namely, a play that required a strong cast of +characters (he had plenty of men and women), little preparation, and +scanty scenery (since he was short of both time and money). And, finding +"Alixe," then known as "The Countess de Somerive," he stopped short. The +action of the play covered but one day--that was promising. There were +but three acts--good; but two scenes--better! A conventional château +garden-terrace for one act, and a simply elegant morning-room or stately +drawing-room, according to managerial taste, could stand for the other +two acts. A strong and dramatic work--requiring the painting of but two +scenes. The play was found! The company was ordered home to rehearse it. + +Now at that time, to my own great anxiety, I was by way of standing on +very dangerous ground. The public had favored me almost extravagantly +from the very first performance of _Anne Sylvester_, but the critics, at +least the most important two, seemed to praise my efforts with a certain +unwilling drag of the pen. Nearly all their kind words had the sweetness +squeezed out of them between "buts" and "ifs," and, most wounding of all, +my actual work was less often criticized than were my personal defects. +Occasionally an actress's work may be too good for her own welfare. You +doubt that? Yet I know an actress, still in harness, who in her lovely +prime made so great a hit, in the part of an adventuress, that she has +had nothing else to act since. Whenever a play was produced with such a +character in it, she was sent for. But if she was proposed for a loyal +wife, a gentle sweetheart, a modern heroine, the quick response +invariably was: "Oh, she can't play anything but the adventuress." + +There is nothing more fatal to the artistic value, to the future welfare +of a young player, than to be known as "a one-part actress"; yet that was +the very danger that was threatening me at the time of the burning of the +home theatre. Following other parts known as strong, _Jezebel_, the +half-breed East Indian, a velvet-footed treachery and twice would-be +murderess, and _Cora_, the quadroon mad-woman, were in a fair way to +injure me greatly. Already one paper had said: "Miss Morris has a +strange, intuitive comprehension of these creatures of mixed blood." + +But worse than that, the most powerful of the two critics I dreaded had +said one morning: "Miss Morris played with care and much feeling. The +audience wept _copiously_" (to anyone who has long read the great critic, +that word "copiously" is tantamount to his full signature, so +persistently does he use it), "but her performance was flecked with those +tigerish gleams that seem to be a part of her method. She will probably +find difficulty in equaling in any other line her success as _Cora_." + +No animal had ever a keener sense of approaching danger than I had, when +my professional welfare was threatened, and these small straws told me +plainly which way the wind was beginning to blow, and now, looking back, +I am convinced that just one more "tigerish part" at that time would have +meant artistic ruin to me, for, figuratively speaking, pens were already +dipped to write me down "a one-part actress." + +Then, one bitter cold day we returned to New York and Mr. Daly, sending +for me, said he must ask a favor of me. A form of speech that literally +made me "sit up straight"--yes, and gasp, too, with astonishment. With a +regretful sigh he went on: "I suppose you know you are a strong +attraction?" + +I smiled broadly at his evident disapproval of such knowledge on my part, +and he continued: "But in this play there is no part for you--yet I +greatly need all my strongest people in this first cast. Of course as far +as ability is concerned you could play the _Countess_ and make a hit, but +she's too old--so you'll not play the mother to marriageable daughters +under my management, even in an emergency. Now I have Miss Morant, Miss +Davenport and Miss Dietz, but--but I must have your name, too." + +I nodded vigorously--I understood. And having seen the play in Paris, +where it was one of the three pieces offered for an evening's programme, +I mentally reviewed the cast and presently made answer, cheerfully and +honestly: "Oh, yes! I see--it's that--'er--_Aline?_ _Justine?_ No, no! +_Claudine?_ that's the name of the maid. You want me to go on for that? +All right! anything to help!" + +He leaned forward, asking, eagerly: "Do you mean that?" + +"Of course I do!" I answered. + +"Ah!" he cried, "you don't guess well, Miss Morris, but you've the heart +of a good comrade, and now I'm sure you will do as I ask you, and play +_Alixe_ for me?" + +I sprang to my feet with a bound. "_Alixe?_" I cried. "I to play that +child? oh, impossible! No--no! I should be absurd! I--I--I know too +much--oh, you understand what I mean! She is a little convent-bred bit of +innocence--a veritable baby of sixteen years! Dear Mr. Daly don't you +see, I should ruin the play?" + +He answered, rather coldly: "You are not given to ruining plays. The part +does not amount to much. Good heavens! I admit it does not suit you, but +think of my position; give me the benefit of your name as _Alixe_ for one +single week, and on the second Monday night Miss Jewett shall take the +part off your hands." + +"But," I whimpered, "the critics will make me the butt of their ridicule, +for I can't make myself look like an _Alixe_." + +"Oh, no they won't!" he answered, sharply. "Of course you won't expect a +success, but you need fear no gibes for trying to help me out of a +dramatic hole. Will you help me?" And of course there was nothing to do +but swallow hard and hold out my hand for the unwelcome part. + +Imagine my surprise when, on my way to rehearsal, I saw posters up, +announcing the production of the play of "Alixe." I met Mr. Daly at the +door and said: "Why this play was always called 'The Countess of +Somerive.'" + +"Yes," he replied, "I know--but 'Alixe' looks well, it's odd and +pretty--and well, it will lend a little importance to the part!"--which +shows how heavy were the scales upon our eyes while we were rehearsing +the new play. + +Everyone sympathized with me, but said a week would soon pass, and I +groaned and ordered heelless slippers, and flaxen hair parted simply and +waved back from the temples to fall loosely on the shoulders, to avoid +the height that heels and the fashionable chignon would give me, while a +thin, white nun's veiling gown, high-necked and long-sleeved, over a +low-cut white silk lining, buttoned at the back and finished with a pale +blue sash and little side pocket, completed the costume, I prepared for +the character. I was beginning to understand, as I studied her, and +shamefacedly--to love! + +Oh, yes, one often feels dislike or liking for the creature one is trying +to represent. Just at first I said to myself, here is a modern _Ophelia_, +but I was soon convinced that the innocence of _Alixe_ was far more +perfect than had been that of Shakespeare's weakling, who, through the +training of court life, the warnings of a shrewd brother, and the +admonitions of a tricky father, had learned many things--was ductile in +stronger hands and could play a part; could lead a lover on to speech, +without giving slightest hint of the hateful watching eyes she knew were +upon him. + +Poor "Rose of May," whose sweetness comes to us across the ages! As the +garden-spider's air-spun silken thread is cast from bough to twig across +the path, so her fragile thread of life looped itself from father to +lover, to brother, to queen, and all the web was threaded thick with +maiden's tears, made opalescent by rosy love, green hope, and violet +despair. But each one she clung to raised a hand to brush the fragile +thing aside, and so destroyed it utterly. Yet that tangled wreck of +beauty, sweetness, and "a young maid's wits," remains one of the world's +dearest possessions--the fair _Ophelia_! + +But this modern maid was yet unspotted by the world. She found all earth +perfect, as though God had just completed it, and loved ardently and +without shame, as the innocent do love. For this pure flower of crime +was ignorant, to the point of bliss, of evil in the world about her. +While her adored mother was to her as the blessed Madonna herself. + +More and more convincing, as I carefully studied the part, became that +perfect innocence. Not cold or reserved, but alive with faith, quivering, +too, with girlish mirth, yet innocent. And as with roots deep in rankest, +blackest ooze and mud, the lily sends up into the sunlit air its +stainless, white-petaled blossom, to float in golden-hearted beauty upon +the surface of the stream, so all sweet and open-hearted _Alixe_ floated +into view. + +And I was expected to act a part like that! I worried day and night over +it. Should I do this, should I do that? No--no! she was not +coy--detestable word. I recalled the best _Ophelia_ I had ever seen--a +German actress. Would she do for a model? Perhaps--no! she was mystic, +strange, aloof! + +Oh, dear! and then, by merest accident, my mind wandered away to the +past, and I said to myself, it should not be so hard. Every woman has +been innocent. I was innocent enough when my first sweetheart paused at +my side to say to me the foolish old words that never lose sweetness and +novelty. I recalled with what open pleasure I had listened, with what +honest satisfaction I accepted his attention. With a laugh I exclaimed: +"I didn't even have sense enough to hide my gratification and pride, or +to _pretend the least bit_." I stopped suddenly--light seemed to come +into my mind. Innocence is alike the world over, I thought; it only +differs in degree. I sprang to my feet! I cried joyously: "I have caught +the cue, I do believe--_I won't act at all!_ I'll just speak the lines +sincerely and simply and leave the effect to Providence." + +The scales loosened a trifle over Mr. Daly's eyes at the last rehearsal +but one. He was down in the orchestra speaking to the leader when I came +to the end of the act, and the words: "The mother whom I have insulted? +That young girl, then, is my sister--the sister whose happiness I have +stolen? whose future I have shattered? What--is--there--left--for--me to +live for?" + +Mr. Daly glanced up, and said, sharply: "What's that? 'er, Miss Morris, +what are you going to do there as the curtain falls? I--I haven't noticed +that speech before. Go back a bit, Mr. Fisher, Miss Morant, back to the +Count's entrance; let me hear that again." + +We went over the scene again: "H-e-m-m!" said Mr. Daly; "you've not +answered my question, Miss Morris. What do you do at the fall of the +curtain?" + +"Nothing, sir," I answered, "just stare dazedly at space, I +think--swaying a little perhaps." + +"I want you to fall!" he declared. + +"Oh!" I exclaimed, "please, don't you think that would be rather +melodramatic? If she could stand while receiving that awful shock about +her mother's shame she would hardly fall afterward, from mere horror of +her own thoughts?" + +"I know all that, but let me tell you there's always great effect in a +falling body. At any rate you can sink into a chair--and so get the +suggestion of collapse." + +"There is no chair," I answered, cheerfully. + +"Well," he replied, testily, "there can be one, I suppose. Here, boy, +bring a large chair and place it behind Miss Morris." + +"Mr. Daly," I argued, "if I fall heavily, as I must, for effect, the +chair will jump, and that will be funny--see." + +I fell--it did start backward, but Mr. Daly was equal to the emergency. +"Take off the castors and place the chair hard against the end of the +piano; now try!" + +I did; the chair was firm as a rock. It was settled; I did as I was told, +and fell at the end of the act ever after. And Mr. Daly came and patted +me on the back, and said, kindly: "Don't fret; I honestly believe there's +something in the little part after all. That speech made me feel creepy." + +But the scales on my own eyes were still firm and tight, and all I could +see in the play was the strength, power, and passion of the scenes +between the _Count_ and _Countess_, and the probable hit of Mr. Louis +James in his part of the _Duc de Mirandol_. The fate of this play rested +in other hands than mine, thank goodness, and I rejoiced in the freedom +from responsibility my small part gave me, and planned what I would do +when Miss Jewett took _Alixe_. + +The great night came. Another small auditorium awaited the coming of our +patrons. There was a smell of scarce dried paint in front of the curtain +and of scrubbing-soap behind it; but all was bright and fresh, and the +house was soon packed with a brilliant audience. As the play to be +produced had but a small cast, and as Mr. Daly was anxious that the +entire company should share in this house-warming, he had invited Mr. +John Brougham to write a sort of prologue, giving a few apt lines to +every member of the company, and then to proceed to the play. This was +done--but, alas! Mr. Brougham's work was utterly unworthy of him. There +was not one flash of his wonderful wit. He confined himself to comments +upon the fire, after this manner; I spoke, saying: + +"I can't remember half the things I lost, I fear----" + +_Mr. Lewis_ (breaking in). "One article you have not lost----" + +_C. M._ "What?" + +_Lewis._ "'L'Article 47,' my dear." + +Then Miss Jewett came forward to exclaim: + + "My lovely 'peau de soie,' + The sweetest thing in silk I ever saw!" + +It was only spoken one night. But the audience was so heartily kind to us +all that many of us had tears of sheer gratitude in our eyes. We were in +evening dress and were formed in a crescent-like line from box to box, as +the heavy red curtains parted revealing us, and Mr. Daly was very proud +of his family of manly-looking men and gracious women, and the audience +greeted the assembled company heartily. But that was nothing to the +welcome given as each favorite actor or actress stepped forward to +speak--and I was happy, happy, happy! when I found myself counted in as +one of them, with the welcome to the beautiful Davenport, Jewett, Dietz, +to the ever-favored Mrs. Gilbert, no longer, no heartier than my own! And +as I bowed low and gratefully, for just one moment I could not help +wishing that I had an important part to play, instead of the childish +thing awaiting me. + +The prologue being over, Mr. Daly, with a frowning, disappointed face, +told those of the play to make all possible haste in changing their +dresses, that they might get to work and rub out the bad impression +already made. + +Every important occasion seems to have its touch of the ridiculous, and +so had this one. The "bustle"--the big wire affair, extending to the +bottom of the skirt, had reached its hideous apogee of fashion at that +time, yet what possible relation could there be between that teetering +monstrosity and grace or sentiment or tragedy? Surely, I thought, this +girl-pupil, brought straight from convent-school to country-home, might +reasonably be bustleless--and I should look so much smaller--so much more +graceful! But--Mr. Daly? Never--never! would he consent to such a breach +of propriety! Fashion his soul loved! He pored over her plates! he bowed +to her mandates! + +My courage having failed me, when I hurried to my room I put on the +obnoxious structure; but one glimpse of that camel-like hump on the back +of _Alixe_, and the thought of the fall in the chair made me desperate. I +tore the mass of wire off, and decided to keep out of sight till the last +moment, and then make a rush for the stage. + +"Ready, Miss Morris?" + +"Ready!" I answered, as the question was asked from door to door. + +In a few moments the call-boy came back again: "Are you ready? Everyone +is out there but you." + +"Oh, yes!" I said, showing myself to him, but still not leaving the +shelter of my room; and I heard him saying: "Yes, sir, she's all ready, I +saw her." + +The curtain rose. Only a few lines were spoken before my entrance. I +dared wait no longer--heavens! no! for there was Mr. Daly coming for me. +I gathered up my skirts as bunchily as I could and ran out; but I could +not deceive Mr. Daly. In an instant he missed the necessary camel's hump. +"Good heaven and earth!" he shouted, "you've left your bustle!" + +I broke into a run. "Wait!" he cried, loudly. He dashed into my open +room, caught the big bustle up, and dragging it like a great cage behind +him, came plunging down the entrance to me, crying: "Wait--wait!" and +waving the other hand commandingly above his head. + +I heard my music; I sprang to the platform I had to enter from. "That's +me!" I cried. "Wait!" he ordered and reached out to catch me. I evaded +his grasp and skipped through the door, leaving but a fold of my skirt in +his hand. I was on the stage--and joy, oh, joy! I was without a bustle! + +Mr. Daly did not like being laughed at, but when he glanced down and saw +the thing he was dragging behind him, after the manner of a baby's tin +wagon, he had to laugh, and verily there were others who laughed with +him, while the scandalized dresser carried the rejected article back to a +decent seclusion. + +There is no manager, star, or agent alive whose experience will enable +him to foresee the fate of an untried play. A very curious thing is that +what is called an "actor's" play--one, that is, that actors praise and +enjoy in the rehearsing, is almost always a failure, while the managerial +judgment has been reversed so often by the public, that even the most +enthusiastic producer of new plays is apt "to hedge" a bit, with: "Unless +I deceive myself, this will prove to be the greatest play," etc.; while +the mistakes made by actors and managers both anent the value of certain +parts are illustrated sufficiently by E. H. Sothern, C. W. Couldock, +Joseph Jefferson--all three of whom made immense hits in parts they had +absolutely refused to accept, yielding only from necessity or +obligingness, and to their own astonishment finding fame in presenting +the unwelcome characters. And to the misjudged _Lord Dundreary_, _Asa +Trenchard_, etc., that night was added the name of _Alixe_. + +Refined, intensely modern, the play was nevertheless a dread tragedy, and +being French it almost naturally dealt with the breaking of a certain +great commandment. And now--see: we actors thought that the stress and +power of the play would be shown in the confession of the wife and in the +scene of wild recrimination between her and the _Comte de Somerive_, when +they met after eighteen years of separation. But see, how different was +the view the public took. In the very first place then, when I escaped +the bustle, and entered, straight, and slim, art had so reduced my usual +height and changed my coloring, that until I spoke I was not recognized. +The kindly welcome then given me calmed my fears, and I said to myself: +"I can't be looking ridiculous in the part, or they would not do that!" +And women, at least, can understand how my very soul was comforted by the +knowledge. And just then a curious sense of joy seemed to bubble up in my +heart. The sudden relief, the feeling of irresponsibility, the +first-night excitement. Perhaps one, perhaps all together caused it. I +don't know--I only know that meaning no disrespect, no irreverence, I +could have sung aloud from the Benedicite: "_Omnia opera Domini!_" "Bless +ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him forever!" + +And the audience accepted the joyous little maid almost from the first +girlish, love-betraying words she spoke, and yet--so sensitive is an +audience at times--while still laughing over her sweet ignorance, they +thrilled with a nameless dread of coming evil. They seemed to see the +blue sky darkening, the threatening clouds piling up silently behind the +white-robed child, whose perfect innocence left her so alone! Before the +first act ended we discovered that the tragedy was shifting from the +sinful mother and was settling down with crushing weight upon the +shoulders of the stainless child. Indeed, the whole play was like a +dramatization of the awful words: "The sins of the fathers shall be +visited upon the children!" + +As the play went on and the impetuous grief of the child changed into +proud self-restraint, while her agonizing jealousy of her adored mother +developed, Mr. Daly, with wide, bright eyes, exclaimed: "I must have been +blind--stone-blind! Why _Alixe_ is the bone and marrow, the heart and +soul of this play!" + +Certainly the audience seemed to share his belief, for it called and +called and called again for that misunderstood young person, in addition +to the hearty approval bestowed upon the other more prominent characters. +It was a very fine cast, Miss Fanny Morant making a stately and powerful +_Comtesse de Somerive_, while Mr. Louis James gave a performance of the +_Duc de Mirandol_ that I never saw even approached again. Every other +actor made of him either a fool or a brute, while James made of him a +delightful enigma--a sort of well-bred simpleton, rattle-brain, and +braggart, who at the last moment shows himself, beneath all disguise, a +brave and loyal gentleman. + +But the greatest triumph for _Alixe_ followed in that act--the last--in +which she does not speak at all. She had been able to bear loss, sorrow, +renunciation, but as in olden times poison-tests were kept, crystal cups +of such rare purity they shattered under contact with an evil liquid--so +her pure heart broke at contact with her mother's shame. Poor, loving, +little base-born! Pathetic little marplot! Seeing herself as only a +stumbling-block to others, she sought self-effacement beneath the gentle +waters of the lily-pond. And early in that last act, as her drowned body, +carried in the arms of the two men who had loved her, was laid before the +starting eyes of the guilty mother, and the loving, forgiving, pleading +letter of the suicide was read above her, actual sobs rose from the front +of the house. It _was_ a heart-breaking scene. + +But when the curtain fell, oh! what a very whirlwind broke loose in that +little theatre! The curtain shot up and down, up and down, and then, to +my amazement, Mr. Daly signaled for me to go before the curtain, and I +couldn't move. He stamped his foot and shouted: "Come over here and take +this call!" and I called back: "I can't! I am all pinned up, so I can't +walk!" + +For, that my skirts might not fall away from my ankles, when I was being +carried across the stage, I had stood upon a chair and had my garments +tightly wound about me and securely fastened, and unfortunately the pins +were behind--and I all trussed up, nice and tight and helpless. + +Mr. Daly came tearing over to me, and down he went upon his knee to try +to free me, but a muttered "D----n!" told me that he could not find the +pins, and the applause, oh, the precious applause that was being wasted +out there! Suddenly he rose--tossed that extraordinary hat of his off, +picked me up in his arms and carried me like a big property doll to the +curtain's side, signaled it up, and, with his arm about me, supported me +on to the stage. Oh, but I was proud to stand there with him, for in +those days he would not make the simplest speech; would not show himself +even. Why, at the banquet of his own giving, he hid behind a big floral +piece and made Mr. Oakey Hall speak for him. And yet he had been pleased +enough with my work to bring me there himself. I saw his hand upon my +shoulder, and suddenly I stooped my head and kissed it, in purest +gratitude. + +Afterward, when I had been unpinned, as we walked through the entrance +together, he said, with a gleeful laugh: "This is the third and greatest, +but we share it." + +"The third what?" I asked. + +"The third surprise," he answered. "First you surprised the town in 'Man +and Wife'; second, you surprised _me_ in 'L'Article 47'; now 'Alixe'--the +greatest of all--surprises you as well as me!" + +He stopped, stepped in front of me and asked: "What do you most wish +for?" + +I stared at him. He added, "About your home, say?" + +And swiftly I made answer: "A writing-desk; why?" + +He laughed a little and said: "Good-night, now. Oh, by the way, there's a +forfeit against you for not wearing your bustle to-night." + +But I was not greatly alarmed or excited--not half so much as I was next +day, about four o'clock, when some men drove up and insisted upon leaving +in my room a handsome inlaid desk that was taller than I was. At first I +protested, but a card, saying that it was "A souvenir of 'Alixe,' from +your manager and friend, A. Daly," changed my bearing to one of most +unseemly pride. + +In the next ten days I wrote I think to every soul I knew, and kept up my +diary with vicious exactitude, just for the pleasure of sitting before +the lovely desk, that to-day stands in my "den" in the attic. Its +mirror-door, is dim and cloudy, its sky-blue velvet writing-leaf faded to +a silvery gray, but even so it still remains "A souvenir of 'Alixe,' from +A. Daly." + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST + + Trouble about Obnoxious Lines in "Madeline Morel"--Mr. Daly's + Manipulation of Father X: In Spite of our Anxiety the Audience accepts + the Situation and the Play--Mr. Daly gives me the smallest Dog in New + York. + + +The last and fourth success that was granted to me under Mr. Daly's +management was in "Madeline Morel." Of course I played in many plays, +sometimes small, comparatively unimportant parts, sometimes, as in the +two-hundred-night run of "Divorce," I played a long, hard-working part, +that was without any marked characteristic or salient feature to make a +hit with. + +But I only mention "Madeline Morel" because of a couple of small +incidents connected with its production. First of all, let me say that I +believe Mr. Daly, who was an ardent Catholic, was not the first manager +to give benefits to the Orphan Asylums, for I think that had long been a +custom, but he was the first to arrange those monster programmes, which +included the names of every great attraction in the city--bar none. The +result was not merely an Academy of Music literally packed, but crowds +turned from its doors. I remember what excitement there was over the +gathering together in one performance of such people as Fechter, Sothern, +Adelaide Neilson, Aimée, and Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams. I first saw +the beautiful Mary Anderson at one of these benefits, as well as those +two clever English women, Rose Coghlan and Jeffreys Lewis. Later on, when +I was under Mr. Palmer's management, I had an experience at a benefit +that I am not likely to forget. I had consented to do the fourth act of +"Camille" (the ball-room scene), and when I swept through the crowd of +"guests," every word was wiped clean out of my memory, for as they faced +me I recognized in the supposed supers and extras all the various +stars--the leading ladies and gentlemen who had had a place on the +lengthy programme. Working hard, giving of their best, they had all +laughingly joined in this gracious whim of playing supernumeraries in +Dumas's ball-scene. And I remember that Mademoiselle Aimée was +particularly determined to be recognized as she walked and strolled up +and down. Once I whispered imploringly to her: "Turn your back, Madame!" +but she laboriously answered: "Non! I haiv' not of ze shame to be supe +for you, Mademoiselle!" It was a charming compliment, but more than a bit +overwhelming to its recipient. + +Well, Mr. Daly having originated, as I believe, these splendid and +lengthy benefit performances, was, as a result, able to place a goodly +sum of money at the service of the Asylum authorities, and naturally he +received warm thanks from his Church. + +Then, when "Madeline Morel" came along, with the great cathedral scene, +we all stood aghast at what I was called upon to say and do. Everyone was +on the stage, and nearly everyone whispered: "Sacrilege!" I stopped +stock-still, in sheer fright. Mr. Daly pulled nervously at the lapel of +his coat for a moment, and then said, sharply, "Go on!" I obeyed, but +right behind me someone said: "And he calls himself a Catholic!" + +It was a horrid bit, in an otherwise beautiful and impressive act. As a +"sister" who had served the "novitiate," I had just taken the life vows +and had been invested with the black veil. Then the wedding procession +and the Church procession, coming from opposite sides and crossing before +the altar, like a great "X," brought the bridegroom and the black nun +face to face, in dreadful recognition, and in the following scene I had +to drag from my head the veil and swathing white linen--had to tear from +my breast the cross, and, trampling it under foot, stretch my arms to +Heaven and, with upraised face, cry: "I call down upon my guilty soul +the thunders of a curse, that none may hear and live!" and then fall +headlong, as though my challenge had been accepted. + +Nothing was talked of day or night but that scene, and those of the +company who were Catholics were particularly excited, and they cried: +"Why, if we find it so repellant, what on earth will an audience think of +it?" + +Some prophesied hisses, some that the people would rise and leave the +theatre. That Mr. Daly was uneasy about its effect he did not attempt to +hide, and one day he said to me: "I think I'll call on Father X---- (his +confessor and friend) to-morrow evening, and get his--well--his opinion +on this matter." But, unfortunately, rumors had already reached churchly +ears, and the reverend gentleman came that same day to inquire of Mr. +Daly concerning them. I say "unfortunately," because Mr. Daly was a +masterful man and resented anything like interference. Had he been +permitted to introduce the matter himself, no doubt a few judicious +words from the priest would have induced him to tone down the +objectionable speech and action: but the visit to him rubbed him the +wrong way and aroused every particle of obstinacy in him. He described +the play, however, assured his old friend there were no religious +arguments, no homilies in it, but when he came to _the_ scene, the +Father shook his head: "No--no! my son!" said he, "I do not see how that +can be sanctioned." + +Mr. Daly reasoned, argued, almost pleaded; but though it evidently hurt +the good man to refuse, since he was greatly attached to his son in the +church, he still shook his head and at last declared it was a serious +matter, and he would have to bring it to the Bishop's attention. But that +was just what Mr. Daly did not want. "Can you not see, Father," he said, +"these lines are spoken in a frenzy? They come from the lips of a woman +mad with grief and trouble! They have not the value or the consequence of +words spoken by a sane person!" + +The priest shook his head. Suddenly Mr. Daly ceased his arguments and +persuasions. After a little silence, he said: "You cannot sanction this +scene, then, Father?" + +A positive shake of the head. Mr. Daly looked pensively out of the +window. + +"Too bad!" he sighed, "too bad!" + +The kind old man sighed too, companionably. + +"You see, if that scene is not done, the play cannot be done." + +"Dear, dear!" murmured the priest. + +"And if the play is not done, having nothing else at hand, I shall have +to close the season with the old play, and naturally that will mean bad +business." + +"Too bad, too bad!" muttered the voice, comfortably. + +"And if the season ends badly, why, of course, there can be no charity +benefit." + +"What?" sharply exclaimed the erstwhile calm voice. "No benefit for our +poor? Why--why--'er--I--dear me! and the Asylum needs help so +badly!--'er--a 'frenzy' you said, my son? Spoken in +madness?--'er--I--well--I will give the matter serious thought, and I'll +acquaint you with my conclusion," and evidently much disturbed he +retired. + +And when Mr. Daly told me this, he added, with a twinkle in his eye: "He +will get the benefit, surely enough." And when he saw my bewilderment, he +added: "Don't you see? I had my doubts about the Bishop, but dear old +Father X---- will be so anxious about his orphans that he will make +things right for me with him, for their sakes." A view of the matter that +proved to be correct. Verily a clever man was our manager. + +Day after day we rehearsed, and day after day I hoped that the dreadful +bit of business might be toned down. At last my nerves gave way +completely, and after a particularly trying rehearsal I rushed to the +managerial office, and, bursting into tears, begged hard to be excused +from trampling the cross under foot. + +"Surely," I sobbed, "it's bad enough to have to tear off the +veil--and--and--I'm afraid something will happen!" + +"And," said Mr. Daly, "to tell you the truth, I'm afraid, too!" + +He gave me a glass of water, and waiting a moment for me to conquer my +tears, he went on: "I'm glad you have come in, I was just about sending +for you." + +"Oh!" I interrupted, "you are going to cut something out?" But he +answered, gravely: "No! I shall cut nothing out! But look here, you are a +brave girl, and forewarned is forearmed, you know, so I am going to speak +quite plainly. I don't know how the public may receive that bit of +business; perhaps with dead silence; perhaps with hisses." + +I sprang to my feet. "Sit down!" he said, "and listen. You shall not be +held responsible, in the slightest degree, for the scene, I promise you +that. If anything disagreeable happens it shall be fairly stated that you +played under protest. It is, of course, possible that the scene may go +along all right, but I want to warn you that you may prepare yourself for +the storm, should it come. I don't want you to be taken unawares and have +you faint or lose your nerve. So, now whenever you go over your part and +reach that point, say to yourself: 'Here they hiss!' Don't look so pale. +I'm sorry you have to bear the brunt alone, but you will be brave, won't +you?" + +And I rose, and after my usual habit, tried to jest, as I answered: +"Since you alone gave me my opportunity of being _applauded_ in New York, +I suppose it's only fair that I should accept this opportunity of being +_hissed_." + +Excited and miserable I went home. Faithfully I followed Mr. Daly's +suggestion. But no matter how often I went over the scene, whenever I +said: "Here they hiss," my face went white, my hands turned cold as +stone. 'Twas fortunate the first performance was near, for I could not +have borne the strain long. As it was, I seemed to wear my nerves on the +outside of my clothes until the dreaded night was over. + +The play had gone finely; most of the people were well cast. Miss Morant, +Miss Davenport, Miss Jewett, Miss Varian especially so; while Fisher, +Lewis, Lemoyne, Crisp, Clark, and James did their best to make a success +and close in glory the season that had been broken in half by the burning +of the home theatre. The end of the third act had been mine. The +passionate speech of renunciation and farewell had won the favor of the +house, and call after call followed. As I had played the scene alone, I +should have been proud and happy--should have counted the calls with a +miser's gloating satisfaction. But instead my blood was already chilling +with dread of the coming act. + +"Good Lord, child!" said Mr. Daly, "your face is as long as my arm! Don't +anticipate evil--take the good the gods send you. You are making a hit +and you're losing all the pleasure of it. I'm ashamed of you!" + +But he wrung my fingers hard, even as he spoke, and I knew that his words +were, what the boys call a "bluff." + +Then the curtain was rising. The cathedral scene won a round of applause, +and kneeling at the altar, as children say, "I scringed" at the sound. +Then after a little I was coming down the stage and the audience, +recognizing _Madeline_ in the nun, applauded long and heartily, and I +fairly groaned aloud. After that the act proceeded really with stately +dignity, but to my terrified eyes it seemed indecent haste; and as I fell +into line with the Church procession of sisters, of novices, of priests +and acolytes, I felt myself a morsel in a kaleidoscopic picture of bright +colors, the churchly purple and its red and white, the brilliant gowns of +the women of fashion, the golden organ-pipes, the candles burning +star-like upon the altar, the massed flowers, and over all, giving a +touch of floating unreality to everything, the clouds of incense. + +Then suddenly, out of the bluish haze, there gleamed the white, set face, +for love of which I was to sacrifice my very soul! The scene was on, +swift, passionate, and furious, and almost before I could realize it, the +dreadful words had been spoken--and with my foot upon the cross, I stood +in a silence the like of which I had never known before! I had not +fallen--stricken absolutely motionless with terror I stood--waiting. + +In that crowded building even breathing seemed suspended. There reigned a +silence, like to death itself! It was awful! Then without changing my +attitude by the movement of a finger, I pitched forward, falling heavily +at the feet of the dismayed lover and the indignant priest. And suddenly, +sharply as by a volley of musketry, the silence was broken by applause. +Yes, actually by applause, and beneath its noise I heard a voice behind +me gasp: "Well, I'll be blest!" + +When all was ended, and after the final courtesies had been extended and +gratefully accepted, there was an outburst of excited comment, and more +than one experienced actor declared that never again would they even try +to anticipate the conduct of an audience. Old Mr. Fisher told Mr. Daly +he had felt the rising hiss and he was positive it was regard for the +woman that had restrained its expression. + +Mr. Daly patted the old gentleman on the shoulder and answered: +"Perhaps--perhaps! but if for her sake the public has swallowed that +scene one night, the public have got to go on swallowing it every +night--and that's the important point for us." + +Very shamefacedly I apologized for not falling at the proper time, and as +I hurriedly promised to do so the next night, to my surprise Mr. Daly +stopped me with a quick: "No! no! change nothing! I was in front, and +that pause, staring straight up into heaven, was tremendously effective. +It was as if God offered you a moment to repent in--then struck you down! +Change nothing, and to-morrow you shall have your heart's desire." + +I gazed at him in amazement. He laughed a bit maliciously and said: "Old +heat-registers and things carry voices. I hear many things. I have heard, +for instance, about a man named Dovey and a wonderful toy terrier that +weighs by ounces. I wouldn't open my eyes any wider, if I were you; they +might stay that way. Well, will you show me the way to Dovey's by eleven +to-morrow?" + +"But," I faltered, "I'm afraid of the price----" + +"That's my affair," he answered curtly, then added, more kindly, +"Good-night! you have behaved well, Miss Morris, and if I can give you a +pleasure--I shall be glad." + +And next day I owned the tiniest dog in New York, who slept in a +collar-box, by my pillow, that I might not hurt it in the night. Whose +bark was like a cambric needle, and who, within five minutes after her +arrival, challenged to deadly combat my beloved Bertie, who weighed good +four pounds. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND + + I am Engaged to Star part of the Season--Mr. Daly Breaks his + Contract--I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction--I meet Mr. Palmer + and make Contract and appear at the Union Square in the "Wicked World." + + +The third season in New York was drawing to its close, and by most +desperate struggling I had managed just to keep my head above water--that +was all. I not only failed to get ahead by so much as a single dollar, +but I had never had really enough of anything. We were skimped on +clothes, skimped on food, indeed we were skimped on everything, except +work and hope deferred. When, lo! a starring tour was proposed to me. +After my first fright was over I saw a possibility of earning in that way +something more than my mere board, though, truth to tell, I was not +enraptured with the prospect of joining that ever-moving caravan of +homeless wanderers, who barter home, happiness, and digestive apparatus +for their percentage of the gross, and the doubtful privilege of having +their own three-sheet posters stare them out of countenance in every town +they visit. Yet without the brazen poster and an occasional lithograph +hung upside down in the window of a German beer saloon, one would lack +the proof of stardom. + +No, I had watched stars too long and too closely to believe theirs was a +very joyous existence; besides, I felt I had much to learn yet, and that +New York was the place to learn it in; so, true to my promise, off I went +and laid the matter before Mr. Daly--and he _did_ take on, but for such +an odd reason. For though he paid me the valued compliment of saying he +could not afford to lose me, his greatest anger was aroused by what he +called the "demoralization" my act would bring into his company. + +"You put that bee in their bonnets and its buzzing will drown all +commands, threats, or reasons. Every mother's son and daughter of them +will demand the right to star! Why, confound it! Jimmie Lewis, who has +had one try at it, is twisting and writhing to get at it again--even now; +and as for Miss Davenport, she will simply raise the dead over her effort +to break out starring, and Ethel--oh, well, she's free now to do as she +likes. But you star one week and you'll see how quick she will take the +cue, while Miss--oh, it's damnable! You can't do it! it will set everyone +on end!" + +"If you will give me a salary equal to that of other people, who do much +less work than I do, I will stay with you," I said. + +But he wanted me to keep to the small salary and let him "make it up to +me," meaning by that, his paying for the stage costumes and occasional +gifts, etc. But that was not only unbusiness-like and +unsatisfactory--though he undoubtedly would have been generous +enough--but it was a bit humiliating, since it made me dependent on his +whims and, worst of all, it opened the door to possible scandal, and I +had but one tongue to deny with, while scandal had a thousand tongues to +accuse with. + +It was a queer whim, but he insisted that he could not give me the really +modest salary I would remain for, though, in his own words, I should have +"three times its value." Finally we agreed that I should give him three +months of the season every year as long as he might want my services, and +the rest of the season I should be free to make as much money as I could, +starring. He told me to go ahead and make engagements at once to produce +"L'Article 47" or "Alixe"--I to pay him a heavy nightly royalty for each +play, and when my engagements were completed to bring him the list, that +he might not produce "Alixe" with his company before me in any city that +I was to visit. I did as he had requested me. I was bound in every +contract to be the first to present "L'Article 47" or "Alixe" in that +city. I was then to open in Philadelphia. I had been announced as a +coming attraction, when I received startling telegrams and threats from +the local manager that "Mr. Daly's Fifth Avenue Company" was announced to +appear the week before me in "Alixe," in an opposition house. Thus Mr. +Daly had most cruelly broken faith with me. I went to him at once. I +reproached him. I said: "These people will sue me!" + +"Bah!" he sneered, "they can't take what you have not got!" + +"But," I cried, "they will throw over my engagement!" + +His face lit up with undisguised pleasure. He thrust his hand into the +open desk-drawer. "Ah," he smiled, "I have a part here that might have +been written for you. It is great--honestly great, and with this starring +business disposed of, we can get at it early!" + +I rose. I said: "Mr. Daly, you have done an unworthy thing, you have +broken faith with me. If you produce 'Alixe' next week, I will never play +for you again!" + +"You will have to!" he threatened. "I have broken the verbal part of our +contract, but you cannot prove it, nor can you break the written part of +the contract!" + +I repeated: "I shall play for you no more!" + +And he hotly answered: "Well, don't you try playing for anyone else. I +give you fair warning--I'll enjoin you if you do! The law is on my side, +remember." + +"My dear sir," I said, "the law was not specially created for you to have +fun with, and it has an odd way of protecting women at times. I shall at +all events appeal to it to-morrow morning." + +Next morning my salary was sent to me. I took from it what was due me for +two nights' work I had done early in the week, and returned the rest, +saying: "As I am not a member of the company, no salary need be sent me." +And eleven o'clock found me in the office of ex-Judge William Fullerton. + +He declared that my mind showed a strong legal bent, and he congratulated +me upon my refusal of the proffered salary. "If," said he, "you receive a +desirable offer in the way of an engagement, take it at once and without +fear. Mr. Daly will threaten you, of course, but I can't believe his +lawyers will permit him to take this matter into court. In attacking you +he will attack every young, self-supporting woman in New York, in your +person. The New York man will sympathize with you. Public opinion is a +great power, and no manager wishes to see it arrayed against him." + +And thus it happened that I was not legally quite off with the old +manager when I was on with the new--in the person of Mr. A. M. Palmer, my +sometime manager and still my honored friend. Our relations were always +kindly, yet to this hour I squirm mentally when I recall our first +meeting. I was taking some chocolate at a woman's restaurant on Broadway, +and a common friend brought the "Union Square" manager in and introduced +him, simply as a friend, for whatever my secret hope, there had been no +open word spoken about business in connection with this interview. But, +given a meeting between an idle actress and an active manager, a +Barkis-like willingness to talk business is sure to develop. + +Looking up and seeing Mr. Harriott advancing toward my table with a +strange gentleman in tow, I gave a nervous swallow and fixed my attention +upon the latter. His rigid propriety of expression, the immaculately +spotless and creaseless condition of his garments made me expect each +moment to hear the church-bells clang out an invitation to morning +service. Being presented, he greeted me with a gentle coldness of +manner--if I may use the expression--that sent my heart down like lead. +Now extreme nervousness on my part nearly always expresses itself in +rapid, almost reckless speech, and directly I was off at a tangent, +successfully sharing with them the fun of various absurdities going on +about us; until, in an evil moment, my eye fell upon the smug face of a +young rural beau, whose terrified delight in believing himself a very +devil of a fellow was so ludicrously evident, that one wept for the +presence of a Dickens to embalm him in the amber of his wit. + +"Oh!" I said, egged on by one of those imps who hover at the elbow of +just such women as I am, "can't you see he is a minister's son? He has +had more religion given to him than he can digest. He's taking a sniff of +freedom. He has kicked over the traces and he has not quite decided yet +whether he'll go to the demnition bow-wows entirely, or be moderately +respectable. He's a minister's son fast enough, but he doesn't know yet +whether he will manage a theatre in New York or run away with the +Sunday-school funds; and that red-haired young person oppo--opposite----" +And I trailed off stupidly, for judging by the ghastly silence that had +fallen upon my hearers and the stricken look upon Mr. Harriott's face, I +knew I had set my foot deep in some conversational morass. I turned a +frightened glance upon Mr. Palmer's face, and I have always been glad +that I was in time to catch the twinkling laughter in his cool, hazel +eyes. Then he leaned toward me and gently remarked: "I am the son of a +minister, Miss Morris, and the manager of a theatre, but upon my word the +Sunday-school funds never suffered at my hands." + +"Oh!" I groaned. And I must have looked just as a pet dog does when it +creeps guiltily to its mistress's foot and waits to be smacked. I +_really_ must, because he suddenly broke into such hearty laughter. Then +presently he made a business proposition that pleased me greatly, but I +felt I must tell him that Mr. Daly promised to get out an injunction to +prevent my appearance anywhere, and he would probably not care to risk +any trouble. And then there came a little squeeze to Mr. Palmer's lips +and a little glint in his eye, as he remarked: "You accept my offer and +I'll know how to meet the injunction." + +And I can't help it--being born on St. Patrick's Day and all that--if +people _will_ step on the tail of one's coat, why of course they must +expect "ructions." And to tell the honest truth, Mr. Palmer's perfect +willingness to fight that injunction filled me with unholy glee; which +combined beautifully with gratitude for his quick forgiveness of my _faux +pas_--and I signed a contract with Mr. Sheridan Shook and Mr. A. M. +Palmer and was announced to appear in "The Wicked World" at the Union +Square Theatre, and I was pursued day and night by slim young men with +black curly hair, who tried to push folded papers into my unwilling +hands; while life behind the scenes grew more and more strenuous, as +scene-shifters, property-men, and head carpenters, armed with braces and +screw-eyes, charged any unknown male creature that looked as if he could +define the word injunction. + +The night came, and with it an equinoctial gale of perfect fury. Whether +the people were blown in by the storm or fought their way in by +intention, I can't decide. I only know they were there and in numbers +sufficient to crowd the bright and ruddy auditorium. They were a trifle +damp about the ankles and disordered about the hair, but their hands were +in prime working order, their hearts were warm, their perceptions +quick--what more could the most terrified actress pray for in an +audience? + +The play was one of Gilbert's deliciously poetic satires--well cast, +beautifully produced, after the manner of Union Square productions +generally, and Success shook the rain off her wings and perched upon our +banners, and we were all filled with pride and joy, in spite of the young +men with folded white papers who swirled wildly up and down Fourth Avenue +in the storm, and of those other young men who came early and strove +diligently to get seats within reaching distance of the foot-lights, only +to find that by some strange accident both those rows of chairs were +fully occupied when the doors were first throw open. Yes, in spite of all +those disappointed young men, we had a success, and I was not enjoined. +Yet there were two rather long managerial faces there that night. For +unless my out-of-town managers threw me overboard, because of the +trouble about "Alixe," I could remain in this charming play of "The +Wicked World" but two short weeks. And no manager can be expected to +rejoice over the forced withdrawal of a success. + +And right there Mr. Palmer saw fit to do a very gracious thing. After the +first outburst of anger and disappointment from Mr. Thomas Hall (my +Philadelphia manager), instead of breaking his engagement with me, as he +had every right to do, he stood by his contract to star me and at the +same terms, if I could provide a play--any play to fill the time with. I +had nothing of course but the Daly plays, so my thanks and utter +abandonment of the engagement were neatly packed within the regulation +ten telegraphic words, when Mr. Palmer offered me the use of his play, +"The Geneva Cross," written by George Fawcett Rowe. In an instant my +first telegram changed into a joyous acceptance. I was studying my part +at night, my mother was ripping, picking out and pressing at skirts and +things by day. Congratulating myself upon my good fortune in having once +seen the play in New York, I went to Philadelphia, and after just one +rehearsal of this strange play, I opened my starring engagement. Can I +ever forget the thrill I felt when I received my first thousand dollars? +I counted it by twenties, then by tens, but I got the most satisfaction +out of counting it by fives--it seemed so much more that way. I was +spending it with the aid of a sheet of foolscap paper and a long pencil +until after two o'clock in the morning. My mother to this day declares +that that was the very best black silk dress she has ever owned--that one +out of that first thousand she means, and on the wall here beside me +hangs a fine and rare engraving of the late Queen Victoria in her +coronation robes that I gave myself as a memento of that first wonderful +thousand. That, when the other managers saw that Mr. Hall kept faith with +me, and had apparently not lost by his action, they followed suit and all +my engagements were filled--thanks to Mr. Palmer's kindness and Mr. +Hall's pluck as well as generosity. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD + + We Give a Charity Performance of "Camille," and Are Struck with + Amazement at our Success--Mr. Palmer Takes the Cue and Produces + "Camille" for Me at the Union Square. + + +Then came the great "charity benefit," and "Camille"--that "Ninon de l' +Enclos" of the drama, who, in spite of her years, can still count lovers +at her feet. + +It is amazing how much accident has to do with the career of actors. + +Shakespeare says: + + "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them how we will." + +And heaven knows I "rough-hewed" the "Camille" proposition to the best of +my power. I came hurrying back to New York, specially to act at the +mighty benefit, given for the starving poor of the city. Every theatre +was to give a performance on the same day, and a ticket purchased was +good at any one of them. I had selected "Love's Sacrifice," an old +legitimate play, for that occasion and Mr. Palmer had cast it, when an +actress suddenly presented herself at his office declaring she had made +that play _her_ property, by her own exceptional work in it in former +years, at another theatre. Threatening hysterics often prove valuable +weapons in a manager's office, where, strangely enough, "a scene" is +hated above all things. + +I was informed of this lady's claim to a play that was anybody's +property, and at once withdrew in the interest of peace. But what then +was to be done for the benefit? Every play proposed had some drawback. +Mr. Palmer suggested "Camille," and all my objections crowding to my lips +at once, I fairly stammered and spluttered over the expression of them: I +hated! hated! hated! the play! The people who had preceded me in it were +too great! I should be the merest pigmy beside them. I did not think +_Camille_ as vulgar and coarse as one great woman had made her--nor so +chill and nun-like as another had conceived her to be. And the critics +would fall upon me and joyously tear me limb from limb. They would justly +cry "Presumption," and--and--I had no clothes! no, not one stitch had I +to wear (of course you will make the usual allowance for an excited woman +and not take that literally!) and then, oh, dear! I'm dreadfully ashamed +of myself, but to tell the exact truth, I wept--for the first and only +time in my life--I wept from anger! + +We all fumed--we, meaning Mr. Palmer, Mr. Cazauran, that ferret-faced, +mysterious little man, whose clever brain and dramatic instincts made him +so valuable about a theatre; and the big, silently observant Mr. Shook, +and I. Cazauran said he knew all the business of the play and could tell +me it, and began with certain things Miss Heron (the greatest _Camille_ +America had had) had done, and I indignantly declared I would leave a +theatre before I would do as much. I argued it was unnecessary. _Camille_ +was not brutal--she had associated with gentlemen, members of the +nobility, men who were acquainted with court circles. She would have +learned refinement of manners from them. Such brutalities would have +shocked and driven away the boyish, clean-hearted _Armand_. Her very +disease made her exquisitely sensitive to music, to beauty, to sentiment. +If she repelled, it was with cynicism, sarcasm, her evident knowledge of +the world. She allured men by the very refinement of her vice. And as I +paused to take breath, Mr. Shook's bass voice was heard for the first +time, as he asked, conclusively: "Whom can we get for _Armand_ on such +short notice?" + +I turned piteously to Mr. Palmer: "The critics"--I gasped and stopped. He +smiled reassuringly and said: "Don't be frightened, Miss Morris, they +will never attack a piece of work offered in charity. Just do your best +and remember it's only for once." + +"Dear Lord! only for once!" and with wet cheeks I made my way home, with +a copy of the detested play in my hand. Late that evening I was notified +that Mr. Mayo would play _Armand_. + +I had not one dress suited for the part. I knew I should look like a +school-mistress in one act and a stage _ingénue_ in another. I had a +ball-room gown, but it was not a suitable color. I should only be correct +when I got into my night-dress and loose wrapper in the last act. Actress +fashion, I got my gowns together first, and then sat down with my string +of amber beads to study--I never learn anything so quickly as when I have +something to occupy my fingers, and my string of amber beads has assisted +me over many and many an hour of mental labor--a pleasanter custom than +that of walking and studying aloud, I think, and surely more agreeable to +one's near neighbors. + +The rehearsing of that play was simply purgatorial. We went over two acts +on one stage one day and over three acts on another stage the next day, +and we shrieked our lines out against the tumult of creaking winches, of +hammering and sawing, of running and ordering--for every stage was filled +at the rear with rushing carpenters and painters. Yet those were the only +rehearsals that unfortunate play received for the benefit performance, +and, as a result, we were all abroad in the first act, in particular, and +I remember I spent a good part of my time in trying to induce the +handsome young English woman who did _Olympe_ to keep out of my chair and +to go to and from the piano at the right moment. + +The house was packed to the danger-point, the play being given at what +was then called "The Lyceum," which Charles Fechter had just been having +remodeled, and the police discovering that day that the floor of the +balcony was settling at the right, under the too great weight, very +cleverly ordered the ushers to whisper a seeming message in the ear of a +person here, there, and yonder, who would nod, rise, and step quietly +out, returning a moment later to smilingly motion their party out with +them, and thus the weight was lightened without a panic being caused, +though it made one feel rather sick and faint afterward to note the depth +to which the floor had sagged under the feet of that tightly packed +audience. + +James Lewis used to say to me: "Clara is the biggest fraud of a +first-nighter the profession can show. There she'll stand shivering and +shaking, white-sick with fright, waiting for her cue, and when she gets +it, she skips on and waltzes through her scene as if she'd been at it for +a year at least. No wonder Mr. Daly calls her his best first-nighter." + +So at that first performance of "Camille," as Frank Mayo touched my icy +hand and burning brow, and saw the trembling of my limbs, as with +fever-dried lips I waited for the curtain's rise, he said: "God! but you +suffer! I reckon you'll not act much to-day, little woman!" And a few +minutes later, as I laughed and chatted gayly through the opening lines +of the play, I distinctly heard Frank say: "Well, of all the sells! Why +confound her, I'm twice as nervous as she is!" + +The first act went with a sort of dash and go that was the result of pure +recklessness. The house was delighted. The curtain had to go up twice. We +all looked at one another, and then laughingly laid it to the crowd. The +second act went with such a rush and sweep of hot passion between +_Armand_ and _Camille_ that when _De Varville's_ torn letter was cast to +_Nanine_ as _Camille's_ answer, and the lovers leaped to each others' +arms, the house simply roared, and as the curtain went up and down, up +and down, Mayo gasped in amazement: "Well, I'm damned!" But I made +answer: "No, you're not--but you _will_ be if you hammer my poor spine in +another act as you have in this. Go easy, Frank; I can't stand it!" + +The third act went beautifully. Many women sobbed at times. I made my +exit some little time before the end of the act, and of course went +directly to my room, which was beneath the stage, and there began to +dress for the ball-room scene, and lo! after _Armand_ had had two or +three calls for his last speech, something set them on to call for +_Camille_. And they kept at it, too, till at last a mermaid-like +creature--not exactly half fish and half woman, but half ball-gown train +and half dinky little dressing-sack--came bobbing to the curtain side, +delighting the audience by obeying it, but knocking spots out of the +illusion of the play. + +In the fourth act Mr. Mayo played base-ball with me. He batted me and +hurled me and sometimes I had a wild fear that he would kick me. Finally, +he struck my head so hard that a large gold hairpin was driven through my +scalp and I found a few moments' rest in truly fainting from fatigue, +fright, and pain. + +But it all went. Great heaven! how it went! For Mayo was a great actor, +and it was but intense excitement that made him so rough with me. +Honestly we were so taken aback behind the scenes that none of us knew +what to make of the frantic demonstrations--whether it was just the +result of an extreme good nature in a great crowd, or whether we were +giving an extremely good performance. + +The last act I can never forget. I had cut out two or three pages from +the dialogue in the book. I felt there was too much of it. That if +_Camille_ did not die, her audience would, and had built up a little +scene for myself. Never would I have dared do such a thing had it been +for more than one performance. That scene took in the crossing of the +room to the window, the looking-glass scene, and the return to the bed. + +Dear heaven! it's good to be alive sometimes! to feel your fingers upon +human hearts, to know a little pressure hurts, that a little tighter +pressure will set tears flowing. It was good, too, when that madly-rushed +performance was at last over, to lie back comfortably dead, and hear the +sweet music that is made by small gloved hands, violently spatted +together. "Yes, it was 'werry' good." + +And Mr. Palmer, standing in his box, looking at the pleased, moist-eyed +people in front, took up the cue they offered, so promptly that within +twenty-four hours I had been engaged to play _Camille_ at the Union +Square, as one of a cast to be ever proud of, in a handsome production +with sufficient rehearsals and correct gowns and plenty of extra ladies +and gentlemen to "enter all!" at the fourth act. And more still, the new +play that was then in preparation was called in and packed away with +mothballs to wait until the old play had had its innings. + +Such a cast! Just look at it! + + _M. Armand Duval_ MR. CHARLES R. THORNE + _Comte de Varville_ MR. MCKEE RANKIN + _M. Duval (Père)_ MR. JOHN PARSELLE + _M. Gustave_ MR. CLAUDE BURROUGHS + _M. Gaston_ MR. STUART ROBSON + _Mademoiselle Olympe_ MISS MAUDE GRANGER + _Mademoiselle Nichette_ MISS KATE CLAXTON + _Mademoiselle Nanine_ MISS KATE HOLLAND + _Madame Prudence_ MISS EMILY MESTAYER + +If Mr. Palmer ever eats opium or hashish and has beauteous visions, I am +sure he will see himself making out those splendid old casts again. + +Every theatre-goer knows it's difficult for a stout, romantic actor to +make his love reach convincingly all the way round, and it is almost as +difficult for an actor who has attained six feet of height to make his +love include his entire length of anatomy. But Charles R. Thorne was the +most satisfactory over-tall lover I ever saw. He really seemed entirely +possessed by the passion of love. "My God Thorne" he was nicknamed +because of his persistent use of that exclamation. Of course it did +often occur in plays by authority of their authors, but whenever Thorne +was nervous, confused, or "rattled," as actors term it, or uncertain of +the next line, he would pass his hand across his brow and exclaim, in +suppressed tones: "My God!" and delicious creepy chills would go up and +down the feminine spine out in the auditorium--the male spine is not so +sensitive, you know. A fine actor, hot-tempered, quick to take offence, +equally quick to repent his too hasty words; as full of mischief as a +monkey, he was greatly beloved by those near to him. I worked with him in +perfect amity, albeit I do not think he ever called me anything but +_Johnny_, the name Lou James bestowed upon me at Daly's; and his death +found me shocked and incredulous as well as grieved. He should have +served his admiring public many a year longer, this most admirable +_Armand_. + +And Mr. Parselle, what a delight his stage presence was. He had unction, +jollity, tenderness, dignity, but above all a most polished courtesy. It +was worth two dollars to see John Parselle in court dress, and his +entrance and salutation as _Duval Père_ in the cottage scene of "Camille" +was an unfailing gratification to me--he was a dramatic gem of great +value. + +Mr. Stuart Robson, by expressing a genuine tenderness of sympathy for the +dying woman in the last act, amazed and delighted everyone. It had not +been suspected that a trained comedian, who hopped about and lisped and +squeaked through the other acts, could lay aside those eccentricities and +show real gentleness and sincerity in the last--a very memorable _Gaston_ +was Mr. Stuart Robson. + +But oh, how many of these names are cut in marble now! Poor Claude +Burroughs! with his big eyes, his water curls, and his tight-waisted +coats. We would not have poked so much fun at him, had we known how +terrible was the fate approaching him. + +And little Katie Holland--she of the knee-reaching auburn locks, the +gentlest of living creatures--God in His wisdom, which finite man may not +understand, has taken and held safe, lo! these many years. + +As an ex-votary of pleasure, _Prudence_ is always more convincing if she +can show some remnant of past beauty; so the statuesque regularity of +feature the Mestayer family was famous for, told here, and the _Prudence_ +of Miss Emily Mestayer was as handsome and heartless a harpy as one ever +saw. + +Then, too, there were the gorgeous Maude Granger, the ruddy-haired +Claxton, and the piratically handsome Rankin; their best opportunities +were yet to come to all three. And with that cast Mr. Palmer achieved a +great success, with the play that, old then, shows to this day the most +astounding vitality. + +The only drawback was to be found in its impropriety as an entertainment +for the ubiquitous "young person," in the immorality of _Camille's_ life, +which was much dwelt upon. Now--oh, the pity of it!--now _Camille_ is, by +comparison with modern plays, absolutely staid. It is the adulteries of +wives and husbands that the "young person" looks unwinkingly upon to-day. +Worse still--the breaking of the Seventh Commandment no longer leads to +tragic punishment, as of yore, but the thunders that rolled about Mount +Sinai at the promulgation of that awful warning: "Thou shalt not commit +adultery!" are answered now by the thunders of laughter that greet the +taking in adultery of false wives and husbands in milliners' many-doored +rooms, or restaurants' _cabinet particulier_. Alas, that the time should +come that this passion for the illicit should so dominate the stage! + +One more delightful production at the Union Square Theatre I shared in, +and then my regular company days were over. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH + + "Miss Multon" Put in Rehearsal--Our Squabble over the Manner of her + Death--Great Success of the Play--Mr. Palmer's Pride in it--My _Au + Revoir_. + + +The other day, in recalling to Mr. Palmer a long list of such successful +productions of his as "Led Astray," "The Two Orphans," "Camille," "Miss +Multon," "The Danicheffs," "The Celebrated Case," etc., he surprised me +by emphatically declaring that the performance of "Miss Multon" came +nearer to absolute perfection than had any other play he had ever +produced; and to convince me of that, he simply brought forward the cast +of the play to help prove the truth of his assertion. As we went over the +characters one by one, I was compelled to admit that from the leading +part to the smallest servant, I had never seen one of them quite equaled +since. Mr. Palmer's pride in this production seemed the more odd at +first, because of its slight demands upon the scenic-artist, the +carpenter, and upholsterer. It needs just two interior scenes--a busy +doctor's study in London and a morning-room in a French +country-house--that's all. "But," he will enthusiastically cry, "think of +that performance, recall those people," and so, presently, I will obey +him and recall them every one. + +The play had twice failed in Paris, which was, to say the least, +discouraging. When it was read to me I thought the tremendous passion of +maternity ought to touch the public heart--others there were, who said +no, that sexual love alone could interest the public. Mr. Palmer thought +the French play had needed a little brightening; then, too, he declared +the people wanted to see the actual end of the heroine (one of Mr. Daly's +fixed beliefs, by the way), therefore he had Mr. Cazauran write two +additional short acts--a first, to introduce some brightness in the +children's Christmas-tree party and some amusement in the old bachelor +doctor and his old maid sister; and a last for the death of _Miss +Multon_. + +After brief reflection I concluded I would risk it, and then, just by way +of encouragement, Mr. Cazauran, who had always been at pains to speak as +kindly of my work as that work would allow, when he was critic on the +different papers, declared that all my acquired skill and natural power +of expressing emotion united would prove useless to me--that _Miss +Multon_ was to be my Waterloo, and to all anxious or surprised "whys?" +sapiently made answer: "No children." His argument was, that not being a +mother in reality, I could not be one in imagination. + +Always lacking in self-confidence, those words made my heart sink +physically, it seemed to me, as well as figuratively; but the ever-ready +jest came bravely to the fore to hide my hurt from the public eye, and at +next rehearsal I shook my head mournfully and remarked to the little man: +"Bad--bad! Miss Cushman must be a very bad _Lady Macbeth_--I don't want +to see her!" + +"What?" he exclaimed, "Cushman not play _Lady Macbeth_--for heaven's +sake, why not?" + +"No murderess!" I declared, with an air of authority recognized by those +about me as a fair copy of his own. "If Miss Cushman is not a murderess, +pray how can she act _Lady Macbeth_--who is?" And the laugh that followed +helped a little to scare away the bugaboo his words had raised in my +mind. + +Then, ridiculous as it may seem to an outsider, the question of dress +proved to be a snag, and there was any amount of backing and filling +before we could get safely round it. + +"What are you going to wear, Miss Morris?" asked Mr. Cazauran one day +after rehearsal--and soon we were at it, and the air was thick with +black, brown, gray, purple, red, and blue! I starting out with a gray +traveling-dress, for a reason, and Mr. Cazauran instantly and without +reason condemned it. He thought a rich purple would be about the thing. +Mr. Palmer gave a small contemptuous "Humph"! and I cried out, aghast: +"Purple? the color of royalty, of pomp, of power? A governess in a rich +purple? Your head would twist clear round, hind side to, with amazement, +if you saw a woman crossing from Calais to Dover attired in a royal +purple traveling-suit." + +Mr. Palmer said: "Nonsense, Cazauran; purple is not appropriate;" and +then, "How would blue--dark blue or brown do?" he asked. + +"For just a traveling-dress either one would answer perfectly," I +answered; "but think of the character I am trying to build up. Why not +let me have all the help my gown can give me? My hair is to be +gray--white at temples; I have to wear a dress that requires no change in +going at once to cars and boat. Now gray or drab is a perfect +traveling-gown, but think, too, what it can express--gray hair, white +face, gray dress without relief of trimming, does it not suggest the +utterly flat, hopeless monotony of the life of a governess in London? Not +hunger, not cold, but the very dust and ashes of life? Then, when the +woman arrives at the home of her rival and tragedy is looming big on the +horizon, I want to wear red." + +"Good God!" exclaimed Cazauran; and really red was so utterly unworn at +that time that I was forced to buy furniture covering, reps, in order to +get the desired color, a few days later. + +"Yes, red," I persisted. "Not too bright, not impudent scarlet, but a +dull, rich shade that will give out a gleam when the light strikes it; +that will have the force of a threat--a menacing color, that white +collar, cuffs and black lace shoulder wrap will restrict to +governess-like primness, until, with mantle torn aside, she stands a +pillar of fire and fury. And at the last I want a night-dress and a +loose robe over it of a hard light blue, that will throw up the ghastly +pallor of the face. There--that's what I want to wear, and why I want to +wear it." + +Mr. Palmer decided that purple was impossible and black too conventional, +while the proposed color-scheme of gray, red, and blue seemed reasonable +and characteristic. And suddenly that little wretch, Cazauran, laughed as +good-naturedly as possible and said he thought so, too, but it did no +harm to talk things over, and so we got around that snag, only to see a +second one looming up before us in the question of what was to kill _Miss +Multon_. + +I asked it: "Of what am I to die?" + +"Die? how? Why, just die, that's all," replied Cazauran. + +"But _of_ what?" I persisted; "what kills me? _Miss Multon_ at present +dies simply that the author may get rid of her. I don't want to be +laughed at. We are not in the days of 'Charlotte Temple'--we suffer, but +we live. To die of a broken heart is to be guyed, unless there is an +aneurism. Now what can _Miss Multon_ die from? If I once know that, I'll +find out the proper business for the scene." + +"Perhaps you'd have some of the men carry knives," sneered Cazauran, "and +then she could be stabbed?" + +"Oh, no!" I answered; "knives are not necessary for the stabbing of a +woman; a few sharp, envenomed words can do that nicely--but we are +speaking of death, not wounds; from what is _Miss Multon_ to die?" + +Then Mr. Palmer made suggestions, and Miss Morris made suggestions, and +Mr. Cazauran triumphantly wiped them out of existence. But at last +Cazauran himself grudgingly remarked that consumption would do well +enough, and Mr. Palmer and I, as with one vengeful voice, cried out, +_Camille!_ And Cazauran said some things like "Nom de Dieu!" or "Dieu de +Dieu!" and I said: "Chassez à droite," but the little man was vexed and +would not laugh. + +Someone proposed a fever--but I raised the contagion question. Poison was +thought of, but that would prevent the summoning of the children from +Paris, by _Dr. Osborne_. We parted that day with the question unanswered. + +At next rehearsal I still wondered how I was to die, hard or easy, rigid +or limp, slow or quick. "Oh," I exclaimed, "I must know whether I am to +die in a second or to begin in the first act." And in my own exaggerated, +impatient words I found my first hint--"why _not_ begin to die in the +first act?" + +When we again took up the question, I asked, eagerly: "What are those two +collapses caused by--the one at the mirror, the other at the school-table +with the children?" + +"Extreme emotion," I was answered. + +"Then," I asked, "why not extreme emotion acting upon a weak heart?" + +Mr. Palmer was for the heart trouble from the first--he saw its +possibilities, saw that it was new, comparatively speaking at least--I +suppose nothing is really new--and decided in its favor; but for some +reason the little man Cazauran was piqued, and the result was that he +introduced just one single line, that could faintly indicate that _Miss +Multon_ was a victim of heart disease--in the first act, where, after a +violent exclamation from the lady, _Dr. Osborne_ said: "Oh, I thought it +was your heart again," and on eight words of foundation I was expected to +raise a superstructure of symptoms true enough to nature to be readily +recognized as indicating heart disease; and yet oh, difficult task! that +disease must not be allowed to obtrude itself into first place, nor must +it be too poignantly expressed. In brief, we decided I was to show to the +public a case of heart disease, ignored by its victim and only recognized +among the characters about her by the doctor. + +And verily my work was cut out for me. Why, when I went to the Doctors +Seguin to be coached, I could not even locate my heart correctly by half +a foot. Both father and son did all they could to teach me the full +horror of _angina pectoris_, which I would, of course, tone down for +artistic reasons. And to this day tears rise in my eyes when I recall the +needless cruelty of the younger Seguin, in running a heart patient up a +long flight of stairs, that I might see the gasping of the gray-white +mouth for breath, the flare and strain of her waxy nostrils. Then, in +remorseful generosity, though heaven knows her coming was no act of mine, +I made her a little gift, and as she was slipping the bill inside her +well-mended glove, her eye caught the number on its corner, and, she must +have been very poor, her tormented and tormenting heart gave a plunge and +sent a rush of blood into her face that made her very eyeballs pinken; +and then again the clutching fingers, the flaring nostrils, the gasping +for air, the pleading look, the frightened eyes! Oh, it is unforgettable! +poor soul! poor soul! + +Well, having my symptoms gathered together, they yet had to be sorted +out, toned down, and adapted to this or that occasion. But at least the +work had not been thrown away, for on the first night Dr. Fordyce +Barker--a keen dramatic critic, by the way--occupied with a friend a +private box. He had rescued me from the hands of the specialists in +Paris, and I had at times been his patient. He applauded heartily after +the first two acts, but looked rather worried. At the end of the third +act a gentleman of his party turned and looked at him inquiringly. The +doctor threw up his hands, while shaking his head disconsolately. The +friend said: "Why, I'm surprised--I thought Miss Morris suffered from her +spine?" + +"So she does--so she does," nodded Dr. Barker. + +"But," went on the friend, "this thing isn't spine--this looks like heart +to me." + +"I should say so," responded the doctor. "I knew she wasn't strong--just +a thing of nerves and will--but I never saw a sign of heart trouble +before. But it's here now, and it's bad; for, by Jove, she can't go +through another attack like that and finish this play. Too bad, too bad!" + +And his honest sympathy for my new affliction spoiled his evening right +up to the point of discovery that it was all in the play. Then he enjoyed +the laugh against himself almost as much as I enjoyed his recognition of +my laboriously acquired symptoms. + +And now for Mr. Palmer's beloved cast. + +With what a mixture of pleasure and grief I recall Sara Jewett, the +loveliest woman and the most perfect representative of a French lady of +quality I have ever seen in the part of _Mathilde_. + +Mr. James O'Neil's success in _Maurice de la Tour_ was particularly +agreeable to me, because I had earnestly called attention to him some +time before he was finally summoned to New York. His fine work in +Chicago, where I had first met him, had convinced me that he ought to be +here, and that beautiful performance fully justified every claim I had +made for him in the first place. The part is a difficult one. Some men +rant in it, some are savagely cruel, some cold as stone. O'Neil's +_Maurice_ bore his wound with a patient dignity that made his one +outbreak into hot passion tremendously effective, through force of +contrast; while his sympathetic voice gave great value to the last tender +words of pardon. + +And that ancient couple--that never-to-be-forgotten pair, Mr. Stoddard +and Mrs. Wilkins! The latter's husband, belonging to the English bar, had +been Sergeant Wilkins, a witty, well-living, popular man, who quite +adored his pretty young wife and lavished his entire income upon their +ever-open house, so that his sudden taking off left her barely able to +pay for a sea of crape--with not a pound left over for a life-preserver +or raft of any kind. But on her return to the stage, her knowledge of +social amenities, the dignity and aplomb acquired by the experienced +hostess, remained with her, in a certain manner, an air of suave and +gentle authority, that was invaluable to her in the performance of +gentlewomen; while the good-fellowship, the downright jollity of her +infectious laugh were the crown of her comedy work. Who can forget the +Multon tea-table scene between Mrs. Wilkins and Mr. Stoddard. How the +audience used to laugh and laugh when, after his accusing snort: "More +copperas!" he sat and glared at her pretty protesting face framed in its +soft white curls. He was so ludicrously savage I had to coin a name for +him; and one night when the house simply would not stop laughing, I +remarked: "Oh, doesn't he look like a perfect old Sardonyx?" + +"Yes-m!" quickly replied the property boy beside me; "yes-m, that's the +very beast he reminds _me_ of!" + +Certainly, I never expect to find another _Dr. Osborne_ so capable of +contradicting a savage growl with a tender caress. + +Mr. Parselle, as the gentle old Latin scholar, tutor, and acting +godfather, was beyond praise. He admitted to me one night, coming out of +a brown study, that he believed _Bélin_ was a character actually beyond +criticism, and that, next to creating it as author, he ranked the honor +of acting it; but there spoke the old-school actor who respected his +profession. + +And those children--were they not charming? That _Sister Jane_, given so +sweetly, so sincerely by the daughter of the famous Matilda Heron, who, +christened Helène, was known only by the pet name Bijou, in public as +well as in private life. And the boy _Paul_, her little brother. Almost, +I believe, Mabel Leonard was herself created expressly to play that part. +Never did female thing wear male clothes so happily. All the impish +perversity, all the wriggling restlessness of the small boy were to be +found in the person of the handsome, erratic, little Mabel. + +Even the two maids were out of the common, one being played by a clever +and very versatile actress, who had been a friend of my old Cleveland +days. She came to me out of the laughing merry past, but all pale and sad +in trailing black, for death had been robbing her most cruelly. She +wished for a New York engagement and astonished me by declaring she would +play anything, no matter how small, if only the part gave her a foothold +on the New York stage. + +I sought Mr. Palmer and talked hard and long for my friend, but he +laughed and answered: "An actress as clever as that will be very apt to +slight a part of only two scenes." + +But I assured him to the contrary; that she would make the most of every +line, and the part would be a stepping-stone to bigger things. He granted +my prayer, and Louise Sylvester, by her earnestness, her breathless +excitement in rushing to and fro, bearing messages, answering bells, and +her excellent dancing, raised _Kitty_ to a character part, while +_Louise_, the smallest of them all, was played with a brisk and bright +assurance that made it hard to believe that Helen Vincent had come direct +from her convent school to the stage-door--as she had. + +A great, great triumph for everyone was that first night of "Miss +Multon," and one of the sweetest drops in my own cup was added by the +hand of New York's honored and beloved poet, Edmund Clarence Stedman, +for, all nested in a basket of sweet violets, came a sonnet from him to +me, and though my unworthiness was evident enough, nevertheless I took +keenest joy in the beauty of its every line--surely a very sweet and +gracious token from one who was secure to one who was still struggling. +And now, when years have passed, he has given me another beautiful memory +to keep the first one company. I was taking my first steps in the new +profession of letters, which seems somewhat uncertain, slow, and +introspective, when compared with the swift, decisive, if rather +superficial profession of acting, and Mr. Stedman, in a pause from his +own giant labor on his great "Anthology," looked at, nay, actually +considered, that shivering fledgling thing, my first book, and wrote a +letter that spelled for me the word _encouragement_, and being a +past-master in the art of subtle flattery, quoted from my own book and +set alight a little flame of hope in my heart that is not extinguished +yet. So gently kind remain some people who are great. Just as Tomasso +Salvini, from the heights of his unquestioned supremacy--but stay, the +line must be drawn somewhere. It would not be kind to go on until my +publisher himself cried: "Halt!" + +So I shall stop and lock away the pen and paper--lock them hard and fast, +because so many charming, so many famous people came within my knowledge +in the next few years that the temptation to gossip about them is hard to +resist. But to those patient ones, who have listened to this story of a +little maid's clamber upward toward the air and sunshine, that God meant +for us all, I send greeting, as, between mother and husband, with the +inevitable small dog on my knee, I prepare to lock the desk--I pause just +to kiss my hands to you and say _Au revoir_! + + + + +THE END + + + + +By A. Conan Doyle + +THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES + +A Sherlock Holmes Novel + +Illustrated by Sidney Paget + +[Illustration] + +_The London Chronicle_, in a review headed "THE ZENITH OF SHERLOCK +HOLMES," says: + + "We should like to pay Dr. Doyle the highest compliment at our command. + It is not simply that this book is superior in originality and + construction to the earlier adventures of the great detective. Dr. + Doyle has provided a criminal who, as Mr. Holmes admits, is indeed a + foeman worthy of his steel.[*] Hitherto he has found it comparatively + easy to unmask his antagonists. But in the present case he finds + himself checkmated again and again. There is pitted against him a skill + nearly equal to his own, and he wins the game almost by a hair." + + [*] "I tell you, Watson, this time we have a foeman who is + worthy of our steel."--_Sherlock Holmes._ + +$1.25 + +McClure, Phillips & Co. + + + + +By George Douglas + +THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS + +The first novel of a new master. The work has gained wide-spread +recognition on both sides of the water. Three of the most conservative +and authoritative publications in England include it among the first +twelve of the year. In this country _Harper's Weekly_ gives it as one of +the two most interesting novels of the year. + + _The critics differ as to with what other master George Douglas should be + compared_: + + _The London Times_ says: "Worthy of the hand that drew 'Weir of + Hermiston,'" and that "Balzac and Flaubert, had they been Scotch, would + have written such a book." + + _The Spectator_: "His masters are Zola and Balzac, but there are few + traces of the novice and none of the imitator." + + _Vanity Fair_: "It moves to its end with all the terrible unity of an + Æschylean tragedy." + + _Harper's Weekly_: "If Thomas Hardy had written of Scotland, instead of + Wessex, it would have been something like 'The House with the Green + Shutters'.... If any man is his (Douglas') master it is Thomas Hardy." + +Hardy, Stevenson, Zola, Flaubert, Balzac, and Æschylus. + +Eighth Edition. $1.50. + +McClure, Phillips & Co. + + + + +By Stewart Edward White + +THE BLAZED TRAIL + +A tale from beyond the bounds of civilization. The second in Mr. White's +series of thoroughly American stories. + +The inspiriting breath of the great pine woods is in this dramatic novel +of frontier struggle in which a green "land looker" plays a lone hand +against a powerful and unscrupulous land company for a vast tract of +timber land. + +_Third Edition._ $1.50 + + + + +_By the same author_: + +THE WESTERNERS + +Mr. White shows us the rough-and-ready life of a Western mining camp. + +"'THE WESTERNERS' lays strong hold on the reader. The thing is vital. +There is a force and a sincerity distinctly Western--of the frontier; +the grim naturalness of elemental things. Furthermore Mr. White knows +his West, his plains, his Indians and his mining camps." + +--_Chicago Record-Herald._ + +_Third Edition._ $1.50. + +McClure, Phillips & Co. + + + + +Two New Books + + +THE MADNESS OF PHILIP + +_AND OTHER STORIES OF CHILDHOOD_ + +_By Josephine Dodge Daskam_ + +Illustrated by F. Y. Cory. + +It would be hard to decide which of Miss Daskam's little heroes and +heroines is the most attractive. There is Philip who demoralized the +kindergarten class; Edgar, the Choir Boy Uncelestial; Ardelia who didn't +like Arcady, and the little beau who dreamed that he went to +dancing-school and that he "was the only fellow there and all the little +girls were Cecilia." Miss Cory has caught the spirit of the stories +admirably in her illustrations. $1.50. + + +RED SAUNDERS + +_HIS DOINGS WEST AND EAST_ + +_By H. W. Phillips_ + +Red Saunders is not the misconception of an American cowboy usually found +in fiction. He is a "sure enough live" cow puncher, brimful of keen +Western humor, and capable of performing mighty interesting stunts, +whether in the East or West. $1.25. + +McClure, Phillips & Co. + + + + +By Anthony Hope + +TRISTRAM OF BLENT + +As sparkling as the "Dolly Dialogues." + +As enthralling as "The Prisoner of Zenda." + +"Mr. Hope's most mature and most artistic work." + +--_The Book Buyer._ + +"A powerful novel by one of the great masters in literature."--_Boston +Times._ + +"It is a notable book."--_Philadelphia Inquirer._ + +"It takes hold of the reader and he cannot put it down until he has read +the last chapter."--_N. Y. Tribune._ + +"'Tristram of Blent' is quite different from the 'Prisoner of Zenda,' but +it is quite as interesting, while much more satisfactory and complete; +and whereas the sword-play and the glitter of the courts is missing, its +reality more than makes up for the omission." + +--_Philadelphia Telegraph._ + +"The character studies in the book are admirable. Not only the main +figures are treated with consummate art; there is not a person in the +book, however unimportant to the furtherance of the main action, but +receives the touch which gives life, which suggests a type without +sacrificing the individual.... It stands as a revelation of the fulness +of Mr. Hope's resources, his grasp of plot and character and +construction.... In workmanship it ranks with his best as an exposition +of the maturity of his art."--_N. Y. Mail and Express._ + +_Twenty-eighth Thousand._ $1.50. + +McClure, Phillips & Co. + + + + +Told on the Fighting Line + +War Tales of Every-Day Life + +HELD FOR ORDERS + +_By Frank H. Spearman_ + +Stories of the Never-Ending Warfare of the Railroads. William Allen White +says of them: "The American who can read those tales and not love his +country better for being a compatriot with real heroes, is a poor sort." + +_Second Edition._ $1.50. + + + + +WALL STREET STORIES + +_By Edwin Lefèvre_ + +Vivid pictures of the cutthroat campaign carried on under the Standard of +the Dollar. + +"Edwin Lefèvre has written the one book about Wall Street which hits +the mark."--_N. Y. Sun._ + +"Rattling good tales."--_Life._ + +_Third Edition._ $1.25. + + + + +BY BREAD ALONE + +_By I. K. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life on the Stage + +Author: Clara Morris + +Release Date: August 26, 2010 [EBook #33537] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE ON THE STAGE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/image1.jpg" width="70" height="382" alt="image1" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">Life on the Stage</p> + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/coverimage.jpg" width="222" height="372" alt="coverimage" /> +</div> + + + + + + +<p class="center"><i>Previous Books by Clara Morris</i><br /> +The Silent Singer<br /> +Little Jim Crow</p> + + +<div class="center"> +<img src="images/image2.jpg" width="213" height="343" alt="image2" /> +</div> + + + + +<h1> <span id="id1">CLARA MORRIS</span><br /> + +<span>Life on the Stage</span><br /> + +<span id="id2">My Personal Experiences and Recollections</span></h1> + + +<p class="center">New York<br /> +McClure, Phillips & Co.<br /> +MCMII<br /> +<i>Copyright, 1901, by</i> S. S. MCCLURE CO.<br /> +<i>1901, by</i> CLARA MORRIS HARRIOTT<br /> +Fifth Impression</p> + + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin">In memory of a labor shared, I affectionately dedicate this book to my husband.</p> +</div> + + + + + + +<h2><span>CONTENTS</span></h2> + + + +<p class="noindent"><a href="#LIFE">CHAPTER FIRST</a><br /> +I am Born</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a href="#SECOND">CHAPTER SECOND</a><br /> +Beginning Early, I Learn Love, Fear, and Hunger—I Become Acquainted with +Letters, and Alas! I Lose One of my Two Illusions</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRD">CHAPTER THIRD</a><br /> +I Enter a New World—I Know a New Hunger and we Return to Cleveland</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FOURTH">CHAPTER FOURTH</a><br /> +I am Led into the Theatre—I Attend Rehearsals—I am Made Acquainted with +the Vagaries of Tights</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FIFTH">CHAPTER FIFTH</a><br /> +I Receive my First Salary—I am Engaged for the Coming Season</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#SIXTH">CHAPTER SIXTH</a><br /> +The Regular Season Opens—I have a Small Part to Play—I am among Lovers +of Shakespeare—I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under the Charm</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#SEVENTH">CHAPTER SEVENTH</a><br /> +I find I am in a "Family Theatre"—I Fare Forth away from my Mother, and +in Columbus I Shelter under the wing of Mrs. Bradshaw</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#EIGHTH">CHAPTER EIGHTH</a><br /> +I Display my New Knowledge—I Return to Cleveland to Face my First +Theatrical Vacation, and I Know the very Tragedy of Littleness</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#NINTH">CHAPTER NINTH</a><br /> +The Season Reopens—I meet the Yellow Breeches and become a Utility +Man—Mr. Murdock Escapes Fits and my "Luck" Proves to be Extra Work</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TENTH">CHAPTER TENTH</a><br /> +With Mr. Dan. Setchell I Win Applause—A Strange Experience comes to +Me—I Know Both Fear and Ambition—The Actress is Born at Last</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#ELEVENTH">CHAPTER ELEVENTH</a><br /> +My Promiscuous Reading wins me a Glass of Soda—The Stage takes up my +Education and Leads me through Many Pleasant Places</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWELFTH">CHAPTER TWELFTH</a><br /> +The Peter Richings' Engagement brings me my First Taste of Slander—Anent +the Splendor of my Wardrobe, also my First Newspaper Notice</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTEENTH">CHAPTER THIRTEENTH</a><br /> +Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as "That Young Woman," to My Great Joy—I Issue +the "Clara Code"—I Receive my First Offer of Marriage</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FOURTEENTH">CHAPTER FOURTEENTH</a><br /> +Mr. Wilkes Booth comes to us, the whole Sex Loves him—Mr. Ellsler +Compares him to his Great Father—Our Grief and Horror over the Awful +Tragedy at Washington</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FIFTEENTH">CHAPTER FIFTEENTH</a><br /> +Mr. R. E. J. Miles—His two Horses and our Woful Experience with the +Substitute "Wild Horse of Tartary"</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#SIXTEENTH">CHAPTER SIXTEENTH</a><br /> +I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study <i>King Charles</i> in One Afternoon and +Play Without a Rehearsal—Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd Revelation</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#SEVENTEENTH">CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH</a><br /> +Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my Reputation—I Own a Baby +on Shares—Miss Western's Pathetic Speech</p> + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#EIGHTEENTH">CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH</a><br /> +Mr. Charles W. Couldock—His Daughter Eliza and his Many Peculiarities</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#NINETEENTH">CHAPTER NINETEENTH</a><br /> +I Come to a Turning-Point in my Dramatic Life—I play my First Crying +Part with Miss Sallie St. Clair</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTIETH">CHAPTER TWENTIETH</a><br /> +I have to pass through Bitter Humiliation to win High Encomiums from Herr +Bandmann; while Edwin Booth's Kindness Fills the Theatre with Pink +Clouds, and I Float Thereon</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-FIRST">CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST</a><br /> +I Digress, but I Return to the Columbus Engagement of Mr. and Mrs. +Charles Kean—Their Peculiarities and their Work</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-SECOND">CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND</a><br /> +I hear Mrs. Kean's Story of Wolsey's Robe—I laugh at an Extravagantly +Kind Prophecy</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-THIRD">CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD</a><br /> +Mr. E. L. Davenport, his Interference, his Lecture on Stage Business, his +Error of Memory or too Powerful Imagination—Why I remain a Dramatic Old +Slipper—Contemptuous Words arouse in me a Dogged Determination to become +a Leading Woman before leaving Cleveland</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-FOURTH">CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH</a><br /> +I recall the Popularity and too early Death of Edwin Adams</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-FIFTH">CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH</a><br /> +I See an Actress Dethroned—I make myself a Promise, for the World does +Move</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-SIXTH">CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH</a><br /> +Mr. Lawrence Barrett the Brilliant and his Brother Joseph the Unfortunate</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-SEVENTH">CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH</a><br /> +I Play "Marie" to Oblige—Mr. Barrett's Remarkable Call—Did I Receive a +Message from the Dying or the Dead?</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-EIGHTH">CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH</a><br /> I accept an Engagement with Mr. Macaulay for Cincinnati as Leading +Lady—My Adieus to Cleveland—Mr. Ellsler Presents Me with a Watch</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#TWENTY-NINTH">CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH</a><br /> +My first Humiliating Experience in Cincinnati is Followed by a Successful +Appearance—I Make the Acquaintance of the Enthusiastic Navoni</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTIETH">CHAPTER THIRTIETH</a><br /> +New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington and Mr. Johnson—Mr. +Ellsler's Mild Assistance—I Journey to New York, and Return to +Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-FIRST">CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST</a><br /> +John Cockerill and our Eccentric Engagement—I Play a Summer Season at +Halifax—Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at Last</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-SECOND">CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND</a><br /> +I Recall Mr. John E. Owens, and How He "Settled my Hash"</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-THIRD">CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD</a><br /> +From the "Wild West" I Enter the Eastern "Parlor of Home Comedy"—I Make +my First Appearance in "Man and Wife"</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-FOURTH">CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH</a><br /> +I Rehearse Endlessly—I Grow Sick with Dread—I Meet with Success in +<i>Anne Sylvester</i></p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-FIFTH">CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH</a><br /> +I Am Accepted by the Company—I am Warned against Mr. Fisk—I Have an Odd +Encounter with Mr. Gould</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-SIXTH">CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH</a><br /> +A Search for Tears—I Am Punished in "Saratoga" for the Success of "Man +and Wife"—I Win Mr. Daly's Confidence—We Become Friends</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-SEVENTH">CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH</a><br /> +A Study of Stage-Management—I Am Tricked into Signing a New Contract</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-EIGHTH">CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH</a><br /> +I Go to the Sea-shore—The Search for a "Scar"—I Make a Study of +Insanity, and Meet with Success in "L'Article 47"</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#THIRTY-NINTH">CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH</a><br /> +I Am too Dull to Understand a Premonition—By Mr. Daly's Side I See the +Destruction of the Fifth Avenue Theatre by Fire</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FORTIETH">CHAPTER FORTIETH</a><br /> +We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New Theatre—Our +Astonishing Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a Great Triumph</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FORTY-FIRST">CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST</a><br /> +Trouble about Obnoxious Lines in "Madeline Morel"—Mr. Daly's +Manipulation of Father X: In Spite of our Anxiety the Audience accepts +the Situation and the Play—Mr. Daly gives me the smallest Dog in New +York</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FORTY-SECOND">CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND</a><br /> +I am Engaged to Star part of the Season—Mr. Daly Breaks his Contract—I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction—I meet Mr. Palmer and make +Contract and appear at the Union Square in the "Wicked World"</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FORTY-THIRD">CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD</a><br /> +We Give a Charity Performance of "Camille," and Are Struck with Amazement +at our Success—Mr. Palmer Takes the Cue and Produces "Camille" for Me at +the Union Square</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> <a href="#FORTY-FOURTH">CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH</a><br /> +"Miss Multon" Put in Rehearsal—Our Squabble over the Manner of her +Death—Great Success of the Play—Mr. Palmer's Pride in + it—My <i>Au Revoir</i></p> + + + + +<h2> <span><big><a id="LIFE"></a>LIFE ON THE STAGE</big></span><br /> + +<span> CHAPTER FIRST</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I am Born.</p></div> + + +<p> If this simple tale is to be told at all, it may as well begin at the +beginning and in the good old-fashioned and best of all ways—thus: Once +upon a time in the Canadian city of Toronto, on the 17th of March, the +sun rose bright and clear—which was a most surprising thing for the sun +to do on St. Patrick's Day, but while the people were yet wondering over +it the sunlight disappeared, clouds of dull gray spread themselves evenly +over the sky, and then the snow fell—fell fast and furious, quickly +whitening the streets and house-tops, softly lining every hollow, and was +piling little cushions on top of all the hitching-posts, when the flakes +grew larger, wetter, farther apart, and after a little hesitation turned +to rain—a sort of walk-trot-gallop rain, which wound up with one vivid +flash of lightning and a clap of thunder that fairly shook the city.</p> + +<p>Now the Irish, being a brave people and semi-amphibious, pay no heed to +wet weather. Usually all the Hibernians residing in a city divide +themselves into two bodies on St. Patrick's Day, the ones who parade and +the ones who follow the parade; but on this occasion they divided +themselves into three bodies—the men who paraded, the men and women who +followed the parade, and the Orangemen who made things pleasant for both +parties.</p> + +<p> As the out-of-time, out-of-tune band turned into a quiet cross-street to +lead its following green-bannered host to a broader one, the first brick +was thrown—probably by a woman, as it hit no one, but metaphorically it +knocked the chip off of the shoulder of every child of Erin. Down fell +the banners, up went the fists! Orange and Green were at each other tooth +and nail! Hats from prehistoric ages side by side with modern beavers +scarcely fifty years old received the hurled brick-bat and went down +together!</p> + +<p>The band reached the broad avenue alone, and looked back to see the short +street a-sway with struggling men, while women holding their bedraggled +petticoats up, their bonnets hanging down their backs by green ribbon +ties, hovered about the edges of the crowd, making predatory dashes now +and then to scratch a face or rescue some precious hat from the mêlée, +meanwhile inciting the men to madness by their fierce cries—and in a +quiet house, in the very midst of this riot—just before the constabulary +charged the crowd—I was born. I don't know, of course, whether I was +really intended from the first for that house, or whether the stork +became so frightened at the row in the street that he just dropped me +from sheer inability to carry me any farther—anyway, I came to a house +where trouble and poverty had preceded me, and, worse than both these put +together—treachery.</p> + +<p> Still, I accepted the situation with indifference. That the cupboard +barely escaped absolute emptiness gave me no anxiety, as I had no teeth +anyway. As a gentleman with a medicine-case in his hand was leaving the +house he paused a moment for the slavey to finish washing away a pool of +blood from the bottom step—and then there came that startling clap of +thunder. Brand new as I was to this world and its ways, I entered my +protest at once with such force and evident wrath that the doctor +down-stairs exclaimed: "Our young lady has temper as well as a good pair +of lungs!" and went on his way laughing.</p> + +<p> And so on that St. Patrick's Day of sunshine, snow, and rain, of riot and +bloodshed, in trouble and poverty—I was born. +</p> + + + +<h2><span> CHAPTER <a id="SECOND"></a>SECOND</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">Beginning Early, I Learn Love, Fear, and Hunger—I Become Acquainted with Letters, +and Alas! I Lose One of my Two Illusions.</p> +</div> + + + +<p> Of the Days of St. Patrick that followed, not one found me in the city of +my birth—indeed, six months completed my period of existence in the +Dominion, and I have known it no more.</p> + +<p>Some may think it strange that I mention these early years at all, but +the reason for such mention will appear later on. Looking back at them, +they seem to divide themselves into groups of four years each. During the +first four, my time was principally spent in growing and learning to keep +out of people's way. I acquired some other knowledge, too, and little +child as I was, I knew fear long before I knew the thing that frightened +me. I knew that love for my mother which was to become the passion of my +life, and I also knew hunger. But the fear was harder to endure than the +hunger—it was so vague, yet so all-encompassing.</p> + +<p>We had to flit so often—suddenly, noiselessly. Often I was gently roused +from my sleep at night and hastily dressed—sometimes simply wrapped up +without being dressed, and carried through the dark to some other place +of refuge, from—what? When I went out into the main business streets I +had a tormenting barège veil over my face that would not let me see half +the pretty things in the shop windows, and I was quick to notice that no +other little girl had a veil on. Next I remarked that if a strange lady +spoke to me my mother seemed pleased—but if a man noticed me she was not +pleased, and once when a big man took me by the hand and led me to a +candy store for some candy she was as white as could be and so angry she +frightened me, and she promised me a severe punishment if I ever, ever +went one step with a strange man again. And so my fear began to take the +form of a man, of a big, smiling man—for my mother always asked, when I +reported that a stranger had spoken to me, if he was big and smiling.</p> + +<p>I had known the sensation of hunger long before I knew the word that +expressed it, and I often pressed my hands over my small empty stomach, +and cried and pulled at my mother's dress skirt. If there was anything at +all to give I received it, but sometimes there was absolutely nothing but +a drink of water to offer, which checked the gnawing for a moment or two, +and at those times there was a tightening of my mother's trembling lips, +and a straight up and down wrinkle between her brows, that I grew to +know, and when I saw that look on her face I could not ask for anything +more than "a dwink, please."</p> + +<p> As an illustration of her almost savage pride and honesty: I one day saw +a woman in front of the house buying some potatoes. I knew that potatoes +cooked were very comforting to empty stomachs. One or two of them fell to +the street during the measuring and I picked one up, and, fairly wild +with delight, I scrambled up the stairs with it. But my mother was angry +through and through.</p> + +<p> "Who gave it to you?" she demanded.</p> + +<p> I explained with a trembling voice: "I des' founded it on the very +ground—and I'se so hungry!"</p> + +<p> But hungry or not hungry, I had to take the potato back: "Nothing in the +world could be taken without asking—that was stealing—and she was the +only person in the world I had a right to ask anything of!"</p> + +<p> It was a bitter lesson, and was rendered more so by the fact that when I +carried the tear-bathed potato back to the street and laid it down, +neither the woman who bought nor the man who sold was in sight—and, dear +Heaven! I could almost have eaten it raw.</p> + +<p>But I was learning obedience and self-respect; more than that, I was +already acquiring one of the necessary qualities for an actress—the +power of close observation.</p> + +<p>The next four years (the second group) were the hardest to endure of them +all. True, I now had sufficient food and warmth, since my mother had +given up sewing for shops—which kept us nearly always hungry—and had +found other occupations. But the great object of both our lives was to be +together, and there are few people who are willing to employ a woman who +has with her a child. And if her services are accepted, even at a reduced +salary, it is necessary for that child to be as far as possible neither +seen nor heard. Therefore until I was old enough to be admitted into a +public school I never knew another child—I never played with any living +creature save a remarkable cat, that seemed to have claws all over her, +and in my fixed determination to trace her purr and find out where it +came from, she buried those claws to the very last one in my fat, +investigating little hands.</p> + +<p>Meantime my "fear" had assumed the shape and substance of a man, a man +who bore a name that should have been loved and honored above all others, +for this "bogey" of my baby days—this nightmare and dread—was my own +father. When my mother had discovered his treachery—which had not +hesitated to boldly face the very altar—she took her child and fled from +him, assuming her mother's maiden name as a disguise. But go where she +would, he followed and made scenes. Finally, understanding that she was +not to be won back by sophistries, he offered to leave her in peace if +she would give the child to him. And when that offer was indignantly +rejected, he pleasantly informed her that he would make life a curse to +her until she gave me up, and that by fair means or by foul he would +surely obtain possession of me. Once he did kidnap me, but my mother had +found friends by that time, and their pursuit was so swift and unexpected +that he had to abandon me.</p> + +<p>So, he who should have been the defender and support of my mother—whose +arms should have been our shelter from the world—the big, smiling +French-Canadian father—became instead our terror and our dread. +Therefore when my mother served in varying capacities in other people's +homes, and I had to efface myself as nearly as possible, I dared not even +go out to walk a little, so great was my mother's fear.</p> + +<p> It seems odd, but in spite of my far-reaching memory, I cannot remember +when I learned to read. I can recall but one tiny incident relating to +the subject of learning. I stood upon a chair and while my hair was +brushed and braided I spelled my words, and I had my ears boxed—a custom +considered criminal in these better days—because, having successfully +spelled "elephant," I came to grief over "mouse," as, according to my +judgment, m-o-w-s filled all the requirements of the case. I remember, +too, that the punishment made me afraid to ask what "elephant" meant; but +I received the impression that it was some sort of a public building.</p> +<p> However, when I was six years old I joyfully betook myself to a primary +school, from which I was sent home with a note, saying that "in that +department they did not go beyond the 'primer,' and as this little girl +reads quite well from a 'reader,' she must have been taught well at +home." We were a proud yet disappointed pair, my mother and I, that day.</p> + +<p>An odd little incident occurred about that time. One of our hurried +flights had ended at a boarding house, and my extreme quietude—unnatural +in a child of health and intelligence—attracted the attention of a +certain boarder, who was an actress. She was very popular with the +public, and both she and her husband were well liked by the people about +them. She took a fancy to me, and informing herself that my mother was +poor and alone, she offered to adopt me. She stated her position, her +income, and her intention of educating me thoroughly. She thought a +convent school would be desirable—from ten, say to seventeen.</p> + +<p>Perhaps my mother was tempted—she was a fanatic on the question of +learning—but, oh! what a big <i>but</i> came in just then: "but when I should +have, by God's will, reached the age of seventeen, she (the actress) +would place me upon the stage." +</p> +<p> "Gracious Heaven! her child on the stage!" my mother was stricken with +horror! She scarcely had strength to make her shocked refusal plain +enough; and when her employer ventured to remonstrate with her, pointing +out the great advantage to me, she made answer: "It would be better for +her to starve trying to lead a clean and honorable life, than to be +exposed to such publicity and such awful temptations!" +</p> +<p>Poor mother! the theatre was to her imagination but a beautiful vestibule +leading to a place of wickedness and general wrong-doing!</p> + +<p> During those endless months, when I had each day to sit for hours and +hours in one particular chair in a corner, well out of the way—sit so +long that often when I was lifted down I could not stand at all, my limbs +being numbed to absolute helplessness, I had two great days to dream of, +to look forward to—Christmas and that wonderful 17th of March, when +because it was my birthday all those nice gentlemen, with the funny hats +and green collars, walked out behind the band. And I felt particularly +well disposed toward those most amusing gentlemen who wore, according to +my theory at least, their little girls' aprons tied about their big +waists.</p> + +<p> I did not like so well the attendant crowd, but then I could not be +selfish enough to keep people from looking at "my procession" and +enjoying the music that made the blood dance in my own veins, even as my +feet danced on the chill pavement. +</p> +<p> I always received an orange on that day from my mother, and almost always +a book, so it was a great event in my life, and I used to get down my +little hat-box and fix the laces in my best shoes days ahead of time that +I might be ready to stand on some steps where I could bow and smile to +the nice gentlemen who walked out in my honor. Heaven only knows how I +got the idea that the procession was meant for me, but it made me very +happy, and my heart was big with love and gratitude for those people who +took so much trouble for me.</p> + +<p>I had but two illusions in the world—Santa Claus and "my +procession"—but, alas! on my eighth birthday, when in an outburst of +innocent triumph and joy I cried to a grown-up: "Ain't they good—those +funny gentlemen—to come and march and play music for my birthday?" I was +answered with the assurance that I "was a fool—that no one knew or cared +a copper about me—that it was a Saint, a dead and gone man, they marched +for!"</p> + +<p> All the dance went out of my feet, heavy tears fell fast and stood round +and clear on the woolly surface of my cloak, and bending my head low to +hide my disappointment, I went slowly home, where the chair seemed +harder, the hours longer, and life more bare because I had lost the +illusion that had brightened and glorified it. +</p> +<p> At the present time, here in my home, there is seated in an arm-chair, a +venerable doll. She is a hideous specimen of the beautiful doll of the +early "fifties." She sits with her soles well turned up, facing you, her +arms hanging from her shoulders in that idiotically helpless +"I-give-it-up" fashion peculiar to dolls. With bulging scarlet cheeks, +button-hole mouth and flat, blue staring eyes she faces Time and +unwinkingly looks him down. To anyone else she is stupidity personified, +but to me she speaks, for she came to me on my fourth Christmas, and she +is as gifted as she is ugly. Only last birthday—as I straightened out +her old, old dress skirt—she asked me if I remembered how I cried, with +my face in her lap, over that first loss of an illusion—and I told her +quite truly that I remembered well!</p> + + + + +<h2> <span> CHAPTER <a id="THIRD"></a>THIRD</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Enter a New World—I Know a New Hunger and we Return to Cleveland.</p> + +</div> + + + +<p>The experiences of the first two of my third group of years have +influenced my entire life. Still flying from my seemingly ubiquitous +father, my mother after a desperate struggle gained enough money to pay +for our journey to what was then called the "far West"—namely, the +southwestern part of Illinois. Child-fashion, I was delighted at the +prospect of a change, and happy over the belief that I was going to some +place where I could be free to go and come like other children, without +dreading the appearance of a big, smiling man from any deep doorway or +from around the next corner. To tell the truth, that persistent, +indestructible smile always seemed an insult added to the injury of his +malicious and revengeful conduct.</p> + +<p> Then, too, I experienced my first delicious thrill of imaginary terror. +In a torn and abandoned old geography I had seen a picture labelled +"Prairie." The grass was as high as a man's shoulders, and stealthily +emerging from it was a sort of compound animal, neither tiger nor +leopard, but with points of resemblance to both. And here every day I was +listening to the grown-ups talking of "prairie lands," and how far we +might have to drive across the prairie after leaving the train; and I +made up my mind that I would hold our umbrella all the time, and when the +uncertain beast came out I'd try to stick his eyes with it, and under +cover of the confusion we would undoubtedly escape. +</p> +<p> That being settled, I could turn all my attention to preparations for +the long journey. Dear me, I remember just where each big red rose came +on the carpet-bag, and how sorry I was that the tiny brass lock came +right in the side of one. It was a large bag and held a great deal, but +was so arranged that whatever you wanted was always found at the +bottom—whether it was the tooth-brush or a night-gown or a pair of +rubbers. It had a sort of dividing wall of linen in its middle, and while +one side held clothing, the other side was the commissary department. No +buffet-cars then, travellers ran their own buffets, and though the things +did not come into actual contact, there was not an article, big or +little, in that bag that did not smell of pickles. And once when my +mother had hastily attended to my needs in the miserable toilet-room of +the car (no sleeper—just a sit-up-all-night affair), my clean stockings, +white apron and little handkerchief all exhaled vinegar so strongly that +I wrinkled up my nose, exclaiming: "I smell jes' like a pickled little +girl—don't I, ma'ma?" And then, when weary and worn and dusty, we left +the cars and had to drive some thirty miles, in a carriage of uncertain +class, over the open prairie—then smooth and bright and green—I wearily +remarked, after a time, that it was a "pretty big lawn, but where was the +prairie?" for true to my plan I had secured the umbrella, and being told +that I was crossing the prairie then, I was a bitterly disappointed young +person. Oh, how I longed to give way to one of those passionate outbursts +we so often see children indulge in! Oh, how I wanted to hurl aside the +umbrella I had begged for, to fling my weary self down on the floor and +cry, and cry! But I dared not—never in my whole life had I ventured on +such an exhibition of temper or feeling—so I winked fast and held very +still and swallowed hard at the disappointment, which was but the first +of such a number of very bitter pills that I was yet to swallow.</p> + +<p>But, thank God! if I was easily cast down, I was as easily cheered; and +the prairie left behind, the sight of the first orchard we passed, with +the soft perfumed snow of the blossoms floating through the rosy sunset +light, raised my spirits to an ecstasy of joy; and when our journey +ended, at the rough farm-house, with my arm around the surly looking +watch-dog, I stood and heard for the first time the mournful cry of the +whippoorwill out in the star-pierced dark of the early May night, I +thrilled with the unspoken consciousness that this was a new world that I +was entering—a lovely, <i>lovely</i> world, that the grown-ups called the +"country"!</p> + +<p>For the two years I knew it the charm of that backwood life never palled. +I had never seen the country before, and I found it a place of beauty and +many marvels. I did not miss the fine city shops, for I never had had +money to spend in them. I did not miss the people, for they had been +nothing to me. And here no day that dawned failed to bring me some new +experience. With what awed wonderment I faced the mystery of the +springing grain. I saw the seed, hard and dry, fall into the furrowed +earth and, a few days later, with gentle strength, tiny pale green spears +come pricking through the brown. I learned not to look under the +hickory-trees for the oak acorns that I adored. I was soon able to tell +the rapidly forming furry green peaches from the smooth young apples, and +I literally fell down upon my knees and worshipped before lambs, calves, +and colts.</p> + +<p>In this new, strange life everyone worked, but they worked for +themselves—to use a country expression, no one "hired out." I was a very +little girl. I could not spin as could my mother, who had passed her +childhood in backwood life. Of course I could not weave, but I was taught +to knit my own stockings—such humpy, lumpy knitting! But I was very +proud of the accomplishment, even though my mother did have to "turn the +heel." Then, too, I with other children at planting-time dropped corn in +the sun-warmed furrows, while a man followed behind with a hoe covering +it up; and when it had sprouted and was a tempting morsel for certain +black robbers of the field, I made a very active and energetic young +scare-crow.</p> + +<p>Here, too, I became acquainted with children. They were all older than I +was, a hearty, healthy, wisely-ignorant lot. They knew so much about +farming and so little about anything else. Not one of them could tell a +story out of the Bible, and as for the "Pilgrim's Progress," they had +never heard tell of it; while Bunyan only meant to them an enlarged +toe-joint—not a great author.</p> + +<p> The lack of reading matter was the one blemish on my country life. The +library, composed of the Bible and the almanac, was not satisfying to my +inquiring mind. One paper was taken in by the head of the family—it was +a weekly, in every possible sense—but I came to watch eagerly for it, +and it filled the family with amazement to see me sit down on the step +and gravely wade through its dreary columns—happy if I could catch hold +of some idea—some bit of news—some scrap of story; and my farmer host +one day at his noon smoke removed his corn-cob pipe from his lips long +enough to remark of me: "Dogorne my skin! if that young 'un ain't awake +and enj'ien hersel'. Now I allers go ter sleep over that paper mysel'!" +So should I—now—I presume.</p> + +<p> These children being for-true, real children had no idea of showing +courtesy or politeness to a stranger, but they had a very natural +yearning to get fun out of that stranger if they could, and so they +blithely led me forth to a pasture shortly after our arrival at the farm, +and catching a horse they hoisted me up on to its bare, slippery back. I +have learned a good bit about horses since then—have hired, borrowed, +and bought them—have been to circuses and horse shows, but never since +have I seen a horse of such appalling aspect. His eyes were the size of +soup-plates, large clouds of smoke came from his nostrils. He had a +glass-enamelled surface, and if he was one half as tall as he felt, some +museum manager missed a fortune. Then the young fiends, leaving me on my +slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off and stood over +against the fence and gave me plenty of room—to fall off. But when I +suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild +shriek—clenched my hands in the animal's back hair, and, madly flinging +propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be behind me, I +cast one pantalet over the enamelled back, and thus astride, safely +crossed the pasture—and lo! it was not I who fell, but their faces +instead. When they came to take me down, somehow the animal seemed +shrunken and I hesitated about leaving it, whereupon the biggest boy said +I had "pluck" (I had been frightened nearly to death, but I always could +be silent at the proper moment; I was silent then), and he would teach me +to ride sideways, for my mother would surely punish me if I sat astride +like that; and in a few weeks, thanks to him, I was the one who was +oftenest trusted to take the horses to water at noon, riding sideways and +always bare-back, mounted on one horse and leading a second to the creek, +until all had had their drink. Which habit of riding—from balance—has +made me quite independent of stirrups on various occasions since those +far-away days.</p> + +<p> In the late autumn, these same children taught me where and when and how +to find such treasures of the woods as hickory-nuts, chestnuts (rare +there), butternuts, and pecan-nuts, while the thickets furnished +hazel-nuts and the frost brought sweetness to the persimmon, and +consequently pleasure to our palates, but never could I acquire a taste +for the "paw-paw," that inane custard-like fruit, often called the +American banana.</p> + +<p> I helped obtain the roots and barks and nut-shells from which the +grown-ups made their dyes. I learned to use a bow and arrow; and on rainy +days, having nothing new to read, I learned by heart the best chapters of +my own birthday books, and often repeated them to the other children when +we cuddled in the hayloft, above the horses.</p> + +<p>One day I became too realistic, and in my "flight from my step-mother's +home" I fell through the hole where the hay was tossed down to old +Jerry's manger. He was a serious-minded and kindly old horse, and did +nothing worse than snort a little over the change in his diet, from hay +to small girl. My severe bruises would have been borne with fortitude, +but when I arose—behold a wretched wandering hen had been in the manger +before me, and if one judged from the state of my clothing, the egg she +had left behind must have been the size of a melon at least! If that +seems an exaggeration, just break an egg in your pocket, if you don't +care to sit down on one, and see how far it will spread. Then, indeed, I +lifted my voice and wept!</p> + +<p> Yes, those were two precious years, in which I learned to love +passionately the beauty of the world! The tender, mystic charm of dawn, +the pomp and splendor of the setting of the sun! Finding in the tiny +perfection of the velvety moss the minute repetition of the form and +branching beauty of the stately tree at whose root it grew! Seeing all +the beauty of the blue sky and its sailing clouds encompassed by a +quivering drop of dew upon a mullein leaf I dimly felt some faint +comprehension of the divine satisfaction when the Creator pronounced the +work of His hands, "Good!"</p> + +<p>From the first my mother had been greatly distressed by the absence of +any school to which I might go, and also by her inability to earn money. +She had been wise enough not to leave Cleveland without sufficient means +to bring us back again—which proved most fortunate. For when quite +suddenly we heard of the published death of my father, we immediately +returned and she obtained employment, while I was sent to the public +school. But, oh, what a poor, meagre course of study I entered on. +Reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and geography—that was all! Only +one class in the grammar-school studied history. However, improvements +were being discussed, and I remember that three weeks before my final +withdrawal from school my mother had to buy me a book on physiology, +which was to be taught to the children, who had not even a bowing +acquaintance with grammar. But I hungered and thirsted for knowledge—I +craved it—longed for it. During the weary years of repression I had +fallen back upon imagination for amusement and comfort, and when I was +ten my "thinks," as I then called my waking dreams, almost surely took +one of these two forms. Since I had abandoned "thinks" about fairies +coming to grant my wishes, I always walked out (in my best hat), and +saved either an old lady or an old gentleman—sometimes one, sometimes +the other—from some imminent peril—a sort of impressionist peril—vague +but very terrible! and the rescued one was always tremblingly grateful +and offered to reward me, and I always sternly refused to be rewarded, +but unbent sufficiently to see the saved one safely to his or her +splendid home. There I revelled in furniture, pictures, musical +instruments and an assortment of beautiful dogs. On leaving this palatial +residence I consented to give my address, and next day the "saved" called +on my mother and after some conversation it was settled that I was to go +to the convent-school for four years, where I knew the education was +generous and thorough, and that languages, music, and painting were all +taught. As these "thinks" took place at night after the ill-smelling +extinguishment of the candle, I generally fell asleep before, in white +robe and a crown of flowers, I gathered up all the prizes and diplomas +and things I had earned.</p> + +<p>When my mother in the performance of her duties had to accept orders, she +received them calmly and as a matter of course—whatever she may have +felt in her heart—but I loved and reverenced her so! To me she was the +one woman of the world; and when I saw her taking orders from another I +flinched and shrank as I would have done beneath the sharp lash of a +whip, and then for nights afterward (so soon as I had released my nose, +tightly pinched to keep out the smell of candle-smoke), I settled down, +with my mother's hand tight clasped in mine, to my other favorite +"thinks" wherein I did some truly remarkable embroidery, of such +precision of stitch, such perfection of coloring and shading, that when +I offered it for sale I was much embarrassed by the numbers of would-be +buyers. However, an old lady finally won me away from the store (that old +lady was bound to appear in all my "thinks"), and I had to be very firm +with her to keep her from over-paying me for the work of my hands.</p> + +<p>Then, as I had graciously promised the store-keeper any over-plus of +embroidery not needed by the generous old person, I felt my income +secure, and hastened to rent two rooms and furnish them, ready to take my +astonished mother there—where she could do the ordering herself.</p> + +<p>I hung curtains, laid carpets, put dishes in the cupboard, gave one +window to my mother and kept one for myself and my very exceptional +embroidery; and, though I laugh now, I had then many an hour of genuine +happiness, furnishing this imaginary home and refuge for the mother I +loved!</p> + + + + +<h2> <span> CHAPTER <a id="FOURTH"></a>FOURTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I am Led into the Theatre—I Attend Rehearsals—I am Made Acquainted +with the Vagaries of Tights.</p> +</div> + + +<p>I was approaching my thirteenth birthday when it came about that a +certain ancient boarding-house keeper—far gone in years—required +someone to assist her, someone she could trust entirely and leave in +charge for a month at a time; and I, not being able to read the future, +was greatly chagrined because my mother accepted the offered situation. I +was always happiest when she found occupation in a house where there was +a library, for people were generally kind to me in that respect and gave +me the freedom of their shelves, seeing that I was reverently careful of +all books; but in a boarding-house there would be no library, and my +heart sank as we entered the gloomy old building. +</p> +<p>No, there were no books, but among the boarders there were two or three +actors and two actresses—a mother and a daughter. The mother played the +"first old women"; the daughter, only a year or two older than I was, +played, I was told, "walking-ladies," though what that meant I could not +imagine.</p> + +<p>The daughter (Blanche) liked me, while I looked upon her with awe, and +wondered why she even noticed me. She was very wilful, she would not +study anything on earth save her short parts. She had never read a book +in her life. When I was home from school I told her stories by the hour, +and she would say: "You ought to be in a theatre—you could act!"</p> + +<p>And then I would be dumb for a long time, because I thought she was +making fun of me. One day I was chewing some gum she gave me—I was not +chewing it very nicely, either—and my mother boxed my ears, and Blanche +said: "You ought to be in a theatre—you could chew all the gum you liked +there!"</p> + +<p>And just then my mother was so cruelly overworked, and the spring came in +with furious heat, and I felt so big and yet so helpless—a great girl of +thirteen to be worked for by another—and the humiliation seemed more +than I could bear, and I locked myself in our dreary cupboard of a room, +and flung myself upon my knees, and in a passion of tears tried to make a +bargain with my God! I meant no irreverence—I was intensely religious. I +did not see the enormity of the act—I only knew that I suffered, and +that God could help me—so I asked His help! But, instead of stopping +there, I cried out to Him this promise: "Dear God! just pity me and show +me what to do! Please—please help me to help my mother—and if you will, +I'll never say 'No!' to any woman who comes to me all my life long!"</p> + +<p>My error in trying to barter with my Maker must have been forgiven, for +my prayer was answered within a week, while there are many women +scattered through the land who know that I have tried faithfully to keep +my part of that bargain, and no woman who has sought my aid has ever been +answered with a "No!"</p> + +<p>One day Blanche greeted me with the news that extra ballet-girls were +wanted, and told me that I must go at once and get engaged.</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "maybe they won't take me!" +</p> +<p>"Well," answered she, "I've coaxed your mother, and my mother says she'll +look out for you—so at any rate go and see. I'll take you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>And so dimly, vaguely, I seemed to see a way opening out before me, and +again behind the locked door I knelt and said: "Dear God! dear God!" and +got no further, because grief has many words and joy has so few.</p> + +<p>The school term had closed on Friday, and on Saturday morning, with my +heart beating almost to suffocation, I started out to walk to the theatre +with Blanche, who had promised to ask Mr. Ellsler (the manager) to take +me on in the ballet. When we reached the sidewalk we saw the sky +threatened rain and Blanche sent me back for an umbrella. I had none of +my own, so I borrowed one from Mrs. Miller (our landlady), and at sight +of it my companion broke into laughter. It was a dreadful affair—with a +knobby, unkind handle, a slovenly and corpulent body, and a +circumference, when open, that suggested the idea that it had been built +to shelter not only the landlady, but those wise ones of the boarders who +had paid up before the winds rose and the rain fell. Then we proceeded to +the old Academy of Music on Bank Street, and entering, went upstairs, and +just as we reached the top step a small dark man hurried across the hall +and Blanche called quickly: "Oh, Mr. Ellsler—Mr. Ellsler! wait a moment, +please—I want to speak to you!"</p> + +<p>I could not know that his almost repellent sternness of face concealed a +kindness of heart that approached weakness, so when he turned a frowning, +impatient face toward us, hope left me utterly, and for a moment I seemed +to stand in a great darkness. I think I can do no better than to give Mr. +Ellsler's own account of that, our first meeting, as he has given it +often since. He says: "I was much put out by a business matter and was +hastily crossing the corridor when Blanche called me, and I saw she had +another girl in tow; a girl whose appearance in a theatre was so droll I +must have laughed, had I not been more than a little cross. Her dress was +quite short—she wore a pale-blue apron buttoned up the back, long braids +tied at the ends with ribbon, and a brown straw hat, while she clutched +desperately at the handle of the biggest umbrella I ever saw. Her eyes +were distinctly blue and were plainly big with fright. Blanche gave her +name and said she wanted to go on in the ballet, and I instantly answered +she would not do, she was too small—I wanted women, not children, and +started to return to my office. Blanche was voluble, but the girl herself +never spoke a single word. I glanced toward her and stopped. The hands +that clutched the umbrella trembled—she raised her eyes and looked at +me. I had noticed their blueness a moment before—now they were almost +black, so swiftly had the pupils dilated, and slowly the tears rose in +them. All the father in me shrank under the child's bitter +disappointment; all the actor in me thrilled at the power of expression +in the girl's face, and I hastily added: 'Oh, well! You may come back in +a day or two, and if anyone appears meantime who is short enough to march +with you I'll take you on,' and after I got to my office I remembered the +girl had not spoken a single word, but had won an engagement—for I knew +I should engage her—with a pair of tear-filled eyes."</p> + +<p>The following Tuesday, under the protection of the ever-faithful Blanche, +I again presented myself and was engaged for the term of two weeks, to go +on the stage in the marches and dances of a play called "The Seven +Sisters," for which service I was to receive three dollars a week, or +fifty cents a night, as there were no matinées then, and so I entered, +with wide-astonished eyes, into that dim, dusty, chaotic place known as +"behind the scenes"—a strange place, where nothing <i>is</i> and everything +<i>may be</i>. +</p> +<p>In the daytime I found the stage a thing dead—at night, with the blazing +of the gas, it lived! for light is its life, music is its soul, and the +play its brain. +</p> +<p>Silently and cautiously I walked about, gazing curiously at the "scenes," +so fine on one side, so bare and cheap on the other; at the tarlatan +"glass windows"; at the green "calico sea," lying flat and waveless on +the floor. Everything there pretended to be something else, and at last I +said solemnly to Blanche: "Is everything only make-believe in a theatre?"</p> + +<p>And she turned her gum to the other side and answered: "Yes, everything's +make-believe—except salary day!"</p> + +<p>Then came the rehearsal—everything was military just then—and there was +a Zouave drill to learn, as well as a couple of dances. The women and +girls who had been engaged were not the very nicest people in the world, +though they were the best to be found at such short notice; and Mrs. +Bradshaw told me not to stand about with them, but to come to her as soon +as my share in the work was over. "But," said this wise woman, "don't +fail in politeness to them; for nothing can hold a person so far off as +extreme politeness." +</p> +<p>To me the manual of arms was mere child's play, and the drill a veritable +delight. The second day I scribbled down the movements in the order that +they had been made, and learned them by heart, with the result that on +the third day I sat aside chewing gum, while the stage-manager raved over +the rest. Then the star—Mr. McDonough—came along and furiously demanded +to know why I was not drilling. "The gentleman sent me out of the ranks, +sir," I answered, "because he said I knew the manual and drill!" +</p> +<p>"Oh, indeed! well, there's not one of you that knows it—and you never +will know it! You're a set of numbskulls! Here!" he cried, catching up a +rifle, "take hold of this—get up here—and let's see how much you know! +Now, then, shoulder arms!"</p> + +<p>And standing alone—burning with blushes, blinded with tears of +mortification—I was put through my paces with a vengeance; but I really +knew the manual as thoroughly as I knew the drill, and when it was over +Mr. McDonough took the rifle from me, and exclaimed: "Well, saucer-eyes, +you do know it! I'm d——d if you don't! and I'm sorry, little girl, I +spoke so roughly to you!"</p> + +<p>He held out his fat white hand to me, and as I took it he added: "You +ought to stay in this business—you've got your head with you!"</p> + +<p>It was a small matter, of course, but there was a faint hint of triumph +in it, and the savor was very pleasant to me.</p> + +<p>Naturally, with a salary of but three dollars a week, we turned to the +management for our costumes. I wonder what the <i>danseuse</i> of to-day +would think of the costume worn by her sister of the "sixties"? Now her +few gauzy limb-betraying skirts reach but to the middle of the thigh; her +scrap of a bodice, cut far below the shoulder blades at the back, being +absolutely sleeveless, is precariously held in place by a string or two +of beads. To be sure, she is apt to wear a collar of blazing diamonds, +instead of the simple band of black velvet that used to be sufficient +ornament for the peerless Bonfanti and the beautiful and modest Betty +Rigl, who in their graceful ignorance of "splits" and athletic "tours de +force," managed in their voluminous and knee-long skirts to whirl, to +glide, to poise and float, to show, in fact, the poetry of motion.</p> + +<p>But we, this untrained ballet, were not Bonfantis nor Morlachis, and we +wore our dancing clothes with a difference. In one dance we were supposed +to be fairies. We wore flesh-colored slippers and tights. It took one +full week of our two weeks' engagement to learn how to secure these +treacherous articles, so that they would remain smooth and not wrinkle +down somewhere or twist about. One girl never learned, and to the last +added to the happiness of the public by ambling about on a pair of legs +that looked as if they had been done up in curl papers the night before.</p> + +<p>We each had seven white tarlatan skirts, as full as they could be +gathered—long enough to come a little below the knee. Our waists were +also flesh-colored, and were cut fully two or three inches below our +collar-bones, so you see there was plenty of cloth at our backs to hook +our very immature wings to. We had wreaths of white roses on our +heads—Blanche, who was very frank, said they looked like wreaths of +turnips—and garlands of white roses to wave in the dance. I remember the +girl with the curled legs was loathed by all because she lassoed everyone +she came near with her garland—so you see we were very decorous fairies, +whether we were decorative or not.</p> + +<p>Of course we were rather substantial, and our wings did seem too thin and +small to sustain us satisfactorily. One girl took hers off in the +dressing-room and remarked contemptuously that "they couldn't lift her +cat even!"</p> + +<p>But another, who was dictatorial and also of a suspicious nature, +answered savagely: "You don't know nothing about wings—and you haven't +got no cat, nohow, and you know it—so shut up!" and the conversation +closed.</p> + +<p>In our second costume we were frankly human. We still wore dancing +skirts, but we were in colors, and we had, of course, shed our +wings—nasty, scratchy things they were, I remember. Then for the drill +and march we wore the regular Fire Zouave uniform. +</p> +<p>It was all great fun for me—you remember I was not stage-struck. +Dramatically speaking, I was not yet born—I had neither ambition nor +fear—I was simply happy because I was going to earn that, to me, great +sum of money, and was going to give it to my mother, and planned only +what I should say to her, and had no thought at all of the theatre or +anything or any person in it.</p> + +<p>The donning of fleshings for the first time is an occasion of anxiety to +anyone, man or woman. I, however, approached the subject of tights with +an open mind, and Blanche freely gave me both information and advice. She +chilled my blood by describing the mortifying mishaps, the dread +disasters these garments had brought to those who failed to understand +them. She declared them to be tricky, unreliable, and malicious in the +extreme.</p> + +<p>"There's just one way to succeed with 'em," she said, "and that's by +bullying 'em. Show you're afraid and they will slip and twist and wrinkle +down and make you a perfect laughing-stock. You must take your time, you +know, at first, and fit 'em on very carefully and smoothly over your feet +and ankles and up over your knees. See that they are nice and straight or +you'll look as if you were walking on corkscrews, but after that bully +'em—yank and pull and drag 'em, and when you have 'em drawn up as tight +as you can draw 'em, go at 'em and pull 'em up another inch at least. +They'll creak and snap and pretend they're going to tear, but don't you +ever leave your dressing-room satisfied, unless you feel you can't +possibly get down-stairs without going sideways."</p> + +<p>"But," I remonstrated, "they'll break and let my knees through!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no they won't!" she cheerfully answered. "They'll make believe +they're going to split at the knee, of course, but instead they'll just +keep as safe and smooth as the skin on your arm. But, for Heaven's sake, +don't be afraid of 'em!"</p> + +<p>And I gravely promised to be as bold as I possibly could in my first +encounter with the flesh-colored terrors.</p> + + + + +<h2><span> CHAPTER <a id="FIFTH"></a>FIFTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Receive my First Salary—I am Engaged for the Coming Season.</p> + +</div> + + +<p>At last the night came. Hot? Oh, my, hot it was! and we were so crowded +in our tiny dressing-room that some of us had to stand on the one chair +while we put our skirts on. The confusion was great, and I was glad to +get out of the room, down-stairs, where I went to show myself to Mrs. +Bradshaw or Blanche, to see if I was all right. They looked at me, and +after a hopeless struggle with their quivering faces they burst into +shrieks of laughter. With trembling hands I clutched my tarlatan skirts +and peering down at my tights, I groaned: "Are they twisted, or run down, +or what?"</p> + +<p>But it was not the tights, it was my face. I knew you had to put on +powder because the gas made you yellow, and red because powder made you +ghastly, but it had not occurred to me that skill was required in +applying the same, and I was a sight to make any kindly disposed angel +weep! I had not even sense enough to free my eyelashes from the powder +clinging to them. My face was chalk white and low down on my cheeks were +nice round bright red spots.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bradshaw said: "With your round blue eyes and your round +white-and-red face, you look like a cheap china doll! Come here, my +dear!"</p> + +<p>She dusted off a few thicknesses of the powder, removed the hard scarlet +spots, took a great soft hare's foot, which she rubbed over some pink +rouge, and then holding it in the air she proceeded: "To-morrow, after +you have walked to get a color, go to your glass and see where that color +shows itself. I think you will find it high on your cheek, coming up +close under the eye and growing fainter toward the ear. I'll paint you +that way to-night on chance. You see <i>my</i> color is low on my cheek. Of +course when you are making-up for a character part you go by a different +rule, but when you are just trying to look pretty be guided by nature. +Now——"</p> + +<p>I felt the soft touch of the hare's foot on my burning cheeks; then she +gave me a tooth-brush, which had black on it, and bade me draw it across +my lashes. I did so and was surprised at the amount of powder it removed. +She touched her little finger to some red pomade, and said: "Thrust out +your under lip—no, not like a kiss—that makes creases—make a sulky +lip—so!"</p> + +<p>She touched my lip with her finger, then she drew back and laughed again, +in a different way. She drew me to the glass, and said, "Look!"</p> + +<p>I looked and cried: "Oh—oh! Mrs. Bradshaw, that girl doesn't look a bit +like me—she's ever so much nicer!"</p> + +<p>In that lesson on making-up was the beginning and the ending of my +theatrical instruction. What I have learned since then has been by +observation, study, and direct inquiry—but never by instruction, either +free or paid for.</p> + +<p>Now, while I was engaged to go on with the crowd, fate willed after all +that I should have an independent entrance for my first appearance on the +stage. The matter would be too trivial to mention were it not for the +influence it had upon my future. One act of the play represented the back +of a stage during a performance. The scenes were turned around with their +unpainted sides to the public. The scene-shifters and gas-men were +standing about—everything was going wrong. The manager was giving orders +wildly, and then a dancer was late. She was called frantically and +finally when she appeared on the run, the manager caught her by the +shoulders, rushed her across the stage and fairly pitched her on the +imaginary stage—to the great amusement of the audience.</p> + +<p>The tallest and prettiest girl in the ballet had been picked out to do +this bit of work, and she had been rehearsed and rehearsed as if she were +preparing for the balcony scene of "Romeo and Juliet"; and day after day +the stage-manager would groan: "Can't you run? Did you never run? Imagine +the house a-fire and that you are running for your life!"</p> + +<p>At last, on that opening night, we were all gathered ready for our first +entrance and dance, which followed a few moments after the incident I +have described. The tall girl had a queer look on her face as she stood +in her place—her cue came, but she never moved.</p> + +<p>I heard the rushing footsteps of the stage-manager: "That's you!" he +shouted; "go on! go on, run!"</p> + +<p>Run? She seemed to have grown fast to the floor. We heard the angry +<i>aside</i> of the actor on the stage: "Send someone on here—for Heaven's +sake!"</p> + +<p>"Are you going on?" cried the frantic prompter.</p> + +<p>She dropped her arms limply at her sides and whispered: "I—I—c-a-n-t!"</p> + +<p>He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each +girl shrank back from it. He reached me—I had no fear, and he saw it. +"Can you go on there?" he cried. I nodded. "Then for God's sake go!"</p> + +<p>I gave a bound and a rush that carried me half, across the stage before +the manager caught me—and so I made my entrance on the stage, and danced +and marched and sang with the rest, and all unconsciously took my first +step upon the path that I was to follow through shadow and through +sunshine—to follow by steep and stony places, over threatening bogs, +through green and pleasant meadows—to follow steadily and faithfully for +many and many a year to come.</p> + +<p>On our first salary day, to the surprise of all concerned, I did not go +to claim my week's pay. To everyone who spoke to me of the matter, I +simply answered: "Oh, that will be all right." When the second day came I +was the last to present myself at the box-office window. Mr. Ellsler was +there and he opened the door and asked me to come in. As I signed my name +on the salary list I hesitated perceptibly and he laughingly said: "Don't +you know your own name?" Now on the first day of all, when the +stage-manager had taken down our names, I had been gazing at the scenery +and when he called out: "Little girl, what is your name?" I had not +heard, and someone standing by had said: "Her name is Clara—Clara +Morris, or Morrisey, or Morrison, or something like that," and he dropped +the last syllable from my name Morrison, and wrote me down Morris; so +when Mr. Ellsler put his question, "Don't you know your name?" that was +certainly the moment when I should have spoken—but I was too shy, and +there and thereafter held my peace, and have been in consequence Clara +Morris ever since.</p> + +<p>I having signed for and received my two weeks' salary, Mr. Ellsler asked +why I had not come the week before, and I told him I preferred to wait +because it would seem so much more if I got both weeks' salary all at one +time. And he gravely nodded and said "it was rather a large sum to have +in hand at one time"—and, though I was very sensitive to ridicule, I did +not suspect him of making fun of me.</p> + +<p>Then he said: "You are a very intelligent little girl, and when you went +on alone and unrehearsed the other night you proved you had both +adaptability and courage. I'd like to keep you in the theatre. Will you +come and be a regular member of the company for the season that begins in +September next?"</p> + +<p>I think it must have been my ears that finally stopped my ever-widening +smile while I made answer that I must ask my mother first.</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said he, "to be sure! Well, suppose you ask her, then, and +let me know whether you can or not."</p> + +<p>Looking back and speaking calmly, I must admit that I do not now believe +that Mr. Ellsler's financial future depended entirely upon the yes or no +of my mother and myself; but that I was on an errand of life or death +everyone must have thought who saw me tearing through the streets on that +90-in-the-shade summer day, racing along in a whirl of short skirts, with +the boyish, self-kicking gait peculiar to running girls of thirteen. +</p> +<p>One man, a tailor, ran out hatless and coatless and looked up the street +anxiously in the direction from which I came. A big boy on the corner +yelled after me: "S-a-a-y, Sis, where's the fire?" but you see they did +not know that I was carrying home my first earnings—that I was clutching +six damp one-dollar bills in the hands that had been so empty all my +life! Poor little hands that had never held a greater sum than one big +Canadian penny, that had never held a dollar bill till they had first +earned it. But if the boy was blind to what I held, so was I blind to +what the future held—which made us equal.</p> + +<p>I had meant to take off my hat and smooth my hair, and in a decorous and +proper manner approach my mother and deliver my nice little speech, and +then hand her the money. But, alas! as I rushed into the house I came +upon her unexpectedly—for, fearing dinner was going to be late, she was +hurrying things by shelling a great basket of peas as she sat by the +dining-room window. At sight of her tired face, all my nicely planned +speech disappeared. I flung my arm about her neck, dropped the bills on +top of the empty pods, and cried with beautiful lucidity: "Oh, mother! +that's mine—and it's all yours!"</p> + +<p>She kissed me, but to my grieved amazement put the money back into my +hand, folding my four stiff, unwilling fingers over it, as she said: "No, +you have earned this money yourself—you are the only one who has the +right to use it—you are to do with it exactly as you please."</p> + +<p>And while tears of disappointment were yet swimming in my eyes, triumph +sprang up in my heart at her last words; for if I could do exactly as I +pleased, why, after all, she should have the new summer dress she needed +so badly. So I took the money to our room, and having secreted it in the +most intricate and involved manner I could think of, I returned and laid +Mr. Ellsler's offer before my mother, who at first hesitated, but +learning that Mrs. Bradshaw was engaged for another season, she finally +consented, and I rushed back to the theatre, where, red and hot and out +of breath, I was engaged for the ballet for the next season. After this I +was conscious of a new feeling, which I would have found it very hard to +explain then. It was not importance, it was not vanity, it was a pleasant +feeling, it lifted the head and gave one patience to bear calmly many +things that had been very hard to bear. I know now it was the +self-respect that comes to everyone who is a bread-winner.</p> + +<p>Directly after breakfast next day I was off to get my mother's dress. I +went quite alone, and my head was well in the air; for this was indeed an +important occasion. I looked long and felt gravely at the edges of the +goods, I did not know what for, but I had seen other people do it, and +when my lavender-flowered muslin was cut off, done up and paid for, I +found quite a large hole in my six dollars; for it was war time, and +anything made of cotton cost a dreadful price. But, good Heaven! how +happy I was, and how proud that I should get a dress for my mother, +instead of her getting one for me! Undoubtedly, had there been a fire +just then, I would have risked my life to save that flowered muslin gown.</p> + +<p>I had not been more than two or three days in the theatre when I +discovered that its people seemed to be divided into two distinct +parties—the guyers and the guyed—those who laughed and those who were +laughed at. All my life I have had a horror of practical joking, and I +very quickly decided I would not be among the guyed. I had borrowed many +of Mrs. Bradshaw's play books to read, and often found in the directions +for costumes the old word "ibid." "Count Rudolph—black velvet doublet, +hose and short cloak. Count Adolph, ibid." So when the property-man, an +incorrigible joker, asked me to go home and borrow Mrs. Bradshaw's ibid +for him, I simply looked at him and smiled a broad, silent smile and +never moved a peg. He gave me a sharp look, then affecting great anger at +my laziness, he wrote a request for an ibid and gave it to the fattest +girl in the crowd, and she carried it to Mrs. Bradshaw, who wrote on it +that her ibid was at Mrs. Dickson's, and the fat girl went to Mrs. +Dickson's, who said she had lent it to Mr. Lewis—so the poor fat goose +was kept waddling through the heat, from one place to another, until she +was half dead, to the great enjoyment of the property-man.</p> + +<p>Next day he was very busy, when, glancing up, he saw me looking on at his +work. Instantly he caught up a bottle, and said: "Run upstairs to the +paint-frame (three flights up) and ask the painter to put a little +ad-libitum in this bottle for me—there's a good girl!" +</p> +<p>Now I did not yet know what ad-libitum meant, but I was a very close +observer, and I saw the same malicious twinkle in his eye that had shone +there when he had sent the fat girl on her hot journey, and once more I +slowly chewed my gum, and smiled my wide, unbelieving smile. He waited a +moment, but as I did not touch the bottle he tossed it aside, saying: +"What a suspicious little devil you are!" +</p> +<p>But when a man wanted me to blow down a gun-barrel next morning, the +property-man exclaimed: "Here, you! let saucer-eyes alone! I don't know +whether she gets her <i>savey</i> out of her head or chews it out of her gum, +but she don't guy worth a cent, so you needn't try to put anything on to +her!"</p> + +<p>And from that day to this I have been free from the attacks of the +practical joker.</p> + + + + +<h2><span> CHAPTER <a id="SIXTH"></a>SIXTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">The Regular Season Opens—I have a Small Part to Play—I am among +Lovers of Shakespeare—I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under the +Charm.</p></div> + + + +<p>Up to this time the only world I had known had been narrow and sordid and +lay chill under the shadow of poverty; and it is sunlight that makes the +earth smile into flower and fruit and laugh aloud through the throats of +birds. But now, standing humbly at the knee of Shakespeare, I began to +learn something of another world—fairy-like in fascination, marvellous +in reality. A world of sunny days and jewelled nights, of splendid +palaces, caves of horror, forests of mystery, and meadows of smiling +candor. All peopled, too, with such soldiers, statesmen, lovers, clowns, +such women of splendid chill chastity, fierce ambition, thistle-down +lightness, and burning, tragic love as made the heart beat fast to think +of.</p> + +<p>Perhaps if I had attempted simply to read Shakespeare at that time, I +might have fallen short both in profit and in pleasure; but it was the +<i>hearing</i> him that roused my attention. There was such music in the sound +of the words, that the mind was impelled to study out their meaning. It +seems to me that a human voice is to poetry what a clear even light is to +a reader, making each word give up its full store of meaning.</p> + +<p>At that time Forrest, crowned and wrapped in royal robes, was yet +tottering on his throne. Charlotte Cushman was the Tragic Queen of the +stage. Mr. James Murdoch, frail and aging, but still acting, was highly +esteemed. Joseph Jefferson, E. L. Davenport, J. K. Hackett, Edwin Adams, +John E. Owens, Dan. Setchell, Peter Richings and his daughter Caroline, +Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Miss Lucille Western, Miss Maggie Mitchell, Mr. and +Mrs. Conway, Matilda Heron, Charles Couldock, Joseph Proctor, Mr. and +Mrs. Albaugh, Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, the Webb Sisters, Kate +Reynolds, were all great favorites, not pausing to mention many more, +while Edwin Booth, the greatest light of all, was rising in golden glory +in the East.</p> + +<p>Of the above-mentioned twenty-eight stars, eighteen acted in +Shakespeare's plays. All stars played a week's engagement—many played +two weeks, therefore at least twenty-four of our forty-two week season +was given over to Shakespearean productions, and every actor and actress +had the Bard at their tongue's tip.</p> + +<p>In the far past the great disgrace of our profession was the inebriety of +its men. At the time I write of, the severity of the managers had nearly +eradicated the terrible habit, and I never saw but two of that class of +brilliant actor-drunkards, beloved of newspaper story writers, who made +too much of their absurd vagaries.</p> + +<p>Looking back to the actors of '65, I can't help noticing the difference +between their attitude of mind toward their profession, and that of the +actor of to-day. Salaries were much smaller then, work was harder, but +life was simpler. The actor had no social standing; he was no longer +looked down upon, but he was an unknown quantity; he was, in short, an +actor pure and simple. He had enthusiasm for his profession—he lived to +act, not merely living by acting. He had more superstition than religion, +and no politics at all; but he was patriotic and shouldered his gun and +marched away in the ranks as cheerfully as any other citizen soldier.</p> + +<p>But above all and beyond all else, the men and women <i>respected</i> their +chosen profession. Their constant association of mind with Shakespeare +seemed to have given them a certain dignity of bearing as well as of +speech.</p> + +<p>To-day our actors have in many cases won some social recognition, and +they must therefore give a portion of their time to social duties. They +are clubmen and another portion of their time goes in club lounging. +They draw large salaries and too frequently they have to act in long +running plays, that are made up of smartish wit and cheapest +cynicism—mere froth and frivolity, while the effective smashing of the +Seventh Commandment has been for so long a time the principal <i>motif</i> of +both drama and farce, that one cannot wonder much at the general tone of +flippancy prevailing among the theatrical people of to-day. They guy +everything and everybody, and would jeer at their profession as readily +as they would at an old man on the street wearing a last year's hat.</p> + +<p>They are sober, they are honest, they are generous, but they seem to have +grown utterly flippant, and I can't help wondering if this alteration can +have come about through the change in their mental pabulum.</p> + +<p>At all events, as I watched and listened in the old days, it seemed to me +they were never weary of discussing readings, expressions, emphasis, and +action. One would remark, say at a rehearsal of "Hamlet," that Macready +gave a certain line in this manner, and another would instantly express a +preference for a Forrest—or a Davenport—rendering, and then the +argument would be on, and only a call to the stage would end the weighing +of words, the placing of commas, etc.</p> + +<p>I well remember my first step into theatrical controversy. "Macbeth" was +being rehearsed, and the star had just exclaimed: "Hang out our banners +on the outward walls!" That was enough—argument was on. It grew +animated. Some were for: "Hang out our banners! on the outward walls the +cry is still: they come!" while one or two were with the star's reading.</p> + +<p>I stood listening and looking on and fairly sizzling with hot desire to +speak, but dared not take the liberty, I stood in such awe of my elders. +Presently the "old-man" turned and, noticing my eagerness, laughingly +said: "Well, what is it, Clara? you'll have a fit if you don't ease your +mind with speech."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Uncle Dick," I answered, my words fairly tripping over each other +in my haste. "I have a picture home, I cut it out of a paper, it's a +picture of a great castle, with towers and moats and things, and on the +outer walls there are men with spears and shields, and they seem to be +looking for the enemy, and, Uncle Dick, the <i>banner</i> is floating over the +high tower!"</p> + +<p>"Where it ought to be," interpolated the old gentleman, who was English.</p> + +<p>"So," I went on, "don't you think it ought to be read: 'Hang out our +banners! on the outward walls'—the outward walls, you know, is where the +lookout are standing—'the cry—is still, they come!'"</p> + +<p>A general laugh followed my excited explanation, but Uncle Dick patted me +very kindly on the shoulder, and said: "Good girl! you stick to your +picture—it's right and so are you. Many people read the line that way, +but you have worked it out for yourself, and that's a good plan to +follow."</p> + +<p>And I swelled and swelled, it seemed to me, I was so proud of the gentle +old man's approval. But that same night I came quite wofully to grief. I +had been one of the crowd of "witches"; I had also had my place at that +shameless <i>papier-maché</i> banquet given by <i>Macbeth</i> to his tantalized +guests, and then, being off duty, was, as usual, planted in the entrance, +watching the acting of the grown-up and the grown-great. <i>Lady Macbeth</i> +was giving the sleep-walking scene. Her method was of the old, old +school. She spoke at almost the full power of her lungs, throughout that +mysterious, awe-inspiring sleep-walking scene. It jarred upon my +feelings—I could not have told why, but it did. I believed myself alone, +and when the memory-haunted woman roared out: "Yet, who would have +thought the old man to have had so much <i>blood</i> in him?" I remarked, +<i>sotto voce</i>: "Did you expect to find ink in him?"</p> + +<p>A sharp "ahem!" right at my shoulder told me I had been overheard, and I +turned to face—oh, horror! the stage-manager. He glared angrily at me, +and began: "Since when have the ladies of the ballet taken to +criticising the work of the stars?"</p> + +<p>Humbly enough, I said: "I beg your pardon, sir, I was just talking to +myself, that was all."</p> + +<p>But he went on: "Oh, you would not criticize a reading, unless you could +better it—so pray favor us with <i>your</i> ideas on this speech!"</p> + +<p>Each sneering word cut me to the heart. Tears filled my eyes. I struggled +hard to keep them from falling, while I just murmured: "I beg your +pardon!" Again he demanded my reading, saying they were not "too old to +learn," and in sheer desperation, I exclaimed: "I was only speaking to +myself, but I thought <i>Lady Macbeth</i> was amazed at the <i>quantity</i> of +blood that flowed from the body of such an old man—for when you get old, +you know, sir, you don't have so much blood as you used to, and I only +just thought, that as the 'sleeping men were laced,' and the knives +'smeared,' and her hands 'bathed' with it, she might have perhaps +whispered: 'Yet, who would have thought the old man to have had <i>so much</i> +blood in him?' I didn't mean an impertinence!" and down fell the tears, +for I could not talk and hold them back at the same time.</p> + +<p>He looked at me in dead silence for a few moments, then he said: "Humph!" +and walked away, while I rushed to the dressing-room and cried and cried, +and vowed that never, never again would I talk to myself—in the theatre +at all events. I mention these incidents to show how quickly I came under +the influence of these Shakespeare-studying men and women, some of whom +had received their very adequate education from him alone.</p> + +<p>It was odd to hear how they used his words and expressions in their daily +conversation. 'Twas not so much quoting him intentionally, as it was an +unconscious incorporation into their own language of Shakespeare's lines.</p> + +<p>Tramps were to them almost always "vagrom men." When one did some very +foolish thing, he almost surely begged to be "written down an ass." The +appearance of a pretty actress in her new spring or fall gown was as +surely hailed with: "The riches of the ship have come on shore!"</p> + +<p>I saw a pet dog break for the third time from restraint to follow his +master, who put his hand on the animal's head and rather worriedly +remarked: "'The love that follows us sometimes is our trouble—which +still'" (with a big sigh) "'we thank as love!' But you'll have to go +back, old fellow, all the same." If someone obliged you, and you +expressed the fear that you had given him trouble, he would be absolutely +certain to reply, pleasantly and quite honestly: "The labor we delight in +physics pain!" And so on and on unendingly. And I almost believe that had +an old actor seen these three great speeches: The "seven ages" of man, +"To be or not to be!" and "Othello's occupation's gone," grouped +together, he would have fallen upon his knees and become an idolator +there and then. +</p> +<p>Yes, I found them odd people, but I liked them. The world was brightening +for me, and I felt I had a right to my share of the air and light, and as +much of God's earth as my feet could stand upon.</p> + +<p>I had had a little part entrusted to me, too, the very first week of the +season. A young backwoods-boy, Tom Bruce, by name, and I had borrowed +some clothes and had slammed about with my gun, and spoken my few words +out loud and clear, and had met with approving looks, if not words, but +not yet was the actress aroused in me, I was still a mere school-girl +reciting her lessons. My proudest moment had been when I was allowed to +go on for the longest witch in the cauldron scene in "Macbeth." Perhaps I +might have come to grief over it had I not overheard the leading man say: +"That child will never speak those lines in the world!" and the leading +man was six feet tall and handsome, and I was thirteen and a half years +old, and had to be called a "child!" +</p> +<p>I was in a secret rage, and I went over and over my lines, at all hours, +under all kinds of circumstances, so that nothing should be able to +frighten me at night. And then, with my paste-board crown and white sheet +and petticoat, I boiled-up in the cauldron and gave my lines well enough +for the manager (who was <i>Hecate</i> just then) to say low, "Good! Good!" +and the leading man next night asked me to take care of his watch and +chain during his combat scene, and my pride of bearing was most unseemly, +and the other ballet-girls loved me not at all, for you see they, too, +knew he was six feet tall and handsome.</p> + + + + +<h2> <span> CHAPTER <a id="SEVENTH"></a>SEVENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I find I am in a "Family Theatre"—I Fare Forth away from my Mother, +and in Columbus I Shelter under the wing of Mrs. Bradshaw. </p></div> + + + +<p>This theatre in which I found myself was, in professional parlance, a +family theatre, a thing abhorred by many, especially by actresses. Not +much wonder either, for even as the green bay tree flourisheth in the +psalm, so does nepotism flourish in the family theatre; and when it's a +case of the managerial <i>Monsieur</i>, <i>Madame</i>, <i>et Bébés</i> all acting, many +are the tears, sobs, and hot words that follow upon the absorption by +these three of all the good parts, while all the poor ones are placed +with strictest justice where they belong. At that time men and women were +engaged each for a special "line of business," and to ask anyone to act +outside of his "line" was an offence not lightly passed over.</p> + +<p>For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with theatrical terms of +procedure, I will state that a company was generally made up of a leading +man (heroes, of course), first old man, second old man, heavy man, first +comedian, second comedian, juvenile man, walking gentleman, and utility +man.</p> + +<p>That term, "heavy man," of course had no reference to the actor's +physical condition, but it generally implied a deep voice, heavy +eyebrows, and a perfect willingness to stab in the back or smilingly to +poison the wine of the noblest hero or the fairest heroine in the +business; so the professional player of villains was a heavy man.</p> + +<p>The juvenile man may have left juvenility far, far behind him in reality, +but if his back was flat, his eyes large and hair good; he would support +old mothers, be falsely accused of thefts, and win wealthy sweethearts in +last acts, with great <i>éclat</i>—as juvenile men were expected to do. +</p> +<p>Walking gentlemen didn't walk all the time; truth to tell, they stood +about and pretended a deep interest in other people's affairs, most of +the time. They were those absent Pauls or Georges that are talked about +continually by sweethearts or friends or irate fathers, and finally +appear just at the end of everything, simply to prove they really do +exist, and to hold a lady's hand, while the curtain falls on the +characters, all nicely lined up and bowing like toy mandarins.</p> + +<p>The utility man was generally not a man, but a large, gloomy boy, whose +mustache would not grow, and whose voice would crack over the few lines +he was invited to address to the public. He sometimes led mobs, but more +often made brief statements as to the whereabouts of certain +carriages—and therein laid his claim to utility.</p> + +<p>Then came the leading lady, the first old woman (who was sometimes the +heavy woman), the first singing soubrette, the walking ladies, the second +soubrette (and boys' parts), the utility woman, and the ladies of the +ballet. These were the principal "lines of business," and in an artistic +sense they bound actors both hand and foot; so utterly inflexible were +they that the laws of the Medes and Persians seemed blithe and friendly +things in comparison. +</p> +<p>"Oh, I can't play that; it's not in my line!" "Oh, yes, I sing, but the +singing don't belong to my line!" "I know, he <i>looks</i> the part and I +don't, but it belongs to my line!" and so, nearly every week, some +performance used to be marred by the slavish clinging to these defined +"lines of business." +</p> +<p>Mr. Augustin Daly was the first manager who dared to ignore the absolute +"line." "You must trust my judgment to cast you for the characters you +are best suited to perform, and you must trust my honor not to lower or +degrade you, by casting you below your rightful position, for I will not +be hampered and bound by any fixed 'lines of business.'" So said he to +all would-be members of his company. The pill was a trifle bitter in the +swallowing, as most pills are, but it was so wholesome in its effect that +ere long other managers were following Mr. Daly's example.</p> + +<p>But to return to our mutton. If the family theatre was disliked by those +who had already won recognized positions, it was at least an ideal place +in which a young girl could begin her professional life. The manager, Mr. +John A. Ellsler, was an excellent character-actor as well as a first old +man. His wife, Mrs. Effie Ellsler, was his leading woman—his daughter +Effie, though not out of school at that time, acted whenever there was a +very good part that suited her. The first singing soubrette was the wife +of the prompter and the stage-manager. The first old woman was the mother +of the walking lady, and so it came about that there was not even the +pink flush of a flirtation over the first season, and, though another +season was shaken and thrilled through and through by the elopement and +marriage of James Lewis with Miss Frankie Hurlburt, a young lady from +private life in Cleveland, yet in all the years I served in that old +theatre, no real scandal ever smirched it.</p> + +<p>True, one poor little ballet-girl fell from our ranks and was drawn into +that piteous army of women, who, with silk petticoats and painted cheeks, +seek joy in the bottom of the wine cup. Poor little soul! how we used to +lock the dressing-room door and lower our voices when we spoke of having +seen her.</p> + +<p>I can never be grateful enough for having come under the influence of the +dear woman who watched over me that first season—Mrs. Bradshaw, one of +the most versatile, most earnest, most devoted actresses I ever saw, and +a good woman besides.</p> + +<p>She had known sorrow, trouble, and loss. She was widowed, she had two +children to support unaided, but she made moan to no one. She worked +early and late; she rehearsed, studied, acted, mended, and made; for her +salary absolutely forbade the services of a dress-maker. She had two +gowns a year, one thick, one thin. She could not herself compute the age +of her bonnets, so often were they blocked over, or dyed and retrimmed. +Yet no better appearing woman ever entered a stage-door than this +excessively neat, well-groomed, though plainly clad, old actress.</p> + +<p>It is not to be denied that a great many professional women are +absolutely without the sense of order. Their irregular hours, their +unsettled mode of life, camping out a few days in this hotel and then in +that in a measure explain it, but Mrs. Bradshaw set an example of neat +orderliness that was well worth following.</p> + +<p>"I can't see," she used to say, "why an actress should be a slattern."</p> + +<p>Then if anyone murmured: "Early rehearsals, great haste, you know!" she +would answer: "You know at night the hour of morning rehearsal—then get +up fifteen minutes earlier, and leave your room in order. Everything an +actress does is commented upon, and as she is more or less an object of +suspicion, her conduct should be even more rigidly correct than that of +other women." She had been a beauty in her youth, as her regular features +still proclaimed, and though her figure had become almost Falstaffian, +her graceful arm movements and the dignity of her carriage saved her from +being in the slightest degree grotesque. The secret of her smiling +contentment was her honest love for her work. +</p> +<p>We had one taste in common—this experienced woman and my now +fourteen-year-old self—books! books! and yet books, we read. I borrowed +from my friends and she also read—she borrowed from her friends and I, +too, read, and she came to speak of them, and then of her own ideas, and +so I found that this woman, already on the way to age, who was so poor +and hard-working, and had nothing to look forward to but work, was yet +cheerfully contented, because she loved the work—yes, and honored it, +and held her head high, because she was an actress with a clean +reputation!</p> + +<p>"Study your lines—speak them with exactitude, just as they are written!" +she used to say to me, with a sort of passion in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Don't just gather the idea of a speech, and then use your own words, +that's an infamous habit. The author knew what he wanted you to say—for +God's sake honor the poor dead writer's wishes and speak his lines +exactly as he wrote them! If he says: 'My lord the carriage waits!' don't +you go on and say: 'My lord the carriage is waiting!'"</p> + +<p>I almost believe she would have fallen in a dead faint had she been +prompted, and to have been late to a rehearsal would have been a shame +greater than she could have borne. To this woman's example, I owe the +strict business-like habits of attention to study and rehearsals that +have won so much praise for me from my managers.</p> + +<p>Had Mr. Ellsler's intention of taking his company to another city for a +great part of the season been known in advance, my mother would never +have given consent to my membership; but the season was three months old +before we knew that we were to be transferred to Columbus, the State +capital, where we were to remain, while the Legislature sat in large +arm-chairs, passing bad bills, and killing good ones, for some three +months or more—at least that was the ordinary citizen's opinion of the +conduct of the State's wise men. It seemed to me that when a man paid his +taxes he felt he had purchased the right to grumble at his +representatives to his heart's content.</p> + +<p>But that move to Columbus was a startling event in my life. It meant +leaving my mother and standing quite alone. She was filled with anxiety, +principally for my physical welfare, but I felt, every now and then, my +grief and fright pierced through and through with a delicious thrill of +importance. I was going to be just like a grown-up, and would decide for +myself what I should wear. I might even, if I chose to become so +reckless, wear my Sunday hat to a rehearsal; and when my cheap little +trunk came, with C. M. on the end, showing it was my very own, I stooped +down and hugged it. But later, when my mother with a sad face separated +my garments from her own, taking them from her trunk, where they had +always rested before, I burst into sobs and tears of utter forlornness.</p> + +<p>The Columbus trip had a special effect upon the affairs of the ballet. We +had received $3 a week salary, but every one of us had had some home +assistance. Now we were going to a strange city, and no one on earth +could manage to live on such a salary as that, so our stipend was raised +to $5 a week, and the three of us (we were but three that season) set to +work trying to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board-bill, +her basket-bill, her wash-bill, and all the small expenses of the +theatre—powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc., to say nothing at all of +shoes and clothing—all out of $5 a week.</p> + +<p>Of course there was but one way to do it, and that was by doubling-up and +sharing a room with some one, and that first season I was very lucky. +Mrs. Bradshaw found a house where the top floor had been finished off as +one great long room, running the entire length of the building from gable +to gable, and she offered me a share in it. +</p> +<p>Oh, I was glad! Blanche and I had one-half the room, and Mrs. Bradshaw +and the irrepressible little torment and joy of her life, small Jack, had +the other half. No wonder I grew to reverence her, whose character could +bear such intimate association as that. I don't know what her religious +beliefs were. She read her Bible Sundays, but she never went to church, +neither did she believe in a material hell; but it was not long before I +discovered that when I said my prayers over in my corner, she paused in +whatever she was doing, and remained with downcast eyes—a fact that made +me scramble a bit, I'm afraid.</p> + +<p>There was but one thing in our close companionship that caused her pain, +and that was the inevitable belief of strangers, that I was her daughter +and Blanche her protegée—they being misled by the difference in our +manner toward her. In the severity of my upbringing I had been taught +that it was nothing short of criminal to be lacking in respect for those +who were older than myself; therefore I was not only strictly obedient to +her expressed wishes, but I rose when she entered a room, opened and +closed doors, placed chairs at table, gave her precedence on all +occasions, and served her in such small ways as were possible; while +Blanche ignored her to such a degree that one might have mistaken her for +a stranger to our little party.</p> + +<p>Poor mother! the tears stood thick in her brave eyes when the landlady, +on our third day in her house, remarked to her, patting me on the +shoulder as she spoke: "You have a most devoted little daughter, here!"</p> + +<p>And there was a distinct pause, before she answered, gently: "You +mistake—I have a devoted little friend here, in Clara, but Blanche is my +daughter!" She was a singular being, that daughter. It is seldom indeed +that a girl, who is not bad, can yet be such a thorn in the side of a +mother. She was a most disconcerting, baffling creature—a tricksy, +elfish spirit, that delighted in malicious fun. Pleasure-loving, +indolent, and indifferent alike to praise or blame, she (incredible as it +seems) would willingly give up a good part to save herself the trouble of +playing it. I recall a trick she once performed in my favor. I thought +the <i>Player-Queen</i> in "Hamlet" was a beautiful part, and I hungered to +play it; but it belonged to Blanche, and, of course, she was cast for it; +but said she: "You could have it, for all I'd care!" Then, suddenly, she +added: "Say, you may play it with the next <i>Hamlet</i> that comes along!"</p> + +<p>I pointed out the impossibility of such an assertion coming true, but she +grinned widely at me and chewed her gum as one who knew many things +beyond my ken, and counselled me to "watch out and see what happened." I +watched out, and this happened: +</p> +<p>When the mimic-play was going on before the King and Court, my impish +friend Blanche, as the <i>Player-Queen</i>, should have said: "Both here and +hence, pursue me lasting strife, if once a widow, ever I be wife!"</p> + +<p>Instead of which, loudly and distinctly, she proclaimed: "Both here and +hence, pursue me lasting strife, <i>if once a wife, ever I be widowed</i>!"</p> + +<p><i>Hamlet</i> rolled over on his face, <i>Queen Gertrude</i> (Mrs. Bradshaw) +groaned aloud, <i>Polonius</i> (Mr. Ellsler) threatened discharge, under cover +of the laughter of the audience, while guilty Blanche grinned in impish +enjoyment of her work, and next "Hamlet" I was cast for the +<i>Player-Queen</i>, to punish Blanche. To punish her, indeed—she was as +merry as a sand-boy, standing about chewing gum and telling stories all +the evening.</p> + +<p>The "tatting" craze was sweeping over the country then, everybody wore +tatting and almost everybody made it. I worked day and night at it, +tatting at rehearsal and between scenes, and lady-stars often bought my +work, to my great pleasure as well as profit. Blanche wanted a new +shuttle, and her mother, who was under extra expense just then, told her +she could have it the next week. It was shortly before Christmas, and +next morning at rehearsal, with all the company present, Blanche walked +up to Mr. Ellsler and asked him if he had any money.</p> + +<p>He looked bewildered, and answered somewhat doubtfully that he thought he +had a little. "Well," said she, "I want you to give me a quarter, so I +can get you a Christmas present."</p> + +<p>There was a burst of laughter as Mr. Ellsler handed her the quarter, and +after rehearsal this is what she did with it:</p> + +<p>On Superior Street a clothing store was being sold out—a forced sale. +There she bought a black shoe-string tie for five cents, as a gift for +Mr. Ellsler, and elsewhere got for herself a tatting-shuttle and five +pieces of chewing-gum, and chuckled over her caper, quite undisturbed by +her mother's tears.</p> + +<p>One thing only moved her, one thing only she loved, music! She had a +charming voice, clear, pure, and cold as crystal, and she sang willingly, +nay, even eagerly, whenever she had the opportunity. In after years she +became a well-known singer in light opera.</p> + + + + +<h2> <span> CHAPTER <a id="EIGHTH"></a>EIGHTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Display my New Knowledge—I Return to Cleveland to Face my First +Theatrical Vacation, and I Know the very Tragedy of Littleness.</p> +</div> + + +<p>During that first season I learned to stand alone, to take care of myself +and my small belongings without admonition from anyone. One of my notions +was that, since an immortal soul had to dwell in my body, it became my +bounden duty to bestow upon it regular and painstaking care in honor of +its tenant. The idea may seem extravagant, yet it served me well, since +it did for me what a mother's watchful supervision does for other little +girls when habits are being formed.</p> + +<p>I had learned, too, most of the technical terms used in the profession. I +knew all about footlights, wings, flies, borders, drops, braces, grooves, +traps, etc. I understood the queer abbreviations. Knew that O.P. side was +opposite the prompt side, where the prompter stood with his book of the +play to give the word to any actor whose memory failed him and to ring +the two bells for the close of the act—one of warning to the curtain-man +up aloft to get ready, the other for him to lower the curtain. Knew that +R.U.E. and L.U.E. were right or left upper entrance; C., centre of the +stage; R.C., right of centre; CD., centre-door. That to go D.S. or U.S. +was an intimation that you would do well to go down stage or up stage, +while an X. to C. was a terse request for you to cross to the centre of +the stage, and that a whole lot of other letters meant a whole lot of +other directions that would only bore a reader.</p> + +<p>I understood how many illusions were produced, and one of the proofs that +I was meant to be an actress was to be found in my enjoyment of the +mechanism of stage effects. I was always on hand when a storm had to be +worked, and would grind away with a will at the crank that, turning a +wheel against a tight band of silk, made the sound of a tremendously +shrieking wind, which filled me with pride and personal satisfaction. And +no one sitting in front of the house looking at a white-robed woman +ascending to heaven, apparently floating upward through the blue clouds, +enjoyed the spectacle more than I enjoyed looking at the ascent from the +rear, where I could see the tiny iron support for her feet, the rod at +her back with the belt holding her securely about the waist (just as +though she were standing on a large hoe, with the handle at her back), +and the men hoisting her through the air, with a painted, sometimes +moving, sky behind her.</p> + +<p>This reminds me that Mrs. Bradshaw had several times to go to heaven +(dramatically speaking), and as her figure and weight made the hoe +support useless in her case, she always went to heaven on the entire +paint-frame or gallery, as it is called—a long platform the whole width +of the stage that is raised and lowered at will by windlass, and on which +the artists stand while painting scenery. This enormous affair would be +cleaned and hung about with nice blue clouds, and then Mrs. Bradshaw, +draped in long, white robes, with hands meekly crossed upon her ample +breast and eyes piously uplifted, would rise heavenward, slowly, as so +heavy an angel should. But, alas! there was one drawback to this +otherwise perfect ascension. Never, so long as the theatre stood, could +that windlass be made to work silently. The paint-gallery always moved up +or down to a succession of screaks unoilable, untamable, blood-curdling, +that were intensified by Mrs. Bradshaw's weight, so that she ascended to +the blue tarlatan empyrean accompanied by such chugs and long-drawn +yowlings as suggested a trip to the infernal regions. Mrs. Bradshaw's +face remained calm and unmoved, but now and then an agonized moan +escaped her, lest even the orchestra's effort to cover up the +paint-frame's protesting cries should prove useless. Poor woman, when she +had been lowered again to terra firma and stepped off, the whole +paint-frame would give a kind of joyous upward spring. She noticed it, +and one evening looked back, and said: "Oh, you're not a bit more glad +than I am, you screaking wretch!"</p> + +<p>I had learned to make up my face properly, to dress my hair in various +ways, and was beginning to know something about correct costuming; but as +the season was drawing to its close my heart quaked and I was sick with +fear, for I was facing, for the first time, that terror, that affliction +of the actor's life, the summer vacation.</p> + +<p>People little dream what a period of misery that is to many stage folk. +Seeing them well dressed, laughing and talking lightly with the +acquaintances they meet on the street, one little suspects that the +gnawing pain of hunger may be busy with their stomachs—that a woman's +fainting "because of the extreme heat, you know," was really caused by +want of food. That the fresh handkerchiefs are of their own washing. That +the garments are guarded with almost inconceivable care, and are only +worn on the street, some older articles answering in their lodgings—and +that it is not vanity, but business, for a manager is not attracted by a +seedy or a shabby-looking applicant for an engagement.</p> + +<p>Oh, the weary, weary miles the poor souls walk! with not a penny in their +pockets. They are compelled to say, "Roll on, sweet chariot!" to even the +street-car as it appears before their longing eyes.</p> + +<p>Some people, mostly men, under these circumstances will stand and look at +the viands spread out temptingly in the restaurant windows; others, +myself among the number, will avoid such places as one would avoid a +pestilence.</p> + +<p>We were back in Cleveland for the last of the season, and I used to +count, over and over again, my tiny savings and set them in little piles. +The wash, the board, and, dear heaven! there were six long, long weeks +of vacation, and I had only one little pile of board money to set against +the whole six. I had six little piles of wash money, and one other little +pile, the <i>raison d'être</i> of which I may explain by and by, if I am not +too much ashamed of the early folly.</p> + +<p>Now I was staying at that acme of inconvenience and discomfort, a cheap +boarding-house, where, by the way, social lines were drawn with sharp +distinction, the upper class coldly recognizing the middle class, but +ignoring the very existence of the lower class, refugees from ignoble +fortune.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bradshaw, by right of dignity and regular payments for the best room +in the house, was the star-boarder, and it was undoubtedly her friendship +which raised me socially from that third and lowest class to which my +small payments would have relegated me.</p> + +<p>Standing in my tiny, closet-like room, by lifting myself to my toes, I +could touch the ceiling. There was not space for a bureau, but the yellow +wash-stand stood quite firmly, with the assistance of a brick, which made +up for the absence of part of its off hind leg. There was a kitchen-chair +that may have been of pine, but my aching back proclaimed it lignum-vitæ. +A mere sliver of a bed stretched itself sullenly in the corner, where its +slats, showing their outlines through the meagre bed-clothing, suggested +the ribs of an attenuated cab-horse. From that bed early rising became a +pleasure instead of a mere duty. Above the wash-stand, in a narrow, once +veneered but now merely glue-covered frame, hung a small looking-glass, +that, size considered, could, I believe, do more damage to the human +countenance than could any other mirror in the world. It had a sort of +dimple in its middle, which had the effect of scattering one's features +into the four corners of the glass, loosely—a nose and eyebrow here, a +mouth yonder, and one's "altogether" nowhere.</p> + +<p>It was very disconcerting. Blanche said it made her quite sea-sick, or +words to that effect. This dreadful little apartment lay snug against the +roof. In the winter the snow sifted prettily but uncomfortably here and +there. In the summer the heat was appalling. Those old-timers who knew +the house well, called No. 15 the "torture-chamber," and many a time, +during the fiercest heat, Mrs. Bradshaw would literally drive me from the +small fiery furnace to her own room, where at least there was air to +breathe, for No. 15 had but half a window. And yet, miserable as this +place was, it was a refuge and a shelter. The house was well known, it +was ugly, as cheap things are apt to be, but it was respectable and safe, +and I trembled at the thought of losing my right to enter there.</p> + +<p>In the past my mother had been employed by the landlady as seamstress and +as housekeeper, besides which she had once nursed the lonely old woman +through a severe sickness, and as I had been permitted to live with my +mother, Mrs. Miller of course knew me well; so one day when she found me +engaged in the unsatisfactory occupation of recounting my money she asked +me, very gruffly, what I was going to do through the summer. I gazed at +her with wide, frightened eyes, and was simply dumb. More sharply, she +asked: "Do you hear?—what are you going to do when the theatre closes?"</p> + +<p>I swallowed hard, and then faintly answered: "I've got one week's board +saved, Mrs. Miller, but after that I—I—," had my soul depended upon the +speaking of another word I could not have uttered it.</p> + +<p>She glared her most savage glare at me. She impatiently pushed her false +front awry, pulled at her spectacles, and finally took up one of my six +little piles of coin and asked: "What's this for?"</p> + +<p>"Washing," I gasped.</p> + +<p>"You don't send your handkerchiefs to the wash, do you?" she demanded, +suspiciously.</p> + +<p>I shook my head and pointed to a handkerchief drying on a string at my +half-window.</p> + +<p>"That's right," she remarked, in a slightly mollified tone. Then she +reached over, took up the pile that was meant for the next week's board, +and putting it in her pocket, she remarked: "I'll just take this <i>now</i>, +so you won't run no risk of losing it, and for the next five weeks after, +why, well your mother was honest before you, and I reckon you're going to +take after her. You promise to be a hard worker, too, so, well nobody +else has ever been able to stay in this room over a week—so I guess you +can go on stopping right here, till the theatre opens again, and you can +pay me by fits and starts as it comes handy for you. Why, what's the +matter with you? Well, I vum! you must be clean tuckered out to cry like +that! Land sakes, child! tie a wet rag on your head and lay right down, +till you can get picked up a bit!" and out she bounced.</p> + +<p>Dear old raging savage! how she used to frighten us all! how she barked +and barked, but she never, never bit! How I wanted to kiss her withered +old cheek that day when she offered me shelter on trust! But she was +eighty-five years old and my honored guest here at "The Pines" before I +told her all the terror and the gratitude she brought to me that day.</p> + +<p>My clear skin, bright eyes, and round face gave me an appearance of +perfect health, which was belied by the pain I almost unceasingly +endured. The very inadequate provision my poor mother had been able to +make for the necessaries of her child's welfare, the cruel restrictions +placed upon my exercise, even upon movement in that wooden chair, where I +sat with numb limbs five hours at a stretch, had greatly aggravated a +slight injury to my spine received in babyhood. And now I was facing a +life of hard work, handicapped by that most tenacious, most cruel of +torments, a spinal trouble.</p> + +<p>At fourteen I knew enough about such terms as vertebra of the back, +spinal-column, spinal-cord, sheath of cord, spinal-marrow, axial nervous +system, curvatures, flexes and reflexes to have nicely established an +energetic quack as a specialist in spinal trouble; and, alas! after all +these years no one has added to my list of flexes and reflexes the words +"fixed or refixed," so my poor spine and I go struggling on, and I +sometimes think, if it could speak, it might declare that I am as dented, +crooked, and wavering as it is. However, I suppose that state of +uncertain health may have caused the capricious appetite that tormented +me. Always poor, I had yet never been able to endure coarse food. Heavy +meats, cabbage, turnips, beets, fried things filled me with cold +repulsion. Crackers and milk formed my dinner, day in and day out. Now +and then crackers and water had to suffice me; but I infinitely preferred +the latter to a meal of roast pork or of corned beef, followed by +rice-pudding.</p> + +<p>But the trouble from the fastidious appetite came when it suddenly +demanded something for its gratification—imperiously, even furiously +demanded it. If anyone desires a thing intensely, the continual denial of +that craving becomes almost a torture. So, when that finical appetite of +mine would suddenly cry out for oysters, I could think of nothing else. +Quick tears would spring into my eyes as I approached the oysterless +table. Again and again I would dream of them, cans and cans would be +piled on my table (I lived far from shell-oysters then), and when I awoke +I would turn on my lumpy bed and moan like a sick animal. I mention this +because I wish to explain what that little odd pile of money had been +saved for. +</p> +<p>At the approach of hot weather a craving for ice-cream had seized upon me +with almost agonizing force. It is a desire common to all young things, +but the poverty of my surroundings, the lack of the more delicate +vegetables, of fruits, of sweets, added to the intensity of my craving. I +had found a place away up on the market where for ten cents one could get +quite a large saucer of the delicate dainty. Fifteen or twenty-five cents +was charged elsewhere for no better cream, but a more decorative saucer.</p> + +<p>But, good gracious! what a sum of money—ten cents for a mere pleasure! +though the memory of it afterward was a comfort for several days, and +then, oh, unfortunate girl! the sick longing would come again! And so, in +a sort of despair, I tried to save thirty cents, with the deliberate +intention of spending the whole sum on luxury and folly. Six long, +blazing-hot, idle weeks I should have to pass in the "torture-chamber," +but with that thirty cents by me I could, every two weeks, loiter +deliciously over a plate of cream, feel its velvety smoothness on my lips +and its icy coldness cooling all my weary, heat-worn body. One week I +could live on memory, and the next upon anticipation, and so get through +the long vacation in comparative comfort.</p> + +<p>There was no lock upon my room door, but I said nothing about it, as the +door would not close anyway; and at night, for security, I placed the +lignum-vitæ chair against it. In the day-time I had to entrust my +belongings to the honor of my house-mates, as it were.</p> + +<p>The six little piles of wash-money I had, after the manner of a squirrel, +buried here and there at the bottom of my trunk, which I securely locked; +but my precious thirty cents I carried about with me, tied in the corner +of a handkerchief. It generally rested in the bosom of my dress, but +there came a day when, for economy's sake, I washed a pair of stockings +as well as my three handkerchiefs, and Mrs. Miller said I might hang them +on the line in the yard below. My tiny window opened in that direction. +The day was fiercely hot. I put the money in my pocket and carefully hung +my dress up opposite the window, and, in a little white jacket, did out +my washing; then, singing happily, I ran down-stairs, two long flights, +to hang the articles on the line. As I was putting a clothes-pin in place +I glanced upward at the musk-plant on my window-sill—and then my heart +stood still in my breast. I could neither breathe nor move for the +moment. I could see my dress-skirt depending from its nail, and oh, dear +God! a man's great red hand was grasping it—was clutching it, here and +there, in search of the pocket! Suddenly I gave a piercing cry, and +bounding into the house, I tore madly up the stairs—too late. The dress +lay in the doorway—the pocket was empty! On the floor, with my head +against the white-washed wall, I sat with closed eyes. The smell of a +musk-plant makes me shudder to this day. I sat there stupidly till dusk; +then I crept to my sliver of a bed, and cried, and cried, and sobbed the +whole weary, hot night through. Next day I simply could not rise, and so +for weeks I dragged heavily up and down the stairs, loathing the very +sight of the dining-room, and driven half wild with that never-sleeping +craving for ice-cream.</p> + +<p>It was purgatory, it was the very tragedy of littleness. And that was my +first theatrical vacation. +</p> + + + +<h2> <span>CHAPTER <a id="NINTH"></a>NINTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">The Season Reopens—I meet the Yellow Breeches and become a Utility +Man—Mr. Murdock Escapes Fits and my "Luck" Proves to be Extra Work.</p></div> + + +<p>The exuberance of my joy over the opening of the new season was somewhat +modified by my close relations with a certain pair of knee-breeches—and +I wish to say right here that when Gail Hamilton declared inanimate +things were endowed with powers of malice and general mischievousness, +she was not exaggerating, but speaking strictly by the card. +</p> +<p>Some men think her charge was made solely against collar-buttons, whose +conduct the world admits is detrimental to good morals; but they are +wrong; she included many things in her charge. Consider the +innocent-looking rocking-chair, for instance. When it strikes does not +the rocker always find your ankle-joint? In darkness or in light did it +ever miss that exact spot? Never! And then how gently it will sway, while +you rear and stamp, and, with briny eyes, say—well, things you should +not say, things you would not say but for the malice of an inanimate +thing. +</p> +<p>Perhaps the quickest way to win your sympathy is to tell you at once that +those knee-breeches were made of yellow plush, bright yellow—I thought +that would move you! There was a coat, too—yes, things can always be +worse, you see; and when I was crowded into that awful livery I felt like +hopping about in a search for hemp-seed, I looked so like an enormous +canary that had outgrown its cage.</p> + +<p>Had Gail Hamilton known those breeches she would have said: "Here is +total depravity in yellow plush!"</p> + +<p>You see, the way they got their grip on me originally was this. There had +been two utility men engaged for the company, but one of them was taken +sick and could not come to the city at all, and the other one made the +manager sick, and was discharged for utter incompetency, and that very +night there was required a male servant who could in the first act summon +the star to the presence of his employer, with a name hard to pronounce; +and in the last act, when the star had become the boss of the whole +affair, could announce the coming of his carriage.</p> + +<p>"Could I do those two lines?" +</p> +<p>"Oh, yes!" I joyfully announced my ability and my willingness; "but I had +no clothes."</p> + +<p>And then, instead of turning the part into a girl attendant, in an evil +moment the manager bethought himself of some wardrobe he had purchased +from a broken up or down opera manager, and search discovered the +yellow-plush breeches, coat, and white wig. I put them on—the canary was +hatched!</p> + +<p>I played the part of two announcements; I walked out clear from the hip, +like a boy—and I became the utility man of the company, and the +tormented victim of the yellow breeches.</p> + +<p>I was a patient young person and willing to endure much for art's sake, +but that wig was too much. Built of white horse-hair mounted upon linen, +its heat and weight were fearful. It had evidently been constructed for a +big, round, perfectly bumpless head. It came down to my very eyebrows on +top, and at the sides, instead of terminating just at the hair-line above +the ear, it swallowed up my ears, covered my temples, and extended clear +to my eyes, giving me the appearance of being harnessed up in large white +blinders—like a shying horse. In common humanity the manager released me +from the wig and let me wear powder, but the clutch of the yellow +breeches remained unbroken.</p> + +<p>As in their opera days (I don't know what they sang, but they were +probably in the chorus) they had wandered through the world, knowing all +continental Europe and the South Americas, so now they wandered through +dramatic literature. One night accompanying me on to deliver a note to +Madame de Pompadour, the next night those same yellow breeches and I +skipped back to Louis XIV., and admitted many lords and ladies, with +tongue-tying names, to that monarch's presence, only to skip forward +again, in a few days, to bring in mail-bags to snuffy rural gentry, under +almost any of the Georges. Though the lace ruffles and jabots of the +French period might give place to a plain red waistcoat for the Georgian +English household, the canary breeches were always there, ready to burst +into song at any moment, to basely fire off a button or break a buckle +just at the moment of my entrance-cue, treacherously suggesting, by their +easy wrinkling while I stood, that I might just as well sit down and rest +my tired feet, and the moment I attempted to lower myself to a chair, +beginning such a mad cracking and snapping in every seam as brought me +upright with a bound and the settled conviction that weariness was +preferable to public shame.</p> + +<p>I am glad to this day that the stage-door was always kept locked, for, +had it been open, heaven only knows where those cosmopolitan breeches +might have taken me—they were such experienced travellers that a trip to +Havana or to the City of Mexico would have struck them as a nice little +jaunt.</p> + +<p>My pleasantest moments as utility man came to me when, in a very brief +white cotton Roman shirt and sandals, I led the shouts for the <i>supers</i>, +who are proverbially dumb creatures before the audience, though noisy +enough behind the scenes. So all the furious and destructive mobs of that +season were led on by a little whipper-snapper who yelled like a demon +with a copper-lined throat and then stood about afterward peacefully +making tatting.</p> + +<p>It must not be thought that I had in the first place a monopoly of the +small parts; far from it, but the company being rather short of utility +people, if the ballet-girls could play speaking servants, it not only +saved a salary or two to the manager, but it was of immense advantage to +the girls themselves. Then, too, Mr. Ellsler was particularly anxious to +avoid any charge of favoritism; so in the earliest days these little +parts were given out turn and turn about, without choice or +favor—indeed, two or three times my short dress caused me to be passed +over in favor of long dresses and done-up hair. But a few disasters, +caused by failure of memory or loss of nerve on the part of these +competitors, gave the <i>pas</i> to me, and it must be remembered that these +lapses and mishaps, though amusing to recall, were absolutely disastrous +at the time, ruining, as they did, the scene, if not the entire act, in +which they occurred.</p> + +<p>With special vividness I recall the first one of these happenings. "Romeo +and Juliet" was the play, and <i>Balthazar</i> the part. I longed for it +because, aside from his fine speech, he was really quite important and +had to show tenderness, anxiety, and determination during the time +<i>Romeo</i> addressed him. I pleaded with my eyes, but I could not, dared not +speak up and ask for the part, as did Annie, who was older than I. The +star and prompter exchanged a few low-spoken sentences. I caught the +condemnatory word "child," and knew my fate was sealed—long skirts and +turned-up hair had won. However, my wound was salved when the page to +<i>Paris</i> was given me with two lines to speak.</p> + +<p>Now there is no one but <i>Romeo</i> on the stage when <i>Balthazar</i> enters, +which, of course, gives him great prominence. His first speech, of some +fifty or fifty-six words, is simply expressed, not at all involved, yet +from the moment Annie received the part she became a broken, +terror-stricken creature. Many people when nervous bite their nails, but +Annie, in that state of mind, had a funny habit of putting her hand to +the nape of her neck and rubbing her hair upward. She had a pretty dress +of her own, but she had to borrow a wig, and, like all borrowed wigs, it +failed to fit; it was too small, and at last, when the best had been +done, its wobbly insecurity must have been terrifying. +</p> +<p>The girl's figure was charming, and as she stood in the entrance in her +boy's costume, I remarked: "You look lovely, Annie!"</p> + +<p>Silently she turned her glassy, unseeing eyes toward me, while she +shifted her weight swiftly from one foot to the other, opening and +shutting her hands spasmodically. <i>Romeo</i> was on, and he joyously +declared:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">He then described his happy dream—I heard the words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0"> +"When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">And there Annie staggered forward on to the stage.</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0"> +"News from Verona!" cried <i>Romeo</i>: "How now, Balthazar?" +</span></div> + +<p>Oh, well might he ask "How now?" for, shifting from foot to foot, this +stricken <i>Balthazar</i> was already feeling at the nape of her neck, and +instead of answering the questions of <i>Romeo</i> about <i>Juliet</i> with the +words:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Then she is well, and nothing can be ill,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Her body sleeps in Capets' monument,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And her immortal part with angels lives;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And presently took post to tell it you:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">O pardon me for bringing these ill news,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Since you did leave it for my office, sir,"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">these were the startling statements he made in gulps and gasps:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0"> +"O-Oh, y-yes! Sh-e's very well—and nothing's wrong; +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">[titter from audience, and amazement on <i>Romeo's</i> face]</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">H-her immortal parts are in a vault,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I—I saw them laid there, and come to tell you!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Perhaps she would have got to the right words at last, but just there the +wig, pushed too hard, lurched over on one side, giving such a piratical +look to the troubled face that a very gale of laughter filled the house, +and she retired then and there, though in the next speech she should have +refused to leave <i>Romeo</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Your looks are pale and wild,"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">yet now, because his looks were red and wild, she left without +permission, and the enraged instead of grieving <i>Romeo</i> had no one to +receive his order:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"——get me ink and paper,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And hire post horses."</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">So when, in his confusion, he went on continuing his lines as they were +written, and, addressing empty space, fiercely bade <i>Balthazar</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0"> +"——get thee gone!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">and in unintentionally suggestive tones promised:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"——I'll be with thee straight!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">the audience laughed openly and heartily at the star himself.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," he snorted later on to Mr. Ellsler, "by heaven, sir! they +laughed at me—<span class="smcap">AT ME</span>! I have been made ridiculous by your measly little +<i>Balthazar</i>—who should have been a man, sir! Yes, sir, a man, whom I +could have chastised for making a fool of himself, sir! and a d——d +fool of me, sir!"</p> + +<p>For the real tragedy of that night lay in the wound given to the dignity +of Mr. F. B. Conway, who played a measured and stately <i>Romeo</i> to the +handsome and mature <i>Juliet</i> of his wife.</p> + +<p>We had no young <i>Juliets</i> just then, they were all rather advanced, +rather settled in character for the reckless child of Verona. But every +lady who played the part declared at rehearsal that Shakespeare had been +foolish to make <i>Juliet</i> so young—that no woman had learned enough to +understand and play her before middle age at least.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bradshaw, one day, said laughingly to me: "By your looks you seemed +to disagree with Mrs. Ellsler's remarks this morning. She, too, thinks a +woman is not fit for <i>Juliet</i> until she has learned much of nature and +the world."</p> + +<p>"But," I objected, lamely, "while they are learning so much about the +world they are forgetting such a lot about girlhood!"</p> + +<p>Her laughter confused and distressed me. "I can't say it!" I cried, "but +you know how very forward <i>Juliet</i> is in speech? If she <i>knew</i>, that +would become brazen boldness! It isn't what she <i>knows</i>, but what she +<i>feels</i> without knowing that makes the tragedy!" And what Mrs. Bradshaw +meant by muttering, "Babes and sucklings—from the mouths of babes and +sucklings," I could not make out; perhaps, however, I should say that my +mate Annie played few blankverse parts after <i>Balthazar</i>.</p> + +<p>Then, one Saturday night, we were all corralled by the prompter before we +could depart for home, and were gravely addressed by the manager—the +whole thing being ludicrously suggestive of the reading of the riot act; +but after reminding us that Mr. James E. Murdoch would begin his +engagement on Monday night, that the rehearsals would be long and +important, he proceeded to poison the very source of our Sunday's rest +and comfort by fell suggestions of some dire mishap threatening the +gentleman through us. We exchanged wondering and troubled glances. What +could this mean?</p> + +<p>Mr. Ellsler went on: "You all know how precise Mr. Murdoch has always +been about your readings; how exacting about where you should stand at +this word or at that; how quickly his impatience of stupidity has burst +into anger; but you probably do not know that since his serious sickness +he is more exacting than ever, and has acquired the habit, when much +annoyed, of—of—er—well, of having a fit."</p> + +<p>"O-h!" it was unanimous, the groan that broke from our oppressed chests. +Stars who <i>gave us</i> fits we were used to, but the star who went into fits +himself—good heavens! good heavens!</p> + +<p>Rather anxiously, Mr. Ellsler continued: "These fits, for all I know, may +spell apoplexy—anyway, he is too frail a man to safely indulge in them; +so, for heaven's sake, do nothing to cross him; be on time, be +perfect—dead letter-perfect in your parts; write out all his directions +if necessary; grin and bear anything, so long as he doesn't have a fit! +Good-night."</p> + +<p>The riot act had been read, the mob dispersed, but the nerve of the most +experienced was shaken by the prospect of acting a whole week with a +gentleman who, at any moment, might get mad enough to have a fit.</p> + +<p>Think, then, what must have been the state of mind of my other +ballet-mate, Hattie, who, in her regular turn, had received a small part, +but of real importance, and who had to address her lines to Mr. Murdoch +himself. Poor girl, always nervous, this new terror made her doubly so. +She roused the star's wrath, even at rehearsal.</p> + +<p>"Speak louder!" (imperatively). "<i>Will</i> you speak louder?" (furiously). +"Perhaps, in the interest of those who will be in front to-night, I may +suggest that you speak loud enough to be heard by—say—the first row!" +(satirically). Now a calmly controlled body is generally the property of +a trained actress, not of a raw ballet-girl, and Hattie's restless +shifting about and wriggling drove him into such a rage that, to the rest +of us, he seemed to be trembling with inchoate fits, and I saw the +property man get his hat and take his stand by the stage-door, ready to +fly for the doctor, or, as he called him, "the fit sharp."</p> + +<p>She, too, was to appear as a page. She was to enter hurriedly—always a +difficult thing for a beginner to do. She was to address Mr. Murdoch in +blank verse—a <i>more</i> difficult thing—and implore him to come swiftly to +prevent bloodshed, as a hostile meeting was taking place between young +Count So-and-so and "your nephew, sir!"</p> + +<p>This news was to shock the uncle so that he would stand dazed for a +moment, when the page, looking off the stage, should cry:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Ah, you are too late, sir, already their blades are out!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">See how the foils writhe," etc.</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">With a cry, the uncle should recover himself, and furiously order the +page to</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0"> +"——call the watch!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">Alas! and alas! when the night, the play, the act, the cue came, Hattie, +as handsome a boy as you could wish to see, went bravely on, as quickly, +too, as her terror-chilled legs could carry her, but when she got there +had no word to say—no, not one!</p> + +<p>In a sort of icy rage, Mr. Murdoch gave her her line, speaking very low, +of course:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0"> +"My lord—my lord! I do beseech you haste,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Else here is murder done!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">But the poor girl, past prompting properly, only caught wildly at the +<i>sense</i> of the speech, and gasped out:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0"> +"Come on, quick!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">She saw his foot tapping with rage—thought his fits might begin that +way, and madly cried, at the top of her voice:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0"> +"Be quick—see—see! publicly they cross their <i>financiers</i>!" +</span></div> + +<p>then, through the laughter, rushed from the stage, crying, with streaming +tears: "I don't care if he has a dozen fits! He has just scared the words +out of my head with them!"</p> + +<p>And truly, when Mr. Murdoch, trembling with weakness, excitement, and +anger, staggered backward, clasping his brow, everyone thought the +dreaded fit had arrived.</p> + +<p>Next day he reproachfully informed Mr. Ellsler that he could not yet see +blank verse and the King's English (so he termed it) murdered without +suffering physically as well as mentally from the shocking spectacle. +That he was an old man now, and should not be exposed to such tests of +temper.</p> + +<p>Yes, as he spoke, he was an old man—pallid, lined, weary-faced; but that +same night he was young <i>Mirabel</i>—in spirit, voice, eye, and movement. +Fluttering through the play, "Wine Works Wonders," in his satins and his +laces—young to the heart—young with the immortal youth of the true +artist.</p> + +<p>Both these girls spoke plain prose well enough, and always had their +share of the parts in modern plays; but, as all was grist to my +individual mill, most of the blankverse and Shakespearean small +characters came to me. Nor was I the lucky girl they believed me; there +was no luck about it. My small success can be explained in two +words—extra work. When they studied their parts they were contented if +they could repeat their lines perfectly in the quiet of their rooms, and +made no allowance for possible accidents or annoyances with power to +confuse the mind and so cause loss of memory and ensuing shame. But I was +a careful young person, and would not trust even my own memory without +first taking every possible precaution. Therefore the repeating of my +lines correctly in my room was but the beginning of my study of them. In +crossing the crowded street I suddenly demanded of myself my lines. At +the table, when all were chatting, I again made sudden demand for the +same. If on either occasion my heart gave a jump and my memory failed to +present the exact word, I knew I was not yet perfect, and I would repeat +those lines until, had the very roof blown off the theatre at night, I +should not have missed one. Then only could I turn my attention to the +acting of them—oh, bless you, yes! I quite thought I was acting, and at +all events I was doing the next best thing, which was trying to act.</p> + +<p>But a change was coming to me, an experience was approaching which I +cannot explain to myself, neither has anyone else explained it for me; +but I mention it because it made such a different thing of dramatic life +for me. Aye, such a difficult thing as well. Looking back to that time I +see that all my childhood, all my youth, was crowded into that first year +on the stage. There I first knew liberty of speech, freedom of motion. +There I shared in the general brightness and seemed to live by right +divine, not by the grudging permission of some task-mistress of my +mother. I had had no youth before, for in what should have been babyhood +I had been a troubled little woman, most wise in misery. In freedom my +crushed spirits rose with a bound. The mimicry, the adaptability of +childhood asserted themselves—I pranced about the stage happily but +thoughtlessly.</p> + +<p>It seems to me I was like a blind puppy, born into warmth and comfort and +enjoying both, without any fear of the things it could not see. As I have +said before, I knew no fear, I had no ambition, I was just happy, blindly +happy; and now, all suddenly, I was to exchange this freedom of +unconsciousness for the slavery of consciousness.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TENTH"></a>TENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">With Mr. Dan. Setchell I Win Applause—A Strange Experience Comes to +Me—I Know Both Fear and Ambition—The Actress is Born at Last.</p> +</div> + + + +<p>My manager considered me to have a real gift of comedy, and he several +times declared that my being a girl was a distinct loss to the profession +of a fine low comedian.</p> + +<p>It was in playing a broad comedy bit that my odd experience came to me. +Mr. Dan. Setchell was the star. He was an extravagantly funny comedian, +and the laziest man I ever saw—too lazy even properly to rehearse his +most important scenes. He would sit on the prompt table—a table placed +near the footlights at rehearsal, holding the manuscript, writing +materials, etc., with a chair at either end, one for the star, the other +for the prompter or stage manager—and with his short legs dangling he +would doze a little through people's scenes, rousing himself reluctantly +for his own, but instead of rising, taking his place upon the stage, and +rehearsing properly, he would kick his legs back and forth, and, smiling +pleasantly, would lazily repeat his lines where he was, adding: "I'll be +on your right hand when I say that, Herbert. Oh, at your exit, Ellsler, +you'll leave me in the centre, but when you come back you'll find me down +left."</p> + +<p>After telling James Lewis several times at what places he would find him +at night, Lewis remarked, in despair: "Well, God knows where you'll find +<i>me</i> at night!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind, old man," answered the ever-smiling, steadily kicking +Setchell, "if you're there, all right; if you're not there, no matter!" +which was not exactly flattering.</p> + +<p>Of course such rehearsals led to many errors at night, but Mr. Setchell +cleverly covered them up from the knowledge of the laughing audience.</p> + +<p>It is hard to imagine that lazy, smiling presence in the midst of awful +disaster, but he was one of the victims of a dreadful shipwreck while +making the voyage to Australia. Bat-blind to the future, he at that time +laughed and comfortably shirked his work in the day-time, and made others +laugh when he did his work at night.</p> + +<p>In one of his plays I did a small part with him—I was his wife, a former +old maid of crabbed temper. I had asked Mr. Ellsler to make up my face +for me as an old and ugly woman. I wore corkscrew side curls and an awful +wrapper. I was a fearful object, and when Mr. Setchell first saw me he +stood silent a moment, then, after rubbing his stomach hard, and +grimacing, he took both my hands, exclaiming: "Oh, you hideous jewel! you +positively gave me a cramp at just sight of you! Go in, little girl, for +all you're worth! and do just what you please—you deserve the liberty +for that make-up!"</p> + +<p>And goodness knows I took him at his word, and did anything that came +into my giddy head. Even then I possessed that curious sixth sense of the +born actress, and as a doctor with the aid of his stethoscope can hear +sounds of grim warning or of kindly promise, while there is but the +silence to the stander-by, so an actress, with that stethoscopic sixth +sense, detects even the <i>forming</i> emotions of her audience, feeling +incipient dissatisfaction before it becomes open disapproval, or +thrilling at the intense stillness that ever precedes a burst of +approbation.</p> + +<p>And that night, meeting with a tiny mishap, which seemed to amuse the +audience, I seized upon it, elaborating it to its limit, and making it my +own, after the manner of an experienced actor.</p> + +<p>There was no elegant comedy of manners in the scene, understand, it was +just the broadest farce, and it consisted of the desperate effort of a +hen-pecked husband to assert himself and grasp the reins of home +government, which resolved itself at last into a scolding-match, in +which each tried to talk the other down—with what result you will know +without the telling.</p> + +<p>The stage was set for a morning-room, with a table in the centre, spread +with breakfast for two; a chair at either side and, as it happened, a +footstool by mine. His high silk hat and some papers, also, were upon the +table. For some unexplainable cause the silk hat has always been +recognized, both by auditor and actor, as a legitimate object of +fun-making, so when I, absent-mindedly, dropped all my toast-crusts into +that shining receptacle, the audience expressed its approval in laughter, +and so started me on my downward way, for that was my own idea and not a +rehearsed one. When my husband mournfully asked if "There was not even +one hot biscuit to be had?" I deliberately tried each one with the back +of my knuckles, and remarking, "Yes, here is just one," which was the +correct line in the play, I took it myself, which was not in the play, +and so went on till the scolding-match was reached.</p> + +<p>In my first noisy speech I meant to stamp my foot, but by accident I +brought it down upon the footstool. The people laughed, I saw a point—I +lifted the other foot and stood upon the stool. By the twinkle in Mr. +Setchell's eye, as well as by the laughter in front, I knew I was on the +right track.</p> + +<p>He roared—he lifted his arms above his head, and in my reply, as I +raised my voice, I mounted from the stool to the seat of the chair. He +seized his hat, and with the toast-crusts falling about his face and +ears, jammed it on his head, while in my last speech, with my voice at +its highest screech, I lifted my foot and firmly planted it upon the very +breakfast-table.</p> + +<p>It was enough—the storm broke from laughter to applause. Mr. Setchell +had another speech—one of resigned acceptance of second place, but as +the applause continued, he knew it would be an anti-climax, and he +signalled the prompter to ring down the curtain.</p> + +<p>But I—I knew he ought to speak. I was frightened, tears filled my eyes. +"What is it?" I whispered, as I started to get down.</p> + +<p>"Stand still," he sharply answered, then added: "It's you, you funny +little idiot! you've made a hit—that's all!" and the curtain fell +between us and the laughing crowd in front.</p> + +<p>The prompter started for me instantly from his corner, exclaiming, in his +anger: "Well, of all the cheeky devilment I ever heard or saw—" But Mr. +Setchell had him by the arm in a second, crying: "Hold on, old man! I +gave her leave—she had my permission! Oh, good Lord! did you see that +ascent of stool, chair, and table? eh? ha! ha! ha!"</p> + +<p>I stood trembling like a jelly in a hot day. Mr. Setchell said: "Don't be +frightened, my girl! that applause was for you! You won't be fined or +scolded—you've made a hit, that's all!" and he patted me kindly on the +shoulder and broke again into fat laughter.</p> + +<p>I went to my room, I sat down with my head in my hands. Great drops of +sweat came out on my temples. My hands were icy cold, my mouth was dry, +that applause rang in my ears. A cold terror seized upon me—a terror of +what, the public?</p> + +<p>Ah, a tender mouth was bitted and bridled at last! the reins were in the +hands of the public, and it would drive me—where?</p> + +<p>The public! the public! I had never feared it before, because I had never +realized its power. If I pleased, well and good. If I displeased it, I +should be driven forth from the dramatic Eden I loved, in which I hoped +to learn so many things theatrical and to become very wise, and I should +wander all my life in the stony places of poverty and disappointment! I +clenched my hands and writhed in misery at the thought. I seemed again to +hear that applause, which had been for me—my very self! and I thrilled +at its wild sweetness. Ah, the public! it could make or it could mar my +whole life. Mighty monster, without mercy! The great many-headed +creature, all jewelled over with fierce, bright eyes, with countless ears +a-strain for error of any kind! That beat the perfumed air with its +myriad hands when pleased—when pleased! A strange, great stillness +seemed to close about me; something murmured: "In the future, in the +<i>dim</i> future, a woman may cause this many-headed monster you fear to +think as one mind, to feel as one heart! <i>Then</i> the bit and bridle will +be changed—that woman will hold the reins and will drive the public!" At +which I broke into shrill laughter, in spite of flowing tears. Two women +came in, one said: "Why, what on earth's the matter? Have they blown you +up for your didoes to-night? What need you care, you pleased the +audience?" But another said, quietly: "Just get a glass of water for her, +she has a touch of hysteria—I wonder who caused it?"</p> + +<p>But I only thought of that woman of the dim future, who was to conquer +the public—who was she?</p> + +<p>Why that round of applause should have so shattered my happy confidence I +cannot understand, but the fact remains that from that night I never +faced a new audience, or attempted a new part, without suffering a +nervous terror that sometimes but narrowly escaped collapse.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="ELEVENTH"></a>ELEVENTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">My Promiscuous Reading wins me a Glass of Soda—The Stage takes up my +Education and Leads me through Many Pleasant Places.</p></div> + + + +<p>I suppose it sounds absurd to say that during those first seasons, with +choruses, dances, and small parts to learn, with rehearsals every day and +appearances every night, I was getting an education.</p> + +<p>But that depends upon your definition of the word. If it means to you +schooling, special instruction, and formal training, then my claim is +absurd; but if it means information, cultivation of the intellectual +powers, enlightenment, why then my claim holds good, my statement stands, +I was getting an education. And let me say the stage is a delightful +teacher; she never wearies you with sameness or drives you to frenzy with +iteration. No deadly-dull text-book stupefies you with lists of bare, +bald dates, dryly informing you that someone was born in 1208, mounted +the throne in 1220, died in 1258, and was succeeded by someone or other +who reigned awhile—really you can't remember how long, and don't much +care. There's nothing in figures for the memory to cling to. But no one +can forget that Edward V. was born in 1470, because he is such a tragic +little figure, only thirteen years old and of scant two months reign, +because there was the Tower and there the crafty, usurping Duke of +Gloster eager for his crown.</p> + +<p>Perhaps people would remember that Edward III. was born in 1312 and was +succeeded by his grandson, Richard, if they were told at the same moment +that he was father to that superb Black Prince, beloved alike of poet, +painter, and historian.</p> + +<p>Now, to be a good actress and do intelligent work, one should thoroughly +understand the play and its period in history, as the mainspring of its +action is often political. To be able to do that requires a large fund of +general information. That I had from my very babyhood been a reckless +reader, came about from necessity—I had no choice, I simply read every +single thing in print that my greedy hands closed upon; the results of +this promiscuous reading, ranging from dime novels to Cowper, were +sometimes amusing. One day, I remember, an actress was giving a very +excited account of a street accident she had witnessed. Her colors were +lurid, and some of her hearers received her tale coldly. "Oh!" she cried, +"such an awful crowd—a mob, you know—a perfect mob!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense!" contradicted another, "there couldn't have been a mob, +there are not people enough in that street to make a mob!"</p> + +<p>Then I mildly but firmly remarked: "Oh, yes, there are, for you know that +legally three's a mob and two's a crowd."</p> + +<p>A shout of laughter followed this bit of information. "How utterly +absurd!" cried one. "Well, of all the ridiculous ideas I ever heard!" +laughed another. And then, suddenly, dear old Uncle Dick (Mr. Richard +Stevens and player of old men, to be correct) came to my support, and, +with the authority of a one-time barrister, declared my statement to be +perfectly correct.</p> + +<p>"But where, in the name of Heaven, did you get your information?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," I vaguely replied, "I just read it somewhere."</p> + +<p>"That's a rather broad statement," remarked Uncle Dick; "you don't give +your authority, page and line, I observe. Well, see here, now, Clara +<i>mia</i>, in whatever field you found that one odd fact, you certainly +gleaned others there, so if you can produce, at once, three other legal +statements, I will treat you to soda-water after rehearsal."</p> + +<p>Oh, the delicious word was scarcely over his lips when I was wildly +searching my memory, and presently, very doubtfully, offered the +statement: "It is a fraud to conceal a fraud."</p> + +<p>But Uncle Dick gravely and readily accepted it. Another search, and then +joyfully I announced: "Contracts made with minors, lunatics, or drunkards +are void."</p> + +<p>A shout of laughter broke from the kind old man's lips, but he accepted +that, too. Oh, almost I could hear the cool hiss of the soda—but now not +another thing could I find. My face fell, my heart sank. Hitherto I had +been thinking of papers, now I frantically ran through stories. Suddenly +I cried: "A lead-pencil signature stands in law."</p> + +<p>But, alas! Uncle Dick hesitated—my authority was worthless. Oh, dear! +oh, dear! was I to lose my treat, just for lack of a little legal +knowledge? Sadly I remarked, "I guess I'll have to give it up, +unless—unless you'll take: 'Principals are responsible for their +agents,'" and, with pleasure beaming in his kind old eyes, he accepted +it.</p> + +<p>Ah, I can taste that vanilla soda yet—and, what is more, the old +gentleman took the trouble to find out about the legality of the +lead-pencil signature; and, as my statement had been correct, he took +great pains to make the fact known to all who had heard him question it, +and he added to my little store of knowledge, "that a contract made on +Sunday would not stand," which, by the way, later on, saved me from a +probably painful experience.</p> + +<p>I mention this to show that even my unadvised reading had not been +absolutely useless, I had learned a little about a variety of things; but +now, plays continually presented new subjects to me to think and read +about; thus "Venice Preserved" set me wild to find out what a <i>Doge</i> was, +and why Venice was so adored by her sons, and I straightway obtained a +book about the wonderful city—whose commerce, power of mart and +merchant may have departed, but whose mournful beauty is but hallowed by +her weakness.</p> + +<p>So many plays were produced, representing so many periods, so many +countries, I don't know how I should have satisfied my craving for the +books they led me to had not the Public Library opened just then. I was +so proud and happy the day my mother surprised me with half the price of +a membership, and happier yet when I had the right to enter there and +browse right and left, up and down, nibbling here, feeding long and +contentedly there. Oh, the delight of reading one book, with two or three +others in my lap; 'twas the pleasure of plenty, new to one who could have +spelled "economy" in her sleep.</p> + +<p>Then, again, if it is the Stage that is making you read, you have to keep +your eyes wide open and take note of many things. Some girls read just +for the sake of the story, they heed nothing but that, they are even +guilty of the impertinence of "skipping," "to get to the story more +quickly, you know." But if you are on the stage you understand, for +instance, that different kinds of furniture are used for different +periods and for different countries; so even the beginner knows, when she +sees the heavy old Flemish pieces of furniture standing on the stage in +the morning, that no modern play is on that night, and is equally sure +that the bringing out of the high tile-stove means a German interior is +in preparation. Therefore, if you read for the stage, you watch +carefully, not only Sir Thomas's doings, but his surroundings. If his +chair or desk or sideboard is described, you make a note of the "heavily +carved wood," or the "inlaid wood," or the "boule," or whatever it may +be, and then you note the date of the story, and you say to yourself: +"Ah, such and such furniture belongs to such a date and country."</p> + +<p>I once heard the company expressing their shocked amazement over the +velvet robes of some <i>Macbeth</i>. I could not venture to ask them why it +was so dreadful, but later I found some paper stating that velvet was +first known in the fifteenth century, and was confined to the use of the +priests or high ecclesiastical authorities—and my mind instantly grasped +the horror of the older actors at seeing <i>Macbeth</i> swathed in velvet in +the grim, almost barbaric Scotland of about 1012; for surely it was a +dreadful thing for an actor to wear velvet four hundred years ahead of +its invention.</p> + +<p>You never know just where the Stage is going to lead you in your search +for an education; only one thing you may be sure of, it will not keep you +very long to any one straight road, but will branch off in this direction +or in that, taking up some side issue, as it seems, like this matter of +furniture, and lo, you presently find it is becoming a most important and +interesting subject, well worth careful study. You come to believe you +could recognize the workmanship of the great cabinet-makers at sight. You +learn to shrink from misapplied ornament, you learn what gave rise to the +"veneering reign-of-terror," you bow at the name of Chippendale, and are +filled with wonder by the <i>cinque-cento</i> extravagance of beauty. You find +yourself tracing the rise and fall of dynasties through the chaste beauty +or the over-ornamentation of their cabinet work. If all that Sir Henry +Irving knows on this subject could be crowded into a single volume, the +book would have at least one fault—'twould be of most unwieldy size.</p> + +<p>Then holding you by the hand the Stage may next lead you through the +green and bosky places that the poets loved, and, having had your eyes +opened to natural beauties, lo! you go down another lane, and you are +learning about costumes, and suddenly you discover that "sumptuary laws" +once existed, confining the use of furs, velvets, laces, etc., to the +nobility. Fine woollens and linens, and gold and silver ornaments being +also reserved for the privileged orders. That the extravagant young maids +and beaux of the lower class who indulged in yellow starched-ruff, furred +mantle, or silver chain were made to pay a cruel price for their folly +in aping their betters. So it was well for me to make a note of the date +of the "sumptuary law," that I might not some day outrageously overdress +a character.</p> + +<p>It is a delightful study, that of costume—to learn how to drape the +toga, how to hang the peplum; to understand the meaning of a bit of +ribbon in the hair, whether as arranged in the three-banded fillet of the +Grecian girl or as the snood of the Scottish lassie; to know enough of +the cestus and the law governing its wearing, not to humiliate yourself +in adopting it on improper occasions; to have at least a bowing +acquaintance with all foot-gear, from sandals down to an Oxford tie; to +be able to scatter your puffed, slashed, or hanging sleeves over the +centuries, with their correct accompanying, small-close, large-round, or +square-upstanding ruffs. Why the mere detail of girdles and hanging +pouches, from distant queens down to "Faust's" <i>Gretchen</i>, was a joy in +itself.</p> + +<p>Then a girl who played pages, and other young boys, was naturally anxious +to know all about doublets, trunks, and hose, as well as Scottish +"philibeg and sporran." And wigs? I used to wonder if anyone could ever +learn all about wigs—and I'm wondering yet.</p> + +<p>But as one studies the coming and going of past fashions in garments, it +is amusing to note their influence upon the cabinet-makers, as it is +expressed in the changing shape of their chairs. For instance: when +panniers developed into farthingale and monstrous hoop, chairs, high and +narrow, widened, lowered their arms—dropped them entirely, making indeed +a fair start toward our own great easy-chair of to-day.</p> + +<p>I remember well what a jump my heart gave when in rooting about among +materials—their weaves and dyes—I came upon the term "samite." It's a +word that always thrills me, "samite, mystic, wonderful." Almost I was +afraid to read what might follow; but I need not have hesitated, since +the statement was that "samite" was supposed to have been a delicate web +of silk and gold or silver thread. How beautiful such a combination must +have been—white silk woven with threads of silver might well become +"mystic, wonderful," when wrapped about the chill, high beauty of an +Arthur's face.</p> + +<p>But hie and away, to armor and arms! for she would be but a poorly +equipped actress who had no knowledge of sword and buckler, of solid +armor, chain-mail, rings of metal on velvet, or of plain leather +jerkin—of scimitar, sword, broadsword, foil, dagger, dirk, stiletto, +creese.</p> + +<p>Oh, no! don't pull your hand away if the Stage wants to lead you among +arms and armor for a little while; be patient, for by and by it will take +you up, up into the high, clear place where Shakespeare dwells, and there +you may try your wings and marvel at the pleasure of each short upward +flight, for the loving student of Shakespeare always rises—never sinks. +Your power of insight grows clearer, stronger, and as you are lifted +higher and higher on the wings of imagination, more and more widely opens +the wonderful land beneath, more and more clearly the voices of its +people reach you. You catch their words and you treasure them, and by and +by, through much loving thought, you comprehend them, after which you can +no longer be an uneducated woman, since no man's wisdom is superior to +Shakespeare's, and no one gives of his wisdom more lavishly than he.</p> + +<p>Therefore, while a regular school-education is a thing to be thankful +for, the actress who has been denied it need not despair. If she be +willing to work, the Stage will educate her—nor will it curtly turn her +away at the end of a few years, telling her her "term" is ended. I clung +tightly to its hand for many a year, and was taken a little way through +music's halls, loitered for a time before the easel, and even made a +little rush at a foreign language to help me to the proper pronunciation +of names upon the stage; and no man, no woman all that time rose up to +call me ignorant. So I give all thanks and all honor to the profession +that not only fed and clothed me, but educated me too!</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWELFTH"></a>TWELFTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">The Peter Richings' Engagement brings me my First Taste of +Slander—Anent the Splendor of my Wardrobe, also my First Newspaper +Notice.</p></div> + + + +<p>I remember particularly that second season, because it brought to me the +first taste of slander, my first newspaper notice, and my first proposal +of marriage. The latter being, according to my belief, the natural result +of lengthening my skirts and putting up my hair—at all events, it was a +part of my education.</p> + +<p>Of course the question of wardrobe was a most important one still. I had +done very well, so far as peasant dresses of various nationalities were +concerned; I had even acquired a page's dress of my own, but I had no +ball-dress, nothing but a plain, skimpy white muslin gown, which I had +outgrown; for I had gained surprisingly in height with the passing year. +And, lo! the report went about that Mr. Peter Richings and his daughter +Caroline were coming in a fortnight, and they would surely do their play +"Fashion," in which everyone was on in a dance; and I knew everyone would +bring out her best for that attraction, for you must know that actresses +in a stock company grade their costumes by the stars, and only bring out +the very treasures of their wardrobes on state occasions. I was in great +distress; one of my mates had a genuine silk dress, the other owned a +bunch of artificial gold grapes, horribly unbecoming, stiff things, but, +mercy, gold grapes! who cared whether they were becoming or not? Were +they not gorgeous (a lady star had given them to her)? And I would have +to drag about, heavy-footed, in a skimpy muslin!</p> + +<p>But in the company there was a lady who had three charming little +children. She was the singing soubrette (by name Mrs. James Dickson). One +of her babies became sick, and I sometimes did small bits of shopping or +other errands for her, thus permitting her to go at once from rehearsal +to her beloved babies. Entering her room from one of these errands, I +found her much vexed and excited over the destruction of one of a set of +fine new lace curtains. The nursemaid had carelessly set it on fire. Of +course Mrs. Dickson would have to buy two more curtains to replace them; +and now, with the odd one in her hand, she started toward her trunk, +paused doubtfully, and finally said to me: "Could you use this curtain +for some small window or something, Clara?"</p> + +<p>At her very first word a dazzling possibility presented itself to my +mind. With burning cheeks, I answered: "Oh, yes, ma'am, I—I can use it, +but not at a window, I'm afraid." Her bonnie face flashed into smiles.</p> + +<p>"All right; take it along, then!" she cried, "and do what you like with +it. It's only been up two days, and has not a mark on it."</p> + +<p>I fairly flew from the house. I sang, as I made my way uptown to buy +several yards of rose-pink paper cambric and a half garland of +American-made artificial roses. Then I sped home and, behind locked +doors, measured and cut and snipped, and, regardless of possible +accident, held about a gill of pins in my mouth while I hummed over my +work. All my fears were gone, they had fled before the waving white +curtain, which fortunately for me was of fine meshed net, carrying for +design unusually small garlands of roses and daisies. And when the great +night came, I appeared as one of the ball guests in a pink under-slip, +with white lace overdress, whose low waist was garlanded with wild roses. +So, happy at heart and light of foot, I danced with the rest, my pink and +white gown ballooning about me in the courtesies with as much rustle and +glow of color as though it had been silk.</p> + +<p>But, alas! the imitation was too good a one! The pretty, cheap little +gown I was so happy over attracted the attention of a woman whose whisper +meant scandal, whose lifted brow was an innuendo, whose drooped lid was +an accusation. Like a carrion bird she fed best upon corruption. Thank +Heaven! this cruel creature, hated by the men, feared by the women, was +not an actress, but through mistaken kindness she had been made wardrobe +woman, where, as Mr. Ellsler once declared, she spent her time in ripping +up and destroying the reputation of his actors instead of making and +repairing their wardrobes.</p> + +<p>That nothing was too small to catch her pale, cold eye is proved by the +fact that even a ballet-girl's dress received her attention. Next day, +after the play "Fashion" had been done, this woman was saying: "That +girl's mother had better be looking after her conduct, I think!"</p> + +<p>"Why, what on earth has Clara done?" asked her listener.</p> + +<p>"Done!" she cried, "didn't you see her flaunting herself around the stage +last night in silks and laces no honest girl could own? Where did the +money come from that paid for such finery?"</p> + +<p>A few days later a woman who boarded in the house favored by the +mischief-maker happened to meet Mrs. Dickson, happily for me, and said, +<i>en passant</i>: "Which one of your ballet-girls is it who has taken to +dressing with so much wicked extravagance? I wonder Mrs. Ellsler don't +notice it."</p> + +<p>Now Mrs. Dickson was Scotch, generous, and "unco" quick-tempered, and +after she had put the inquiring friend right, she visited her wrath upon +the originator of the slander in person, and verily the Scottish burr was +on her tongue, and her "r's" rolled famously while she explained the +component parts of that extravagant costume: window curtain—her +gift—and paper cambric and artificial flowers to the cost of one dollar +and seventy-five cents; "and you'll admit," she cried, "that even the +purse of a 'gude lass' can stand sic a strain as that; and what's mair, +you wicked woman, had the girl been worse dressed than the others, you +would ha' been the first to call attention to her as slovenly and +careless."</p> + +<p>This was the first drop of scandal expressed especially for me, and I not +only found the taste bitter—very bitter—but learned that it had +wonderful powers of expansion, and that the odor it gives off is rather +pleasant in the nostrils of everyone save its object.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dickson, who, by the way, is still doing good work professionally, +has doubtless forgotten the entire incident, curtain and all, but she +never will forget the bonnie baby-girl she lost that summer, and she will +remember me because I loved the little one—that's a mother's way.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peter B. Richings was that joy of the actor's heart—a character. He +had been accounted a very fine actor in his day, but he was a very old +man when I saw him, and his powers were much impaired. Six feet tall, +high-featured, Roman-nosed, elegantly dressed; a term from bygone +days—and not disrespectfully used—describes him perfectly: he was an +"old Buck!"</p> + +<p>His immeasurable pride made him hide a stiffening of the joints under the +forced jauntiness of his step, while a trembling of the head became in +him only a sort of debonair senility at worst. Arrogant, short-tempered, +and a veritable martinet, he nevertheless possessed an unbending dignity +and a certain crabbed courtliness of manner very suggestive of the +snuff-box and ruffle period of a hundred years before.</p> + +<p>His daughter, by adoption, was the object of his unqualified worship—no +other word can possibly express his attitude toward her. No heavenly +choir could have charmed him as she did when she sang, while her +intellectual head and marble-cold face seemed beautiful beyond compare in +his eyes. Really it was worth going far to see him walk through a +quadrille with her. His bow was a thing for young actors to dream of, +while with trembling head, held high in air, he advanced and retreated, +executing antiquated "steps" with a grace that deprived them of +comicality, while his air of arrogant superiority changed instantly to +profound homage whenever in the movement of the figures he met his +daughter.</p> + +<p>His pronunciation of her name was as a flourish of trumpets—Car-o-line! +Each syllable distinct, the "C" given with great fulness, and the +emphasis on the first syllable when pleased, but heavily placed upon the +last when he was annoyed.</p> + +<p>He was unconscionably vain of his likeness to Washington, and there were +few Friday nights, this being considered the fashionable evening of the +week, that he failed to present his allegorical picture of Washington +receiving the homage of the States, while Miss Richings, as <i>Columbia</i>, +sang the "Star-Spangled Banner," the States joining in the chorus.</p> + +<p>In this tableau the circular opening in the flat, backed by a sky-drop +and with blue clouds hanging about the opening, represented heaven. And +here, at an elevation, Washington stood at the right, with <i>Columbia</i> and +her flag on his left, while the States, represented by the ladies of the +company, stood in lines up and down the stage, quite outside of heaven.</p> + +<p>Now a most ridiculous story anent Mr. Richings and this heaven of his was +circulating through the entire profession. Some of our company refused to +believe it, declaring it a mere spiteful skit against his well-known +exclusiveness; but that gentleman who had wished to send me for an +"Ibid," being an earnest seeker after knowledge, determined to test the +truth of the story. Therefore, after we had been carefully rehearsed in +the music and had been informed by the star that only Car-O-line and +himself were to stand back of that skylike opening, this "inquiring" +person gave one of the extra girls fifty cents to go at night before the +curtain rose and take her stand on the forbidden spot. She took the money +and followed directions exactly, and when Mr. Richings, as <i>Washington</i>, +made his pompous way to the stage, he stood a moment in speechless wrath, +and then, trembling with anger, he stamped his foot, and waving his arm, +cried: "Go a-way! Go a-way! you very presuming young person; this is +heaven, and I told you this morning that only my daughter Car-O-line and +I could possibly stand in heaven!"</p> + +<p>It was enough; the "inquiring one" was rolling about with joy at his +work. He had taken a rise out of the old gentleman and proved the truth +of the story which had gone abroad in the land as to this claim of all +heaven for himself and his Car-O-line.</p> + +<p>I naturally remember these stars with great clearness, since it was for a +small part in one of their plays that I received my first newspaper +notice. Imagine my incredulous joy when I was told of this journalistic +feat—unheard of before—of praising the work of a ballet-girl. +Suspecting a joke, I did not obtain a paper until late in the day, and +after I had several times been told of it. Then I ventured forth, bought +a copy of the <i>Herald</i>, and lo, before my dazzled eyes appeared my own +name. Ah, few critics, with their best efforts, have thrown as rosy a +light upon the world as did Mr. Jake Sage with his trite ten-word +statement: "Clara Morris played the small part allotted to her well."</p> + +<p>My heart throbbed hard, I seemed to catch a glimpse, through the rosy +light, of a far-away Temple of Fame, and this notice was like a petal +blown to me from the roses that wreathed its portals. Could I ever, ever +reach them!</p> + +<p>"Played the small part allotted to her well." "Oh," I cried aloud, "I +will try to do everything well—I will, indeed!" and then I cut the +notice out and folded it in a sheet of paper, and put both in an envelope +and pinned that fast to my pocket, that I might take it to my mother, who +was very properly impressed, and was a long time reading its few words, +and was more than a trifle misty about the eyes when she gave it back to +me. Looking at them now, the words seem rather dry and scant, but then +they had all the sweetness, life, and color of a June rose—the most +perfect thing of God's bounteous giving.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTEENTH"></a>THIRTEENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as "That Young Woman," to My + Great Joy—I Issue the "Clara Code"—I Receive my +First Offer of Marriage.</p> +</div> + +<p>My mother, moved at last by my highly colored accounts of the +humiliations brought upon me by the shortness of my skirts, consented to +their lengthening, and though I knew she had meant them to stop at my +shoe-tops, I basely allowed a misunderstanding to arise with the +dress-maker, through which my new dress came home the full length of the +grown-ups, and though my conscience worried me a bit, I still snatched a +fearful joy from my stolen dignity, and many a day I walked clear up to +Superior Street that I might slowly pass the big show-windows and enjoy +the reflection therein of my long dress-skirt. Of course I could not +continue to wear my hair <i>à la</i> pigtail, and that went up in the then +fashionable chignon.</p> + +<p>Few circumstances in my life have given me such unalloyed satisfaction as +did my first proposal of marriage. I should, however, be more exact if I +spoke of an "attempted proposal," for it was not merely interrupted, but +was simply mangled out of all likeness to sentiment or romance. The party +of the first part in this case was Mr. Frank Murdoch, who later on became +the author of "Davy Crockett," the play that did so much toward the +making and the unmaking of the reputation of that brilliant actor, the +late Frank Mayo. He was the adoring elder brother of that successful +young Harry Murdoch who was to meet such an awful fate in the Brooklyn +Theatre fire. Neither of them, by the way, were born to the name of +Murdoch; they were the sons of James E.'s sister, and when, in spite of +his advice and warning, they decided to become actors, they added insult +to injury, as it were, by demanding of him the use of his name—their own +being a particularly unattractive one for a play-bill. He let them plead +long and hard before he yielded and allowed them to take for life the +name of Murdoch—which as a trade-mark, and quite aside from sentiment, +had a real commercial value to these young fellows who had yet to prove +their individual personal worth.</p> + +<p>Frank was very young—indeed, our united ages would have barely reached +thirty-six. He had good height, a good figure, and an air of gentle +breeding; otherwise he was unattractive, and yet he bore a striking +resemblance to his uncle, James Murdoch, who had a fine head and most +regular features. But through some caprice of nature in the nephew those +same features received a touch of exaggeration here, or a slight twist +there, with the odd result of keeping the resemblance to the uncle +intact, while losing all his beauty. Frank had a quixotic sense of honor +and a warm and generous heart, but being extremely sensitive as to his +personal defects he was often led into bursts of temper, during which he +frequently indulged in the most childish follies. These outbreaks were +always brief, and ever followed by deep contrition, so that he was +generally regarded as a very clever, spoiled child.</p> + +<p>Poor boy! his life was as sad as it was short. There may be few who +remember him now, but a woman never forgets the man who first pays a +compliment to her eyes, nor can I forget the first man who handed me a +chair and opened and closed doors for me, just as for any grown-up.</p> + +<p>He joined the company in about the middle of that season in which I acted +principally as utility man. He was to play singing parts and young +lovers, and, to his amusement, I criticized his reading of one of +<i>Cassio's</i> speeches. Our wrangle over Shakespeare made friends of us at +once. He had a veritable passion for poetry, and with me he felt free to +bring out his beautiful hobby to mount and ride and ride, with some of +the great poets up behind and me for applauding audience. When he wanted +me to know some special poem he bought it for me if he could; but if he +was short of money, he carefully copied out its every line, tied the +manuscript neatly up with ribbon, and presented the poem in that form. I +came across a copy of "Maud Muller" the other day in Frank's clear, even +handwriting. The paper was yellow, the ribbon faded. Frank is gone, +Whittier is gone, but "Maud Muller" lives on in her immortal youth and +pain.</p> + +<p>But the morning when he first brought and offered me a chair was nothing +less than an epoch in my life. At first I regarded the act as an +aspersion on my strength—a doubt cast upon my ability to obtain a seat +for myself. Then, as I glanced frowningly into his face, I suddenly +realized that it was meant as a mark of consideration—the courtesy a man +shows a woman. A glow of satisfaction spread through my being. I hated to +rise, I was so afraid the thing might never happen to me again. I need +not have worried, however, as I was soon to receive a more impressive +proof of his consideration for my welfare.</p> + +<p>One of the most unpleasant experiences in the life of a young actress is +her frightened lonely rush through the city streets at twelve o'clock at +night to reach her boarding-house and claim sanctuary. I doubt if even a +Una and her lion could pass unmolested through those streets dotted with +all-night "free and easys," where, by the way, nothing is free but the +poisonous air, and nothing easy but the language. At all events from my +own varied and unpleasant experiences, and from the stories of others, I +had first drawn certain deductions, then I had proceeded to establish +certain rules for the guidance and direction of any girl who was so +unfortunate as to be forced to walk abroad unattended at night. These +rules became known as "Clara's Code," and were highly approved, +especially by those girls who "couldn't think," as they declared, but +stood stock-still, "too frightened to move," when some wanderer of the +night unceremoniously addressed them.</p> + +<p>I cannot remember all those rules now, since for these many years God has +granted me a protector, but from the few I can recall I am convinced that +their principal object was to gain plenty of leeway for the persecuted +girl's escape. No. 3 sternly forbade her ever, <i>ever</i> to pass between two +advancing men—at night, of course, be it understood—lest they might +seize hold of and so frighten her to death. She was advised never to +permit herself to take the inside of the walk when meeting a stranger, +who might thus crowd her against the house and cut off her chance to run. +Never to pass the opening to an alley-way without placing the entire +width of the walk between her and it, and always to keep her eyes on it +as she crossed. Never to let any man pass her from behind on the outside +was insisted on, indeed she should take to the street itself first. She +was not to answer a drunken man, no matter what might be the nature of +his speech. She was not to scream—if she could help it—for fear of +public humiliation, but if the worst came and some hideous prowler of the +night passed from speech to actual attack, then she was to forget her +ladyhood and remembering only the tenderness of the male shin and her +right of self-defence, to kick like a colt till help came or she was +released.</p> + +<p>Other portions of the code I have forgotten, but I do distinctly remember +that it wound up with the really Hoyle-like observation, "When in doubt, +take to the centre of the street."</p> + +<p>We all know the magic power of the moonlight—have seen it transmute the +commonest ugliness into perfect beauty and change a world-worn woman into +the veriest lily-maid, but how few know the dread power exerted over man +by the street gaslight after midnight. The kindest old drake of the +farm-pond, the most pompously harmless gobbler of the buckwheat-field +becomes a vulture beneath the midnight street-light. A man who would +shoot for being called a blackguard between seven o'clock in the morning +and twelve at night, often becomes one after midnight. It is frequently +said that "words break no bones," but let a young girl pass alone through +the city streets a few nights and she will probably hear words that, +drowning her in shamed blushes, will go far toward breaking her pride, if +not her bones. Men seem to be creatures of very narrow margin—they so +narrowly escape being gods, and they so much more narrowly escape being +animals. Under the sunlight, man, made in the image of God, lifts his +face heavenward and walks erect; under the street-lamps of midnight he is +stealthy, he prowls, he is a visible destruction! You think I exaggerate +the matter? Do not; I speak from experience. And, what is more, at that +time I had not yet learned what the streets of New York could produce +after midnight.</p> + +<p>But on the night after the chair episode, Frank Murdoch heard one of the +girls say she had used the Clara Code very successfully the night before, +when two drunken men had reeled out of an alley, who would have collided +with her had she not followed the rule and kept the whole sidewalk +between them. He stood at the door as I came down-stairs, and as soon as +I reached him he asked, sharply: "Do you go home alone of nights?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he muttered.</p> + +<p>After a pause I looked up at him, and met his eyes shining wet and blue +through two tears. "Oh," I hastily added, "there's nothing to be afraid +of."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could agree with you," he answered. "Tell me," he went on, +"have you ever been annoyed by anyone?"</p> + +<p>My eyes fell, I knew I was growing red.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he said again, then, suddenly, he ordered: "Give me that +bag—you'll not go through these streets alone again while I am here! +Never mind the distance. I don't see why you can't take my arm."</p> + +<p>And thus I found myself for the first time escorted by a gentleman, and +after my hot embarrassment wore off a bit, I held my head very high and +languidly allowed my skirt to trail in the dust, and said to myself: +"This is like a real grown-up—surely they can't call me 'child' much +longer now."</p> + +<p>The star playing with us just then was a tragedian, but he was a very +little man, whose air of alertness, even of aggressiveness, had won for +him the title of "Cocky" Roberts. He wore enormously high heels, he had +thick cork soles on the outside and thick extra soles on the inside of +all his boots and shoes. His wigs were slightly padded at their +tops—everything possible was done for a gain in height, while all the +time he was sputtering and swearing at what he called "this cursed cult +of legs!"</p> + +<p>"Look at 'em!" he snorted—for he did snort like a horse when he was +angry, as he often was, at the theatre at least. "Look at 'em, Ellsler; +there's Murdoch, Proctor, Davenport, all gone to legs, damn 'em, and +calling themselves actors! You don't look for brains in a man's legs, do +you? No! no! it's the cranium that tells! Yes, blast 'em! Let 'em come +here and match craniums with me, that they think it smart to call +'Cocky'! They're a lot of theatrical tongs—all legs and no heads!"</p> + +<p>And yet the poor, fuming little man, with his exaggerated strut, would +have given anything short of his life, to have added even a few inches to +his anatomy, the brevity of which was quite forgotten by the public when +he gave his really brilliant and pathetic performance of "Belphegor," one +of the earliest of the so-called "emotional" plays.</p> + +<p>I have a very kindly remembrance of that fretful little star, because +when they were discussing the cast of a play, one of those tormenting +parts turned up that are of great importance to the piece, but of no +importance themselves. Capable actresses refuse to play them, and +incapable ones create havoc in them. This one had already been refused, +when Mr. Roberts suddenly exclaimed: "Who was it made those announcements +last night? She spoke with beautiful distinctness; let <i>that</i> young woman +have the part, she'll do it all right."</p> + +<p>Oh, dear Mr. Roberts! never "Cocky" to me! Oh, wise little judge! how I +did honor him for those precious words: "Let that young woman have the +part." That "<i>young woman</i>!" I could have embraced him for very +gratitude—a part <i>and</i> the term "young woman," and since, as my old +washerwoman used to say, "it never rains but it pours," while these two +words were still making music in my ears, by some flash of intuition I +realized that I was being courted by Frank. The discovery filled me with +the utmost satisfaction. I gave no thought to him, in a sentimental way, +either then or ever; quite selfishly I thought only of my own gain in +dignity and importance, for I started out in life with the old-fashioned +idea that a man honored a woman by his courtship, and I knew naught of +the lover who "loves and rides away." Yet in a few days the curious +cat-like instinct of the unconscious coquette awakened in me, and I began +very gently to try my claws.</p> + +<p>I wished very much to know if he were jealous, as I had been told that +real lovers were always so; and, naturally, I did not wish mine to fall +short of any of the time-honored attributes of loverdom. Therefore I, one +morning, selected for experimental use a man whose volume of speech was a +terror to all. Had he been put to the sword, he would have talked to the +swordsman till the final blow cut his speech. He was most unattractive, +too, in appearance, being one of those actors who get shaved after +rehearsal instead of before it, thus gaining a reputation for untidiness +that facts may not always justify—but he served my purpose all the +better for that.</p> + +<p>I deliberately placed myself at his side; I was only a ballet-girl, but I +had two good ears—I was welcome. Conversation, or rather the monologue, +burst forth. Standing at the side of the stage, with rehearsal going on, +he of course spoke low. I watched for Frank's arrival. He came, I heard +his cheery "Good-morning, ladies! good-morning, gentlemen!" and then he +started toward me, but I heard nothing, saw nothing of <i>him</i>. My upraised +eyes, as wide as I possibly could make them, were fixed upon the face of +the talker. Yet, with a jump of the heart, I knew the brightness had gone +from Frank's face, the spring from his step. I smiled as sweetly as I +knew how; I seemed to hang upon the words of the untidy one, and oh! if +Frank could only have known what those words were; how I was being +assured that he, the speaker, had that very morning succeeded in stopping +a leaky hole in his shoe by melting a piece of india-rubber over and on +it, and that not a drop of water had penetrated when he had walked +through the rain-puddles; and right there, like music, there came to my +listening ear a word of four letters—a forbidden word, but one full of +consolation to the distressed male; a word beginning with "d," and for +fear that you may think it was "dear," why, I will be explicit and say +that it was "damn!" and that it was from the anger-whitened lips of +Frank, who during the morning gave not only to me, but to all lookers-on, +most convincing proof of his jealousy, and that was the beginning of my +experiments.</p> + +<p>I did this, to see if it would make him angry. I did that, to see if it +would please him. Sometimes I scratched him with my investigating claws, +then I was sorry—truly sorry, because I was grateful always for his +gentle goodness to me, and never meant to hurt him. But he represented +the entire sex to me, and I was learning all I could, thinking, as I once +told him, that the knowledge might be useful on the stage some time, and +I wondered at the very fury my words provoked in him.</p> + +<p>We quarrelled sometimes like spiteful children, as when I, startled into +laughter by hearing his voice break in a speech, unfortunately excused +myself by saying: "It was just like a young rooster, you know!" and he, +white with anger, cried: "You're a solid mass of rudeness, to laugh at a +misfortune; you have no breeding!"</p> + +<p>This brought from me the rejoinder: "I know it, but you would have shown +better breeding yourself had you not told me of it!"</p> + +<p>And then he was on his knee in the entrance, begging forgiveness, and +saying his "cursed, cracking voice made a madman of him!"</p> + +<p>As it really did, for he often accused people of guying him if they did +but clear their own throats. And so we went on till something in his +manner—his increased efforts to find me alone at rehearsal, for as I was +without a room-mate in Columbus, I could not receive him at home, and I +truly think he would have kept silence forever rather than have urged me +to break any conventional rule of propriety—this something gave me the +idea that Frank was going to be—well—explicit, that—that—I was going +to be proposed to according to established form.</p> + +<p>Now, though a proposal of marriage is a thing to look forward to with +desire, to look back upon with pride, it is also a thing to avoid when it +is in the immediate future, and I so successfully evaded his efforts to +find me alone, at the theatre or at some friend's house, that he was +forced at last to speak at night, while escorting me home.</p> + +<p>I lodged in a quiet little street, opening out of the busier, more noisy +Kinsman Street. In our front yard there lived a large, greedy old tree, +which had planted its foot firmly in the very middle of the path, thus +forcing everyone to <i>chassé</i> around it who wished to enter the house. Its +newly donned summer greenery extended far over the gate, and as the moon +shone full and fair the "set" was certainly appropriate.</p> + +<p>We reached the gate, and I held out my hand for my bag—that small +catch-all of a bag that, in the hand of the actress, is the outward and +visible sign of her profession; but he let the bag slip to the walk and +caught my hand in his. The street was deserted. Leaning against the gate +beneath the sheltering boughs of the old tree, the midnight silence all +about us, he began to speak earnestly.</p> + +<p>I made a frantic search through my mind for something to say presently, +when my turn would come to speak. I rejected instantly the ancient wail +of "suddenness." Frank's temper did not encourage an offer of +"sisterhood." I was just catching joyously at the idea of hiding behind +the purely imaginary opposition of my mother, when Frank's words: "Then, +too, dear heart! I could protect you, and—" were interrupted by a yowl, +so long, so piercing, it seemed to rise like a rocket of anguish into the +summer sky.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I thought, "that's one-eared Jim from next door, and if our Simmons +hears him—and he'd have to be dead not to hear—he will come out to +fight him!" I clenched my teeth, I dropped my eyes that Frank might not +see the threatening laughter there. I noted how much whiter his hand was +than mine, as they were clasped in the moonlight. The pause had been +long; then, very gently, he started again: "Mignonne!"</p> + +<p>Distinctly I heard the thump of Simmons's body dropping from the +porch-roof. "Mignonne, look up! you big-eyed child, and tell me that I +may go to your mother with your promise!"</p> + +<p>"Mi-au! Mi-au! Wow! Spit! Spit! Wow!" Four balls of fire glowed for a +moment beneath the tree, then two dark forms became one dark form, that +whirled and bounded through space, emitting awful sounds. The cats were +too much for me, I threw back my head and laughed.</p> + +<p>My laugh was too much for Frank. His temper broke, he flung my hand away, +crying out: "Laugh, you little idiot! You're worse than the animals, for +they at least know no better! Laugh till morning, if you like!" and then +I'm sorry to say it, but he kicked my bag, the precious insignia of my +profession, and rushed down the street, leaving me standing there amid +the débris of the wrecked proposal.</p> + +<p>Next night he frigidly presented himself to escort me home, and when I +coldly declined his company, he turned silently and left me. Truth to +tell, I did not enjoy my walk alone, through the market-place in +particular, and I planned to unbend a little the next evening; but I was +much piqued to find myself without an excuse for unbending, since on the +next evening he did not offer his company. The third night there was a +big lump in my throat, and the tears would have fallen had they not been +suddenly dried in my eyes by the sight of a familiar light-gray suit +slipping along close to the houses on the other side of the way. +Petulant, irritable, loyal-hearted boy! he had safe-guarded me both those +nights when I thought I was alone! My heart was warm with gratitude +toward him, and when I reached my gate, and passed inside, I called +across the street: "Thank you, Frank! Good-night!"</p> + +<p>And he laughed and answered: "Good-night, Mignonne!"</p> + +<p>And so it came about that Frank's wooing, being of the strict and stately +order, I gradually came to be Miss Morris to others beside himself. I saw +my advance in dignity, and if I did not love him I gave him profound +gratitude, and we were true friends his short and honorable life +through.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="FOURTEENTH"></a>FOURTEENTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">Mr. Wilkes Booth comes to us, the whole Sex Loves him—Mr. Ellsler +Compares him to his Great Father—Our Grief and Horror over the Awful +Tragedy at Washington.</p></div> + + + + +<p>In glancing back over those two crowded and busy seasons one figure +stands out with such clearness and beauty that I cannot resist the +impulse to speak of him, rather than of my own inconsequential self. In +his case only (so far as my personal knowledge goes) there was nothing +derogatory to dignity or to manhood in being called beautiful, for he was +that bud of splendid promise, blasted to the core before its full +triumphant blooming—known to the world as a madman and an assassin—but +to the profession as "that unhappy boy," John Wilkes Booth.</p> + +<p>He was so young, so bright, so gay, so kind. I could not have known him +well. Of course, too, there are two or three different people in every +man's skin, yet when we remember that stars are not generally in the +habit of showing their brightest, their best side to the company at +rehearsal, we cannot help feeling both respect and liking for the one who +does.</p> + +<p>There are not many men who can receive a gash over the eye in a scene at +night without at least a momentary outburst of temper, but when the +combat between <i>Richard</i> and <i>Richmond</i> was being rehearsed, Mr. Booth +had again and again urged Mr. McCollom (that six-foot tall and handsome +leading man, who entrusted me with the care of his watch during such +encounters) to "Come on hard! Come on hot! Hot, old fellow! +Harder—faster!" He'd take the chance of a blow, if only they could make +a hot fight of it.</p> + +<p>And Mr. McCollom, who was a cold man, at night became nervous in his +effort to act like a fiery one. He forgot he had struck the full number +of head blows, and when Booth was pantingly expecting a thrust, McCollom, +wielding his sword with both hands, brought it down with awful force fair +across Booth's forehead. A cry of horror rose, for in one moment his face +was masked in blood, one eyebrow being cut cleanly through. There came, +simultaneously, one deep groan from <i>Richard</i>, and the exclamation: "Oh, +good God! good God!" from <i>Richmond</i>, who stood shaking like a leaf and +staring at his work. Then Booth, flinging the blood from his eyes with +his left hand, said, as genially as man could speak: "That's all right, +old man! never mind me—only come on hard, for God's sake, and save the +fight!"</p> + +<p>Which he resumed at once, and though he was perceptibly weakened, it +required the sharp order of Mr. Ellsler to "ring the first curtain bell," +to force him to bring the fight to a close, a single blow shorter than +usual. Then there was a running to and fro, with ice and vinegar paper +and raw steak and raw oysters. When the doctor had placed a few stitches +where they were most required, he laughingly declared there was provision +enough in the room to start a restaurant. Mr. McCollom came to try to +apologize, to explain, but Booth would have none of it; he had out his +hand, crying: "Why, old fellow, you look as if <i>you</i> had lost the blood. +Don't worry. Now if my eye had gone, that <i>would</i> have been bad!" And so, +with light words, he tried to set the unfortunate man at ease, and though +he must have suffered much mortification as well as pain from the eye, +that in spite of all endeavors would blacken, he never made a sign.</p> + +<p>He was, like his great elder brother, rather lacking in height, but his +head and throat, and the manner of its rising from his shoulders, were +truly beautiful. His coloring was unusual, the ivory pallor of his skin, +the inky blackness of his densely thick hair, the heavy lids of his +glowing eyes, were all Oriental, and they gave a touch of mystery to his +face when it fell into gravity; but there was generally a flash of white +teeth behind his silky mustache, and a laugh in his eyes.</p> + +<p>One thing I shall never cease to admire him for. When a man has placed a +clean and honest name in his wife's care for life, about the most +stupidly wicked use she can make of it is as a signature to a burst of +amatory flattery, addressed to an unknown actor, who will despise her for +her trouble. Some women may shrivel as though attacked with "peach-leaf +curl" when they hear how these silly letters are sometimes passed about +and laughed at. "No gentleman would so betray a confidence!" Of course +not; but once when I made that remark to an actor, who was then flaunting +the food his vanity fed upon, he roughly answered: "And no <i>lady</i> would +so address an unknown man. She cast away her right to respectful +consideration when she thrust that letter in the box." That was brutal; +but there are those who think like him this very day, and oh, foolish +tamperers with fire, who act like him!</p> + +<p>Now it is scarcely an exaggeration to say the sex was in love with John +Booth, the name Wilkes being apparently unknown to his family and close +friends. At depot restaurants those fiercely unwilling maiden-slammers of +plates and shooters of coffee-cups made to him swift and gentle offerings +of hot steaks, hot biscuits, hot coffee, crowding round him like doves +about a grain basket, leaving other travellers to wait upon themselves or +go without refreshment. At the hotels, maids had been known to enter his +room and tear asunder the already made-up bed, that the "turn-over" might +be broader by a thread or two, and both pillows slant at the perfectly +correct angle. At the theatre, good heaven! as the sunflowers turn upon +their stalks to follow the beloved sun, so old or young, our faces +smiling, turned to him. Yes, old or young, for the little daughter of the +manager, who played but the <i>Duke of York</i> in "Richard III.," came to +the theatre each day, each night of the engagement, arrayed in her best +gowns, and turned on him fervid eyes that might well have served for +<i>Juliet</i>. The manager's wife, whose sternly aggressive virtue no one +could doubt or question, with the aid of art waved and fluffed her hair, +and softened thus her too hard line of brow, and let her keen black eyes +fill with friendly sparkles for us all—yet, 'twas because of him. And +when the old woman made to threaten him with her finger, and he caught +her lifted hand, and uncovering his bonnie head, stooped and kissed it, +then came the wanton blood up in her cheek as she had been a girl again.</p> + +<p>His letters then from flirtatious women, and, alas! girls, you may well +believe were legion. A cloud used to gather upon his face at sight of +them. I have of course no faintest idea that he lived the godly, +righteous, and sober life that is enjoined upon us all, but I do remember +with respect that this idolized man, when the letters were many and +rehearsal already on, would carefully cut off every signature and utterly +destroy them, then pile the unread letters up, and, I don't know what +their final end was, but he remarked with knit brows, as he caught me +watching him at his work one morning: "They," pointing to the pile of +mutilated letters, "they are harmless now, little one; their sting lies +in the tail!" and when a certain free and easy actor, laughingly picked +up a very elegantly written note, and said: "I can read it, can't I, now +the signature is gone?" He answered, shortly: "The woman's folly is no +excuse for our knavery—lay the letter down, please!"</p> + +<p>I played the <i>Player-Queen</i> to my great joy, and in the "Marble Heart" I +was one of the group of three statues in the first act. We were supposed +to represent <i>Lais</i>, <i>Aspasia</i>, and <i>Phryne</i>, and when we read the cast, +I glanced at the other girls (we were not strikingly handsome), and +remarked, gravely: "Well, it's a comfort to know that we look so like the +three beautiful Grecians."</p> + +<p>A laugh at our backs brought us around suddenly to face Mr. Booth, who +said to me: "You satirical little wretch, how do you come to know these +Grecian ladies? Perhaps you have the advantage of them in being +all-beautiful within?"</p> + +<p>"I wish it would strike outward, then," I answered; "you know it's always +best to have things come to the surface!"</p> + +<p>"I know some very precious things are hidden from common sight, and I +know, too, you caught my meaning in the first place; good-night." And he +left us.</p> + +<p>We had been told to descend to the stage at night with our white robes +hanging free and straight, that Mr. Booth himself might drape them as we +stood upon the pedestal. It really is a charming picture, that of the +statues in the first act. Against a backing of black velvet, the three +white figures, carefully posed, strongly lighted, stand out so +marble-like, that when they slowly turn their faces and point to their +chosen master, the effect is uncanny enough to chill the looker-on.</p> + +<p>Well, with white wigs, white tights, and white robes, and half strangled +with the powder we had inhaled in our efforts to make our lips stay +white, we cautiously descended the stairs. We dared not talk, we dared +not blink our eyes, for fear of disturbing the coat of powder; we were +lifted to the pedestal and took our places as we expected to stand. Then +Mr. Booth came, such a picture in his Greek garments as made even the men +exclaim at him, and began to pose us. It happened that one of us had very +good limbs, one medium good, and the third had apparently walked on +broom-sticks. When Mr. Booth slightly raised the drapery of No. 3, his +features gave a twist as though he had suddenly tasted lemon-juice, but, +quick as a flash, he said: "I believe I'll advance you to the centre, for +the stately and wise <i>Aspasia</i>." The central figure wore her draperies +hanging straight to her feet, hence the "advance" and consequent +concealment of the unlovely limbs. It was quickly and kindly done, for +the girl was not only spared mortification, but in the word "advance" +she saw a compliment, and was happy accordingly. Then my turn came; my +arm was placed about <i>Aspasia</i>, my head bent and turned and twisted, my +right hand curved upon my breast, so that the forefinger touched my chin; +I felt I was a personified simper, but I was silent and patient until the +arrangement of my draperies began—then I squirmed anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Take care, take care!" he cautioned, "you will sway the others if you +move!" But, in spite of the risk of my marble make-up, I faintly groaned: +"Oh, dear! must it be like that?"</p> + +<p>Regardless of the pins in the corner of his mouth, he burst into +laughter, and taking a photograph from the bosom of his Greek shirt, he +said: "I expected a protest from you, miss, so I came prepared; don't +move your head, but just look at this."</p> + +<p>He held the picture of a group of statuary up to me: "This is you on the +right; it's not so dreadful, now, is it?" and I cautiously murmured, that +if I wasn't any worse than that I wouldn't mind.</p> + +<p>And so we were all satisfied and our statue scene was very successful.</p> + +<p>Next morning I saw Mr. Booth come running out of the theatre on his way +to the telegraph office at the corner, and right in the middle of the +walk, staring about him, stood a child—a small roamer of the stony +streets, who had evidently got far enough beyond his native ward to +arouse misgivings as to his personal safety, and at the very moment he +stopped to consider matters, Mr. Booth dashed out of the stage-door and +added to his bewilderment by capsizing him completely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good Lord! Baby, are you hurt?" exclaimed Mr. Booth, pausing +instantly to pick up the dirty, touselled, small heap and stand it on its +bandy legs again.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry, little chap!" and the aforesaid little chap not only ceased +to cry but gave him a damp and grimy smile, at which the actor bent +toward him quickly, but paused, took out his handkerchief, and first +carefully wiping the dirty little nose and mouth, stooped and kissed him +heartily, put some change in each freckled paw, and continued his run to +the telegraph office.</p> + +<p>He knew of no witness to the act. To kiss a pretty, clean child under the +approving eyes of mamma might mean nothing but politeness, but surely it +required the prompting of a warm and tender heart to make a young and +thoughtless man feel for and caress such a dirty, forlorn bit of babyhood +as that.</p> + +<p>Of his work, I suppose I was too young and too ignorant to judge +correctly, but I remember well hearing the older members of the company +express their opinions. Mr. Ellsler, who had been on terms of friendship +with the elder Booth, was delighted with the promise of his work. He +greatly admired Edwin's intellectual power, his artistic care, but +"John," he cried, "has more of the old man's power in one performance +than Edwin can show in a year. He has the fire, the dash, the touch of +<i>strangeness</i>. He often produces unstudied effects at night. I question +him, 'Did you rehearse that business to-day, John?' he answers: 'No, I +didn't rehearse it, it just came to me in the scene, and I couldn't help +doing it; but it went all right, didn't it?' Full of impulse, just now, +like a colt, his heels are in the air, nearly as often as his head, but +wait a year or two till he gets used to the harness, and quiets down a +bit, and you will see as great an actor as America can produce!"</p> + +<p>And, by the way, speaking of Mr. Ellsler and the elder Booth, I am +reminded that I have in my possession a letter from the latter to the +former. It is written in a rather cramped hand, that carries the address +and the marks of the red wafers, as that was before the appearance of +envelopes, and it informs Mr. Ellsler that he, "Junius Brutus Booth, will +play a star engagement of one week for the sum of—" how many dollars? if +it were not unguessable, I should insist upon your guessing, but that +would not be fair, so here it is—"for the sum of three hundred +dollars," and wants to know how many and what plays he is desired to do, +that he may select his wardrobe.</p> + +<p>Think of it—the mighty father of our Edwin asking but $300 for a week of +such acting as he could do, which, if this bright, light-hearted boy was +so much like him, must have been brilliant indeed.</p> + +<p>One morning, going on the stage where a group were talking with John +Wilkes, I heard him say: "No! no, no! there's but one <i>Hamlet</i> to my +mind, that's my brother Edwin. You see, between ourselves, he <i>is +Hamlet</i>, melancholy and all!"</p> + +<p>That was an awful time when the dread news came to us. We were in +Columbus. We had been horrified by the great crime at Washington. My +room-mate and I had from our small earnings bought some black cotton, at +a tripled price, as all the black material in the city was not sufficient +to meet the demand, and as we tacked it about our one window, a man, +passing, told us the assassin had been discovered, and that he was the +actor Booth. Hattie laughed so she nearly swallowed the tack that, +girl-like, she held between her lips, and I, after a laugh, told him it +was a poor subject for a jest, and we went in. There was no store in +Columbus then where playbooks were sold, and as Mr. Ellsler had a very +large and complete stage library, he frequently lent his books to us, and +we would hurriedly copy out our lines and return the book for his own +use. On that occasion he was going to study his part first and then leave +the play with us as he passed going home. We heard his knock; I was busy +pressing a bit of stage finery. Hattie opened the door, and then I heard +her exclaiming: "Why—why—what?" I turned quickly. Mr. Ellsler was +coming slowly into the room. He is a very dark man, but he was perfectly +livid then, his lips even were blanched to the whiteness of his cheeks. +His eyes were dreadful, they were so glassy and seemed so unseeing. He +was devoted to his children, and all I could think of as likely to bring +such a look upon his face was disaster to one of them, and I cried, as I +drew a chair to him, "What is it? Oh, what has happened to them?"</p> + +<p>He sank down, he wiped his brow, he looked almost stupidly at me, then, +very faintly, he said: "You—haven't—heard—anything?"</p> + +<p>Like a flash Hattie's eyes and mine met; we thought of the supposed +ill-timed jest of the stranger—my lips moved wordlessly. Hattie +stammered: "A man, he lied though, said that Wilkes Booth—but he did +lie—didn't he?" and in the same faint voice Mr. Ellsler answered, +slowly: "No—no! he did not lie—it's too true!"</p> + +<p>Down fell our heads and the waves of shame and sorrow seemed fairly to +o'erwhelm us, and while our sobs filled the little room, Mr. Ellsler rose +and laid two playbooks on the table. Then, while standing there, staring +into space, I heard his far, faint voice, saying: "So great, so good a +man destroyed, and by the hand of that unhappy boy! my God! my God!" He +wiped his brow again and slowly left the house, apparently unconscious of +our presence.</p> + +<p>When we resumed our work—the theatre had closed because of the national +calamity—many a painted cheek showed runnels made by bitter tears, and +one old actress, with quivering lips, exclaimed: "One woe doth tread upon +another's heel, so fast they follow!" but with no thought of quoting, and +God knows the words expressed the situation perfectly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellsler, whom I never saw shed a tear for any sickness, sorrow, or +trouble of her own, shed tears for the mad boy who had suddenly become +the assassin of God's anointed—the great, the blameless Lincoln!</p> + +<p>We crept about, quietly, everyone winced at the sound of the overture; it +was as if one dead lay within the walls, one who belonged to us.</p> + +<p>When the rumors about Booth being the murderer proved to be authentic, +the police feared a possible outbreak of mob-feeling, and a +demonstration against the theatre building, or against the actors +individually; but we had been a decent, law-abiding, well-behaved people, +liked and respected, so we were not made to suffer for the awful act of +one of our number. Still, when the mass-meeting was held in front of the +Capitol, there was much anxiety on the subject, and Mr. Ellsler urged all +the company to keep away from it, lest their presence might arouse some +ill-feeling. The crowd was immense; the sun had gloomed over, and the +Capitol building, draped in black, loomed up with stern severity and that +massive dignity only obtained by heavily columned buildings. The people +surged like waves about the speakers' stand, and the policemen glanced +anxiously toward the new theatre, not far away, and prayed that some +bombastic, revengeful ruffian might not crop up from this mixed crowd of +excited humanity to stir them to violence.</p> + +<p>Three speakers, however, in their addresses had confined themselves to +eulogizing the great dead. In life, Mr. Lincoln had been abused by many; +in death, he was worshipped by all, and these speakers found their words +of love and sorrow eagerly listened to, and made no harsh allusions to +the profession from which the assassin sprang. And then an unknown man +clambered up from the crowd to the portico platform and began to speak, +without asking anyone's permission. He had a far-reaching voice—he had +fire and "go."</p> + +<p>"Here's the fellow to look out for!" said the policeman, and, sure +enough, suddenly the dread word "theatre" was tossed into the air, and +everyone was still in a moment, waiting for—what? I don't know what they +hoped for, I do know what many feared; but this is what he said: "Yes, +look over at our theatre and think of the little body of men and women +there, who are to-day sore-hearted and cast down, who feel that they are +looked at askant, because one of their number has committed that hideous +crime! Think of what they have to bear of shame and horror, and spare +for them, too, a little pity!"</p> + +<p>He paused; it had been a bold thing to do—to appeal for consideration +for actors at such a time. The crowd swayed for a moment to and fro, a +curious growling came from it, and then all heads turned toward the +theatre. A faint cheer was given, and after that there was not the +slightest allusion made to us—and verily we were grateful.</p> + +<p>That the homely, tender-hearted "Father Abraham," rare combination of +courage, justice, and humanity, died at an actor's hand will be a grief, +a horror, and a shame to the profession forever—yet I cannot believe +that John Wilkes Booth was "the leader of a band of bloody conspirators!"</p> + +<p>Who shall draw a line and say: here genius ends and madness begins? There +was that touch of "strangeness." In Edwin Booth it was a profound +melancholy; in John it was an exaggeration of spirit, almost a wildness. +There was the natural vanity of the actor, too, who craves a dramatic +situation in real life. There was his passionate love and sympathy for +the South—why, he was "easier to be played on than a pipe!"</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly he conspired to kidnap the President—that would appeal to +him, but after that I truly believe he was a tool, certainly he was no +leader. Those who led him knew his courage, his belief in fate, his +loyalty to his friends; and because they knew these things, he drew the +lot, as it was meant he should from the first. Then, half mad, he +accepted the part Fate cast him for—committed the monstrous crime and +paid the awful price.</p> + +<p>And since,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"God moves in a mysterious way</span><br /> +<span class="i0">His wonders to perform,"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">we venture to pray for His mercy upon the guilty soul! who may have +repented and confessed his manifold sins and offences during those awful +hours of suffering before the end came.</p> + +<p>And "God shutteth not up His mercies forever in displeasure!" We can only +shiver and turn our thoughts away from the bright light that went out in +such utter darkness. Poor, guilty, unhappy John Wilkes Booth!</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="FIFTEENTH"></a>FIFTEENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">Mr. R. E. J. Miles—His two Horses, and our Woful Experience with the +Substitute "Wild Horse of Tartary."</p></div> + + + + +<p>But there, just as I start to speak of my third season, I seem to look +into a pair of big, mild eyes that say: "Can it be that you mean to pass +me by? Do you forget that 'twas I who turned the great sensation scene of +a play into a side-splitting farce?" And I shake my head and answer, +truthfully: "I cannot forget, I shall never forget your work that night +in Columbus, when you appeared as the 'fiery, untamed steed' (may Heaven +forgive you) in 'Mazeppa.'"</p> + +<p>Mr. Robert E. J. Miles, or "All the Alphabet Miles," as he was frequently +called, was starring at that time in the Horse Drama, doing such plays as +"The Cataract of the Ganges," "Mazeppa," "Sixteen-String Jack," etc. +"Mazeppa" was the favorite in Columbus, and both the star and manager +regretted they had billed the other plays in advance, as there would have +been more money in "Mazeppa" alone. Mr. Miles carried with him two +horses; the one for the "Wild Horse of Tartary" was an exquisitely +formed, satin-coated creature, who looked wickedly at you from the tail +of her blazing eye, who bared her teeth savagely, and struck out with her +fore-feet, as well as lashed out with the hind ones. When she came +rearing, plunging, biting, snapping, whirling, and kicking her way on to +the stage, the scarlet lining of her dilating nostrils and the foam +flying from her mouth made our screams very natural ones, and the women +in front used to huddle close to their companions, or even cover their +faces.</p> + +<p>One creature only did this beautiful vixen love—R. E. J. Miles. She +fawned upon him like a dog; she did tricks like a dog for him, but she +was a terror to the rest of mankind, and really it was a thrilling scene +when <i>Mazeppa</i> was stripped and bound, his head tail-ward, his feet +mane-ward, to the back of that maddened beast. She seemed to bite and +tear at him, and when set free she stood straight up for a dreadful +moment, in which she really endangered his life, then, with a wild neigh, +she tore up the "runs," as if fiends pursued her, with the man stretched +helplessly along her inky back. The curtain used to go up again and +again—it was so very effective.</p> + +<p>For a horse to get from the level stage clear above the "flies," under +the very roof, the platforms or runs he mounts on have to zig-zag across +the mountain background.</p> + +<p>At each angle, out of sight of the audience, there is a railed platform, +large enough for the horse to turn upon and make the next upward rush.</p> + +<p>The other horse travelling with Mr. Miles was an entirely different +proposition. He would have been described, according to the State he +happened to be in, as a pie-bald, a skew-bald, a pinto, or a calico +horse. He was very large, mostly of a satiny white, with big, absurdly +shaped markings of bright bay. He was one of the breed of horses that in +livery stables are always known as "Doctor" or "Judge." Benevolence +beamed from his large, clear eyes, and he looked so mildly wise, one half +expected to see him put on spectacles. The boy at the stable said one +day, as he fed him: "I wouldn't wunder if this ol' parson of 'er a hoss +asked a blessin' on them there oats—I wouldn't!"</p> + +<p>I don't know whether old Bob—as he was called—had any speed or not, but +if he had it was useless to him, for, alas! he was never allowed to reach +the goal under any circumstances. He was always ridden by the villain, +and therefore had to be overtaken, and besides that he generally had to +carry double, as the desperado usually fled holding the fainting heroine +before him. Though old Bob successfully leaped chasms thus heavily +handicapped—for truly he was a mighty jumper—nevertheless he was +compelled to accept defeat, as Mr. Miles always came rushing up on the +black horse to the rescue. He was very lucky indeed, if he didn't have to +roll about and die, and he was a very impatient dead horse, often amusing +the audience by lifting his head to see if the curtain was not down yet, +and then dropping dead again with a sigh the whole house could hear.</p> + +<p>By the way, "the house" is a theatrical term, meaning, on an actor's +lips, "the audience." "The house did thus or so," "the house is behaving +beautifully," "it's the most refined house you ever saw," "what a cold +house"; and so on. I have but rarely heard either actor or actress refer +to the "audience"—and after steadily using any term for years it is very +hard to lay it aside, and I shall long remember the grim moment that +followed on my remarking to my rector, "What a good house you had +yesterday—it must have been a pleasure to pla—to, to—er, er, to +address such an audi—er, that is, I mean congregation!" There was a +moment of icy silence, then, being a human being as well as a wearer of +the priestly collar, he set back his head and laughed a laugh that was +good to hear.</p> + +<p>Anyway, being continually pushed back into second place and compelled to +listen to the unearned applause bestowed upon the beautiful black seemed +to rob old Bob of all ambition professionally, and he simply became a +<i>gourmet</i> and a glutton. He lived to eat. A woman in his eyes was a sort +of perambulating store-house of cake, crackers, apples, sugar, etc.; only +his love for children was disinterested. The moment he was loose he went +off in search for children, no matter whose, so long as he found some; +then down he would go on his knees, and wait to be pulled and patted. His +silvery tail provided hundreds of horse-hair rings—and his habit of +gathering very small people up by their back breadths and carrying them a +little way before dropping them, only filled the air with wild shrieks of +laughter. In the theatre he walked sedately about before rehearsal began, +and though we knew his attentions were entirely selfish, he was so +urbane, so complaisant in his manner of going through us, that we could +not resist his advances, and each day and night we packed our pockets and +our muffs with such provender as women seldom carry about in their +clothes. All our gloves smelled as though we worked at a cider-mill. +While the play was going on old Bob spent a great part of his time +standing on the first of those railed platforms, and as he was on the +same side of the stage that the ladies' dressing-rooms were on, everyone +of us had to pass him on our way to dress, and he demanded toll of all. +Fruits, domestic or foreign, were received with gentle eagerness. Cake, +crackers, and sugar, the velvety nose snuffed at them approvingly, and if +a girl, believing herself late, tried to pass him swiftly by, his look of +amazement was comical to behold, and in an instant his iron-shod foot was +playing a veritable devil's tattoo on the resounding board platform, and +if that failed to win attention, following her with his eyes, he lifted +up his voice in a full-chested "neigh—hay—hay—<i>ha-ay</i>!" that brought +her back in a hurry with her toll of sugar. And that pie-bald hypocrite +would scrunch it with such a piteously ravenous air that the girl quite +forgot the basilisk glare and satirical words the landlady directed +against her recently-acquired sweet-tooth. My own landlady had, as early +as Wednesday, covered the sugar-bowl and locked the pantry, but she left +the salt-bag open, and I took on a full cargo of it twice a day, and old +Bob showed such an absolute carnality of enjoyment in the eating of it +that Mr. Miles became convinced that it had long been denied to him at +the stables.</p> + +<p>Then, late in the week, there came that dreadful night of disaster. I +don't recall the name of the play, but in that one piece the beautiful, +high-spirited black mare had to carry double up the runs. John Carroll +and Miss Lucy Cutler were the riders. Mr. Carroll claimed he could ride a +little, and though he was afraid he was ashamed to say so. Mr. Miles said +in the morning: "Now, if you are the least bit timid, Mr. Carroll, say +so, and I will fasten the bridle-reins to the saddle-pommel and the Queen +will carry you up as true as a die and as safe as a rock of her own +accord; but if you are going to hold the bridle, for God's sake be +careful! If it was old Bob, you could saw him as much as you liked and he +would pay no attention, and hug the run for dear life; but the Queen, who +has a tender mouth, is besides half mad with excitement at night, and a +very slight pressure on the wrong rein will mean a forty or fifty-foot +fall for you all!"</p> + +<p>Miss Cutler expressed great fear, when Mr. Miles, surprisedly, said: +"Why, you have ridden with me twice this week without a sign of fear?" +"Oh, yes," she answered, "but <i>you</i> know what you are doing—you are a +horseman."</p> + +<p>It was an unfortunate speech, and in face of it Mr. Carroll's vanity +would not allow him to admit his anxiety. "He could ride well enough—and +he would handle the reins himself," he declared.</p> + +<p>During the day his fears grew upon him. Foolishly and wickedly he +resorted to spirits to try to build up some Dutch courage; and then, when +the scene came on, half blind with fear and the liquor, which he was not +used to, as he felt the fierce creature beneath them rushing furiously up +the steep incline, a sort of madness came upon him. Without rhyme or +reason he pulled desperately at the nigh rein and in the same breath +their three bodies were hurling downward, like thunderbolts.</p> + +<p>It was an awful sight! I looked at them as they descended, and for the +fraction of a second they seemed to be suspended in the air. They were +all upside down. They all, without turning or twisting, fell straight as +plummets—the horse, the same as the man and woman, had its feet straight +in the air. Ugh! the striking—ugh!—never mind details! The curtain had +been rushed down. Miss Cutler had been picked up, dazed, stunned, but +without a mark. Mr. Carroll had crept away unaided amid the confusion, +the sorrow, and tears, for the splendid Queen was doomed and done for! +Though Mr. Miles had risked his own life in an awful leap to save her +from falling through a trap, he could not save her life, and the almost +human groan with which she dropped her lovely head upon her master's +shoulder, and his streaming eyes as he tenderly wiped the blood from her +velvety nostrils, made even the scene-shifters rub their eyes upon the +backs of their hands. While the Queen was half carried and half crept to +the fire-engine house next door (her stable was so far away), someone was +going before the curtain, assuring the audience that the accident was +very slight, and the lady and gentleman would both be before them +presently, and the audience applauded in a rather doubtful manner, for +several ladies had fainted, and the carrying out of a helpless person +from a place of amusement always has a depressing effect upon the +lookers-on. Meantime Mr. Carroll was getting his wrist bandaged and a cut +on his face strapped up, while a basket of sawdust was hurriedly procured +that certain cruel stains might be concealed. The orchestra played +briskly and the play went on. That's the one thing we can be sure of in +this world—that the play will go on. That night, late, the beautiful +Queen died with her head resting on her master's knee.</p> + +<p>Now "Mazeppa" was billed for the next night, and there were many +consultations held in the office and on the stage. "The wild horse of +Tartary" was gone. It was impossible to find a new horse in one day.</p> + +<p>"Change the bill!" said Mr. Miles.</p> + +<p>"And have an empty house," answered Mr. Ellsler.</p> + +<p>"But what can I do for a horse?" asked R. E. J. M.</p> + +<p>"Use old Bob," answered Mr. Ellsler.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" groaned Bob's master. They argued long, but neither wanted +to lose the good house, so the bill was allowed to stand, and "Mazeppa" +was performed with old white Bob as the "Wild Horse of Tartary." Think of +it, that ingratiating old Bob! That follower of women and playmate of +children! Why, even the great bay blotches on his white old hide made one +think of the circus, paper hoops, and <i>training</i>, rather than of +wildness. Meaning to make him at least impatient and restless, he had +been deprived of his supper, and the result was a settled gloom, an air +of melancholy that made Mr. Miles swear under his breath every time he +looked at him. There was a ring, known I believe as a Spanish ring, made +with a sharp little spike attachment, and used sometimes by circus-men to +stir up horses to a show of violence or of high spirits, and when a whip +was not permissible. It could be resorted to without arousing any +suspicion of cruelty, since the spike was on the under side and so out of +sight. The man with the ring on his finger would stand by a horse, and +resting his hand on the animal's neck, just at the most sensitive spot of +his whole anatomy—the root or end of his mane—would close the hand +suddenly, thus driving the spike into the flesh. It must have caused +exquisite pain, and naturally the tormented animal rears and plunges. +Sometimes they get effect enough by pricking the creatures on the +shoulder only. On that night, Mr. Miles, after gazing at the mild and +melancholy features of his new "Wild Horse of Tartary," went to his room +and dug up from some trunk a Spanish ring. Calling one of the men who +used to be dragged and thrashed about the stage by the black wild horse, +he explained to him its use, ending with: "I hate to hurt the old fellow, +so try him on the shoulder first, and if he dances about pretty lively, +as I think he will, you need not prick his mane at all."</p> + +<p>The play moved along nicely, the house was large, and seemed pleased. +<i>Mazeppa</i> fell into his enemy's hands, the sentence was pronounced, and +the order followed: "Bring forth the fiery, untamed steed!"</p> + +<p>The women began to draw close to their escorts; many of them remembered +the biting, kicking entrance of the black, and were frightened +beforehand. The orchestra responded with incidental creepy music, +but—that was all. Over in the entrance, old Bob, surrounded by the four +men who were supposed to restrain him, stood calmly. But those who sat in +the left box heard "get-ups!" and "go-ons!" and the cluckings of many +tongues. The mighty Khan of Tartary (who could not see that entrance) +thought he had not been heard, and roared again: "Bring forth the fiery, +untamed steed!" Another pause, the house tittered, then some one hit old +Bob a crack across the rump with a whip, at which he gave a switch of his +tail and gently ambled on the stage, stopping of his own accord at +centre, and, lowering his head, he stretched his neck and sniffed at the +leader of the orchestra, precisely as a dog sniffs at a stranger. It was +deliciously ridiculous. We girls were supposed to scream with terror at +the "wild horse," and, alas! we were only too obedient, crowding down at +right, clinging together in attitudes of extremest fright, we shrieked +and screeched until old Bob cocked up his ears and looked so astonished +at our conduct that the audience simply rocked back and forth with +laughter, and all the time <i>Mazeppa</i> was saying things that did not seem +to be like prayers. Finally he gave orders for the men to surround Bob, +which they did, and then the ring was used—the ring that was to make him +dance about pretty lively. It pricked him on the shoulder, and the "wild +horse" stood and switched his tail. It pricked him again—he switched his +tail again. The men had by that time grown careless, and when the ring +was finally used at his mane, he suddenly kicked one of them clear off +the stage, and then resumed his unruffled calm. The public thought it was +having fun all this time, but pretty soon it knew it. Nothing under +heaven could disturb the gentle serenity of that dog-like old horse. But +when <i>Mazeppa</i> was brought forward to be bound upon his back, instead of +pulling away, rearing, and fighting against the burden, his one and only +quick movement was his violent effort to break away from his tormentors +to welcome <i>Mazeppa</i> joyously.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" groaned Miles, "kill him, somebody, before he kills me!"</p> + +<p>While he was being bound on the wild horse's back, our instructions were +to scream, therefore we screamed as before, and being on the verge of +insanity, <i>Mazeppa</i> lifted his head from the horse's back, and said: "Oh, +shut up—do!" The audience heard, and—well, it laughed some more, and +then it discovered, when the men sprang away and left the horse free to +dash madly up the mountain, that <i>Mazeppa</i> had kept one foot unbound to +kick his horse with—and truly it did seem that the audience was going +into convulsions. Such laughter, pierced every now and then by the shrill +scream of hysteria. Then old Bob ambled up the first run all right, but, +alas! for poor <i>Mazeppa</i>, as he reached the first turn-table, a woman +passed on the way to her room, and hungry Bob instantly stopped to +negotiate a loan in sugar. Oh, it was dreadful, the wait, and when +finally he reappeared, trotting—yes, trotting up the next run, Mr. +Miles's foot could be plainly seen, kicking with the regularity of a +piston-rod, while his remarks were—well, they were irregular in the +extreme.</p> + +<p>Of course the play was hopelessly ruined; the audience laughed at the +slightest mention of the "wild horse," and when, broken and exhausted, +the shepherds find them both lying at the foot of the mountain, the house +seemed to shake with laughter.</p> + +<p>When the play was at last over, old white Bob walked over to his master +and mumbled his hand. Mr. Miles pushed him away with pretended anger, +crying: "You infernal old idiot, I'd sell you for a three-cent stamp with +gum on it!"</p> + +<p>Bob looked hard at him a moment, then he calmly crossed behind him and +mumbled his other hand, and Mr. Miles pulled his ears, and said that "he +himself was the idiot for expecting an untrained, unrehearsed horse to +play such a part," and old Bob agreeing with him perfectly, they were, as +always, at peace with each other.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="SIXTEENTH"></a>SIXTEENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study <i>King Charles</i> in One Afternoon +and Play Without a Rehearsal—Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd Revelation.</p> +</div> + + + +<p>Already in that third season my position had become an anomalous one, +from that occasion when, because of sickness, I had in one afternoon +studied, letter perfect, the part of <i>King Charles</i> in "Faint Heart Never +Won Fair Lady," and played it in borrowed clothes and without any +rehearsal whatever, other than finding the situations plainly marked in +the book. It was an astonishing thing to do, and nearly everyone had a +kind word for me. The stage manager, or rather the prompter, for Mr. +Ellsler was his own stage manager, patted me on the shoulder and said: +"'Pon my soul, girl, you're a wonder! I think pretty well of my own +study, but you can beat me. You never missed a word, and besides that +I've seen the part played worse many a time. I don't know what to say to +you, my dear, but a girl that can do that can do most anything."</p> + +<p>Ah, yes! and that was just what the powers that were seemed to +think—that I could do almost anything, for from that day I became a sort +of dramatic scape-goat, to play the parts of the sick, the halt, the +cross, the tricky, for whenever an actor or actress turns up with a +remarkable study—the ability to learn almost any part in a given +time—he or she is bound to be "put upon." Sickness will increase, +tempers will get shorter, airs of superiority will be assumed, all +because there is someone ready to play the obnoxious part, someone ready +to rush into the breach and prevent the changing of the "bill."</p> + +<p>So often was I playing parts, thus leaving only two in the ballet, that +another girl was engaged. Thus to Hattie, Annie, and Clara there was +added Mary. And lo! in this young woman I recognized a friend of my +youth. I had known her but two days, but I could never forget the only +child I had ever had a play with. She had parted from me in wrath +because, after playing house-keeping all morning in the yard, I had +refused to eat a clay dumpling she had made, with a nice green +clover-leaf in its middle. She threw the dumpling at me, roaring like a +little bull calf, and twisting a dirty small fist into each dry eye, she +waddled off home, leaving me, finger in mouth, gazing in pained amazement +after her, until my fat little legs suddenly gave way, as was their wont +in moments of great emotion, and sat me unwillingly but flatly down upon +the ground, where I remained, looking gravely at them and wondering what +they did it for—and now here we were together again.</p> + +<p>Of course this playing of many parts was, in a certain way, an advantage +to me, and I appreciated it; but there can be too much even of a good +thing. That I got little pay for all this work was nothing to me, I was +glad to do it for the experience it gave me, but when I was forced to +appear ridiculous through my inability to dress the parts correctly I +suffered cruelly. Once in a while, as in the case of <i>King Charles</i>, I +could get a costume from the theatre wardrobe, where the yellow plush +breeches lived when not engaged in desolating my young life, but, alas! +here, as everywhere, the man is the favored party, and the theatre +wardrobe contains only masculine garments; the women must provide +everything for themselves. Then, too, one is never too young or too +insignificant to feel an injustice.</p> + +<p>I recall, very distinctly, having to go on for <i>Lady Anne</i> in "Richard +III.," with a rather unimportant star. Now had I "held a position," as +the term goes, that part would, out of courtesy, have belonged to me for +the rest of the season, unless I chose to offer it back to the woman I +had obliged; but being only a ballet-girl I did well enough for the <i>Lady +Anne</i> of an unimportant star, but when a more popular <i>Richard</i> appeared +upon the scene, <i>Lady Anne</i> was immediately reclaimed, and I traipsed +again behind the coffin, and with the rest of the ballet was witness to +that most savage fling of Shakespeare against a vain, inconsequential +womanhood as personified in <i>Lady Anne</i>, who, standing by her coffined, +murdered dead, eagerly drinks in the flattery offered by the murderer's +self. It is a courtship all dagger-pierced and reeking with innocent +blood—monstrous and revolting! One would like to know who the woman was +whose incredible vanity and levity so worked upon the master's mind that +he produced this tragic caricature. Who was the woman who inspired great +Shakespeare's one unnatural scene? Come, antiquaries, <i>cherchez la +femme</i>!</p> + +<p>I suffered most when I had to play some lady of quality, for what, in +heaven's name, had I to dress a lady in? Five dollars a week to live on, +to dress myself on, and to provide stage wardrobe! Many a bitter tear I +shed. And then there was the surprise of the stars, when after playing an +important part one night, they suddenly recognized me the next standing +in the crowd of peasants or seated at <i>Macbeth's</i> disheartening banquet.</p> + +<p>Their comments used to be very caustic sometimes, and they almost, +without exception, advised me to rebel, to go and demand freedom from the +ballet, or at least salary enough to dress the parts given me to play. +But those long years of childish thraldom had left their mark—I could +not assert myself, an overwhelming shame came upon me, even at the +thought of asking to be advanced. So I went on playing boys and second +old women, singing songs when forced to it, going on for poor leading +parts even, for the leading lady being the manager's wife rarely played +parts with women stars, and then between times dropping back into the +ballet and standing about in crowds or taking part in a village dance.</p> + +<p>It was a queer position and no mistake. Many stars had grown to know me, +and often on Monday morning he or she would come over to our group and +shake hands kindly, to my great pleasure. One morning, while we were +rehearsing "Lady Audley's Secret," Mrs. Bowers, whom I greatly admired, +came over to me, and remarked: "You hard-hearted little wretch! I've been +watching you; you are treating that boy shamefully! Don't you know +Murdoch is a gentleman?"</p> + +<p>I was surprised, and rather quickly answered: "Well, have I treated him +as if he were not a gentleman?"</p> + +<p>She was called just then, but when the act was over she came to me again, +and taking my hand in her right, she began beating it up and down upon +her left: "You are not vexed, are you?" she asked. "Don't be; I only +wonder how you can do it, and you are so young! Why," she sighed, from +her very soul it seemed to me, "Why," she went on, "ever since I was +fourteen years old I have been loving some man who has not loved me!" +Tears rose thickly into her eyes. "I am always laying my heart down for +some man to trample on!" She glanced toward Mr. McCollom (he who was six +feet tall and handsome), a little smile trembled on her lips. I caught +her fingers on a swift impulse and squeezed them, she squeezed back +answeringly; we understood each other, she was casting her heart down +again, unasked. Her eyes came back to me. "Yours is the best way, but I'm +too old to learn now, I shall have to go on seeking—always seeking!"</p> + +<p>"And finding, surely finding!" I answered, honestly, for I could not +imagine anyone resisting her.</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" she said, eagerly; then, rather sadly, she added: +"Still it would be nice to be sought once, instead of always seeking."</p> + +<p>Poor woman! Charming actress as she was, she did not exaggerate in +declaring she was always casting her heart before someone. She married +Mr. McCollom, and lived with him in adoring affection till death took +him.</p> + +<p>The last time I saw her she was my guest here at "The Pines," and as I +fastened a great hibiscus flower above her ear, in Spanish fashion, she +remarked:</p> + +<p>"How little you have changed in all these years! I'll wager your heart is +without a scar, while if you could only see mine," she laughed, "it's +like an old bit of tinware—so battered, and bent, and dented!"</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="SEVENTEENTH"></a>SEVENTEENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my +Reputation—I Own a Baby on Shares—Miss Western's +Pathetic Speech.</p></div> + + + +<p>I had at that time a friend—a rare possession that. "The ideal of +friendship," says Madame Switchine, "is to feel as one while remaining +two," which is a precise description of the condition of mind and feeling +of Mrs. Mollie Ogden and myself. She did not act, but her husband did, +and I saw her every night, nearly every morning, and when work permitted +we visited one another in the afternoons. There was but one kind of cake +on the market that I liked, and that cake, with coffee, was always +offered for my refreshment when I was her guest. When she was mine the +festal board was furnished forth with green tea, of which she was +inordinately fond, and oysters stewed in their own can and served in two +mugs; the one announcing, in ostentatious gold letters, that I was "a +good girl," was naturally at the service of my guest, while the plain +stone-china affair, from the toilet-table, answered my purposes. With +what happy eagerness we prepared for those absurd banquets, which we +heartily enjoyed, since we were boarders, and always hungry—and how we +talked! Of what? Why, good heaven! did I not hold a membership in the +library, and were we not both lightning-quick readers? Why, we had the +whole library to talk over; besides, there was the country to save! and +as Mollie didn't really know one party from the other, she felt herself +particularly fitted for the task of settling public questions.</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, she began to expect another visitor—a <i>wee</i> visitor, +whom we hoped would remain permanently, and, goodness mercy! I nearly +lost my reputation through the chambermaid finding in my work-basket some +half-embroidered, tiny, tiny jackets. Whereupon she announced to the +servants, in full assembly, that I had too soft a tongue, and was deeper +than the sea, but <i>she</i> had her eyes open, and, judging from what she +found in my work-basket, I was either going to buy a monkey for a pet, or +I had thrown away my character completely.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ogden was with me when the landlady, stony-eyed and rattling with +starch and rectitude, came to inquire into the contents of my +work-basket. Her call was brief, but satisfactory, and shortly after her +exit we heard her, at the top of her lungs, giving me a clean bill of +health—morally speaking—and denouncing the prying curiosity of the +maids. But we had had a scare, and Mollie implored me either not to help +her any more or to lock up my work-basket.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," I said, "I'll rest my head upon the chambermaid's breast and +confide all my intentions to her, then surely my character will be safe."</p> + +<p>However, when the <i>wee</i> stranger arrived, she might well have wondered +whom she belonged to. At all events she "goo-gooed and gurgled," and +smiled her funny three-cornered smile at me as readily as at her mother, +and my friendly rights in her were so far recognized by others that +questions about her were often put to me in her mother's very presence, +who laughingly declared that only in bed with the light out did she feel +absolutely sure that the baby was hers.</p> + +<p>Mollie used to say the only really foolish thing she ever caught me in +was "Protestantism." It was a great grief to us all that I could not be +godmother, but though baby had a Protestant father, the Church flatly +refused to wink at a godmother of that forsaken race.</p> + +<p>When, in God's good time, a tiny sister came to baby, she was called +Clara, but my friend had made a solemn vow before the altar, at the ripe +age of seven years, to name her first child Genevieve, and she, to quote +her husband, "being a Roman Catholic as well as a little idiot," +faithfully kept her vow, and our partnership's baby was loaded up with a +name that each year proved more unsuitable, for a more un-Genevieve-like +Genevieve never lived. All of which goes to prove how unwise it is to +assume family cares and duties before the arrival of the family.</p> + +<p>Miss Lucille Western was playing an engagement in Cleveland when "our +baby" was a few months old. My friend and I were both her ardent +admirers. I don't know why it has arisen, this fashion to sneer more or +less openly at Miss Western's work. If a woman who charms the eye can +also thrill you, repel you, touch you to tears, provoke you to laughter +by her acting, she surely merits the term "great actress." Well, now, who +can deny that she did all these things? Why else did the people pack her +houses season after season? It was not her looks, for if the perfect and +unblemished beauty of her lovely sister Helen could not draw a big house, +what could you expect from the inspired irregularity of Lucille's face? +How alive she was! She was not quite tall enough for the amount of fine +firm flesh her frame then carried—but she laced, and she was grace +personified.</p> + +<p>She was a born actress; she knew nothing else in all the world. There is +a certain tang of wildness in all things natural. Dear gods! Think what +the wild strawberry loses in cultivation! Half the fascination of the +adorable Jacqueminot rose comes from the wild scent of thorn and earth +plainly underlying the rose <i>attar</i> above. And this actress, with all her +lack of polish, knew how to interpret a woman's heart, even if she missed +her best manner. For in all she did there was just a touch of +extravagance—a hint of lawless, unrestrained passion. There was +something tropical about her, she always suggested the scarlet tanager, +the jeweled dragon-fly, the pomegranate flower, or the scentless splendor +of our wild marshmallow.</p> + +<p>In "Lucretia Borgia" she presented the most perfect picture of opulent, +insolent beauty that I ever saw, while her "Leah, the Forsaken" was +absolutely Hebraic; and in the first scene, where she was pursued and +brought to bay by the Christian mob, her attitude, as she silently eyed +her foes, her face filled both with wild terror and fierce contempt, was +a thing to thrill any audience, and always received hearty applause.</p> + +<p>So far as looks went, she was seen to least advantage in her greatest +money-maker, "East Lynne." Oh, dear! oh, dear! the tears that were shed +over that dreadful play, and how many I contributed myself! I would stand +looking on from the entrance, after my short part was over, and when she +cried out: "Oh, why don't I die! My God! why <i>don't</i> I die?" I would lay +my head against the nearest scene and simply howl like a broken-hearted +young puppy. I couldn't help it, neither could those in front help +weeping—more decorously perhaps, because they were older and had their +good clothes on.</p> + +<p>Now this brilliant and successful actress was not very happy—few are, +for one reason or another—but she worked much harder than most women, +and naturally liked to have some return for her work; therefore she must +have found it depressing, at least, when her husband formed the habit of +counting up the house by eye (he could come to within $5 of the money +contents of the house any night in this way), and then going out and +losing the full amount of her share in gambling. It was cruel, and it was +but one of the degradations put upon her. Lucille did not know how to +bear her troubles. She wept and used herself up. Then, to get through her +heavy night's work, she took a stimulant. Oh, poor soul! poor soul! +though the audience knew nothing, the people about her knew she was not +her best self; and she knew they knew it, and was made sore ashamed and +miserable. Her husband, on one occasion, had gambled away every cent of +three nights' work. On the fourth she had had resource to a stimulant, +and on the fifth she was cast down, silent, miserable, and humiliated.</p> + +<p>That night "our baby" came to the theatre. She was one of those +aggressively sociable infants, who will reach out and grasp a strange +whisker rather than remain unnoticed. She had pretty little, straight +features and small, bright eyes that were fairly purply blue. I had +her—of course in so public a place it was my right to have her—she was +over my shoulder. I was standing near the star-room. The door opened and +next moment I heard a long, low, "O-o-h!" and then again, "O-o-h! +a—baby, and awake! and the peace of heaven yet in its eyes!"</p> + +<p>I turned my head to look at Miss Western, and her face quickened my +heart. Her glowing eyes were fastened upon "baby," with just the rapt, +uplifted look one sees at times before some Roman Catholic altar. It was +beautiful! She gave a little start and exclaimed, as at a wonder: "Its +hand! oh, its tiny, tiny hand!" Just with the very tip of her forefinger +she touched it, and "baby" promptly grasped the finger and gurgled +cordially. Her face flushed red, she gave a gasp: "Good God!" she cried, +"it's touching me, me! It <i>is</i>, see—<i>see</i>!" Sudden tears slipped down +her cheeks. "Blessed God!" she cried, "if you had but sent me such a one, +all would have been different! I could never bring disgrace or shame on a +precious thing like this!"</p> + +<p>As she raised the tiny morsel of a hand to her lips the prompter sharply +called: "The stage waits, Miss Western!" and she was gone.</p> + +<p>Poor, ill-guided, unhappy woman! it was always and only the stage that +waited Miss Western.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="EIGHTEENTH"></a>EIGHTEENTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">Mr. Charles W. Couldock—His Daughter Eliza and his Many +Peculiarities.</p> +</div> + + +<p>There was one star who came to us every season with the regularity and +certainty of the equinoctial storm, and when they arrived together, as +they frequently did, we all felt the conjunction to be peculiarly +appropriate. He was neither young nor good-looking, yet no one could +truthfully assert that his engagements were lacking in interest—indeed, +some actors found him lively in the extreme. Charles W. Couldock was an +Englishman by birth, and had come to this country with the great Cushman. +He was a man of unquestionable integrity—honorable, truthful, +warm-hearted; but being of a naturally quick and irritable temper, +instead of trying to control it, he yielded himself up to every impulse +of vexation or annoyance, while with ever-growing violence he made +mountains out of mole-hills, and when he had just cause for anger he +burst into paroxysms of rage, even of ferocity, that, had they not been +half unconscious acting, must have landed him in a mad-house out of +consideration for the safety of others; while, worst of all, like too +many of his great nation, he was profane almost beyond belief; and +profanity, always painfully repellent and shocking, is doubly so when it +comes from the lips of one whose silvering hair shows his days have +already been long in the land of the God whom he is defying. And yet when +Mr. Couldock ceased to use plain, every-day oaths, and brought forth some +home-made ones, they were oaths of such intricate construction, such +grotesque termination, that they wrung a startled laugh from the most +unwilling lip.</p> + +<p>In personal appearance he was the beau-ideal wealthy farmer. He was +squarely, solidly built, of medium height—never fat. His square, +deeply-lined, even-furrowed face was clean shaven. His head, a little +bald on top, had a thin covering of curly gray hair, which he wore a +trifle long; while his suit of black cloth—always a size or two too +large for him—and his never-changing big hat of black felt were excuse +enough for any man's asking him about the state of the crops—which they +often did, and were generally urgently invited to go to the hottest Hades +for their pains.</p> + +<p>On his brow there was a deep and permanent scowl that seemed cut there to +the very bone. Two deep, heavy lines ran from the sides of his nose to +the corners of his lips, where they suddenly became deeper before +continuing down toward his chin, while a strong cast in one of his +steely-blue eyes gave a touch of malevolence to the severity of his face.</p> + +<p>The strong point of his acting was in the expression of intense +emotion—particularly grief or frenzied rage. He was utterly lacking in +dignity, courtliness, or subtlety. He was best as a rustic, and he was +the only creature I ever saw who could "snuffle" without being absurd or +offensive.</p> + +<p>Generally, if anything went wrong, Mr. Couldock's rage broke forth on the +instant, but he had been known to keep a rod in pickle for a day or more, +as in the case of a friend of mine—at least it was the husband of my +friend Mollie. He had played <i>Salanio</i> in "The Merchant of Venice," and +in some way had offended the star, who cursed him <i>sotto voce</i> at the +moment of the offence, and then seemed to forget all about the matter. +Next morning, at rehearsal, nothing was said till its close, when Mr. +Couldock quite quietly asked my friend to look in at his dressing-room +that evening before the play began.</p> + +<p>Poor John was uneasy all the afternoon, still he drew some comfort from +the calmness of Mr. Couldock's manner. Evening came, John was before the +bar. The star seemed particularly gentle—he removed his coat leisurely +and said:</p> + +<p>"You played <i>Salanio</i> last night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"And your name is—er?"</p> + +<p>"Ogden, sir," replied John.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, Ogden. Well, how long have you been at it, Ogden?"</p> + +<p>"About three years," answered the now confident and composed prisoner at +the bar.</p> + +<p>"Three years? huh! Well, will you let me give you a bit of advice, +Ogden?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, sir, I shall be glad to listen to any advice from you," +earnestly protested the infatuated one.</p> + +<p>"Well," snapped the star, rather sharply, "I want you to <i>follow it</i> as +well as to listen to it. Now you take some money—you <i>have</i> some money +saved, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir!" answered John.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," he turned his queer eye on him, he took a long, full +breath, "well, then, you just get some of that money, and you go to a +hardware store," his rage was rising visibly, "and you buy a good sharp +hatchet, and then I want you to take it home and chop your d——d fool +head off!" and ripping off his vest he made a furious charge upon the +almost paralyzed Ogden, clouting him from the room, while roaring like a +bull.</p> + +<p>He had played one set of plays so long he had lost the power to study +quickly, and he was so ill-advised once as to attempt a new part, on +rather short notice. The play was a miserable jumble of impossible +situations and strained, high-flown language; and, of all absurd things, +Mr. Couldock attempted to play a young Irish hero, with a love-scene—in +fact he was supposed to represent the young Emmet. Dear heaven! what a +sight he was, in those buckskin riding breeches (his legs were not beyond +suspicion as to their straightness), that cutaway green coat, and the +dinky little conical hat, looking so maliciously "larky," perched over +his fiercest eye. He forgot all his lines, but he never forgot his +profanity, and that night it took on a wild originality that was simply +convulsing. In one scene he had to promise to save his beloved Ireland. +He quite forgot the speech, and being reminded of it by the prompter, he +roared at the top of his voice: "I don't care! what the devil's Ireland +to me! d——n Ireland! I wish it and the man that wrote this play were +both at the bottom of the sea, with cock-eyed sharks eatin' 'em!" Then he +suddenly pulled out his part and began to search wildly for his next +scene, that he might try to recall his lines; at this he continued till +he was called to go upon the stage, then he made a rush, and in a moment +the house was laughing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear! what was it?" Everyone ran to peep on the stage. Mr. Couldock +had discovered they were laughing at him, and was becoming recklessly +furious. Mr. Ellsler, fearing he would insult the people, hastily rang +down the curtain. Then Mr. Couldock, as <i>Emmet</i>, faced round to us, and +the laughter was explained. When he was reading over his part he had put +on a big pair of spectacles, and when he hurried on he simply pushed them +up and left them there. A young lover with big, old-fashioned spectacles +on his forehead and a perky little conical hat looking down on them was +certainly an unusual sight and an amusing one.</p> + +<p>One of Mr. Couldock's most marked characteristics was the amazingly high +pitch of his voice in speaking. Anyone who has heard two men trying to +converse across a large open field has had a good illustration of his +style of intonation, which anger raised to a perfect shriek. The most +shocking exhibition of rage I ever saw came from him during a performance +of "Louis XI." Annie and I, as pages, were standing each side of the +throne, holding large red cushions against our stomachs. My cushion +supported a big gilded key, until, in my fright, I actually shook it off, +for when Mr. Couldock's passion came upon him on the stage his violence +created sad havoc in the memories of the actors. The audience, too, +could hear many of his jibes and oaths, and Mr. Ellsler was very angry +about it, for in spite of his affection for the man, he drew the line at +the insulting of the audience; therefore, when the curtain fell, Mr. +Ellsler said: "Charley, this won't do! you <i>must</i> control yourself in the +presence of the public!"</p> + +<p>The interference seemed to drive him mad. A volley of oaths, +inconceivably blasphemous, came from his lips, and then, with a bound, he +seized the manuscript (it was not a published play then, and the +manuscript was valuable) and tore it right down the centre. Mr. Ellsler +and the prompter caught his right hand, trying to save the play, but +while they held that he lifted the rest of the manuscript and tore it to +pieces with his teeth, growling and snarling like a savage animal. Then +he broke away and rushed frantically up-stairs to Mr. Ellsler's +dressing-room, where he locked himself in. When it was time to call the +next act he gave no answer to their knocking, though he could be heard +swearing and raving within. Mr. Ellsler finally burst open the door, and +there stood <i>Louis XI.</i> in his under-garments, and his clothing—where? +It was a tiny room, nevertheless no velvet costume could be found. The +window, a long French one, was nailed up for winter—the clothes had not +been thrown out. There was no stove yet, they had not been burned; where +then were they? Another overture was played. Some of Mr. Ellsler's +clothes were hastily brought—a nondescript covering for his royal +nakedness was found, and he went on to finish the performance somehow, +while the prompter guessed at the ringing down of the curtain, for there +was no manuscript to guide him.</p> + +<p>Truly it had been a most humiliating spectacle. Many weeks later, when +stoves were going up, the men discovered that someone had torn away the +tin protector from the stove-pipe hole in Mr. Ellsler's room, and when +they were replacing it they found, crammed tightly into a narrow space +between the lath and plastering of the two rooms, the velvet garments of +<i>Louis XI.</i>, even to the cap with the leaden images. How he had +discovered the place no one knows, and when his rage had passed he could +not remember what he had done, but he could play <i>Louis</i> no more that +season.</p> + +<p>We were always pleased when Mr. Couldock was accompanied by his daughter. +Eliza Couldock, bearing an absurdly marked resemblance to her father, of +course could not be pretty. The thin, curly hair, the fixed frown, the +deep lines of nose and mouth, the square, flat figure, all made of her a +slightly softened <i>replica</i> of the old gentleman. Her teeth were pretty, +though, and her hazel eyes were very brilliant. She was well read, +clever, and witty, and her affectionate devotion to her father knew no +bounds; yet as she had a keen sense of the ridiculous, no eccentricity, +no <i>grotesquerie</i> of his escaped her laughing, hawk-keen eye, and +sometimes when talking to old friends, like Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler, she +would tell tales of "poor pa" that were exceedingly funny.</p> + +<p>They went to California—a great undertaking then, as the Pacific +Railroad was not completed, and they were most unsuccessful during their +entire stay here. Eliza told one day of how a certain school-principal in +'Frisco had met her father after a performance to a miserable house, and +with frightful bad taste had asked Mr. Couldock how he accounted for the +failure of his engagement, and that gentleman snarled out: "I don't try +to account for it at all! I leave that work for the people who ask fool +questions. If I only have one d——n cent in my pocket I don't try to +account for not having another d——n cent to rub against it!" And Eliza +added, in pained tones: "that principal had meant to ask 'poor pa' to +come and speak to the dear little boys in his school, but after that he +didn't—wasn't it odd?"</p> + +<p>As Mr. Couldock was heard approaching that morning, his daughter quickly +whispered to Mrs. Ellsler: "Ask pa how he liked California?"</p> + +<p>And after "good-mornings" were exchanged, the question was put, and +incidentally the red rag brought the mad bull into action.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't give a d——n for the whole d——d State!" roared Mr. Couldock, +while his daughter pushed his hair behind his ears, and mildly said: +"Pa's always so emphatic about California."</p> + +<p>"Yes!" shouted the old man, "and so would you be if you wore breeches and +dared to speak the truth! You see," he went on, "no one ever gave me even +a hint, and it was just my cursed luck to go overland, risking my own +d——n skin and Eliza's too, and it seems that those God-forsaken duffers +look upon anyone coming to them by the overland route as a sort of +outcast tramp. In fact, that's entering by the back-kitchen door to San +Francisco. You ought to go by sea, and come in at the front door of their +blasted, stuck-up little city if you're to put any of their money in your +purse or be allowed to keep any of your own."</p> + +<p>One morning we girls were boasting among ourselves of our abilities as +packers. Hattie, my room-mate, thought she could pack a trunk the +quickest, while I claimed I could pack one with the least injury to the +contents. Miss Couldock, hearing us, exclaimed, laughingly: "Oh, girls, +poor pa could give you all points at that work, while his manner of +<i>un</i>packing is so original, so swift, and so thorough, I think I should +explain it to you. First, I must tell you, that that slight bow to pa's +legs is an annoyance to him on every occasion of life, save that of +unpacking his trunks, then it is of great convenience. You see, the +trunks are brought up and dumped in the room. They don't have any locks, +because 'poor pa,' always losing the keys, has to kick the locks off +during the first week that he owns them. Next they are unstrapped and +opened, then pa yanks off the top spread from the bed and lays it open on +the middle of the floor; then he takes his place before the first trunk, +straddles his feet well apart (see, now, how useful that bow becomes), +and fires every single garment the trunk contains between his legs and +on to the quilt. Having emptied the trunks with lightning swiftness, he +claps down their covers for the rest of the week. Whenever he wants +anything for the theatre, he straddles the pile on the quilt, and paws it +wildly, but rapidly over, pulling out a shoulder-cape here, a doublet +yonder, one boot from the top and its mate from the bottom—all these he +pitches into the theatre-basket, and is happy for <i>that</i> day. When the +week is over, pa dumps into the nearest trunk all it will hold, and +what's left over is pitched <i>en masse</i> into the next one. If there is any +difficulty in closing the trunks he don't waste time in trying to +re-arrange the things. There is such beautiful simplicity in all pa's +actions, he just gets up and walks—well, perhaps stamps a little on the +contents, until the lid closes quite nicely, for he is a very quick +packer, is pa, though it's just possible that his method in some degree +may explain his generally rumpled appearance on the stage. What should +<i>you</i> think about it, girls?"</p> + +<p>The old gentleman was always very kind to me and had the oddest pet name +for me I ever heard. He used to hail me with: "Where's my crummie girl? +Well, Crummy, how are you?"</p> + +<p>In answer to my amazed look, he explained one day that it was a Yorkshire +term, and meant "plump or round faced." The only time he ever cursed me +was when he gave me the cue in the wrong place, as he openly admitted, +and I went on too soon in consequence. Aside, he swore so the air seemed +blue—my legs shook under me. I did not know whether to speak or not. He +rose, and putting his arm about me, he led me off the stage (I was +playing his daughter), and as we crossed the stage, this is what he +said—the words in parentheses being asides to me, the other words being +aloud for the audience:</p> + +<p>"(What in h—ll!) My little one! (you double d——n fool!) My bird, what +brings you here? (Yes, what the blankety, blankety, blanknation does +bring you here, crummie girl?) Get back to your nest, dearie! (and stay +there, d——n you!)" as he gently pushed me off the stage. Next day when +the prompter showed him his error he admitted it at once.</p> + +<p>He knew much sorrow and trouble, and before that last long streak of good +fortune came to him, in New York, in "Hazel Kirke," he knew a time of +bitter poverty. Eliza had died—a sweet and noble woman—and the loss was +terrible to him. I was just winning success in the East when I was +dumfounded one day at seeing Mr. Couldock standing, bowed and broken, +before me, asking me for help.</p> + +<p>A star—dear God! could such things happen to a star? I was so hurt for +him, for his broken pride. When I could speak, I simply told him my +salary, and that two (my mother and myself) were trying to live on it. +"Oh!" he cried, "crummie girl, why don't you demand your rights; your +name is on everyone's lips, yet you are hungry! Shall I speak for you?"</p> + +<p>Poor old gentleman, I could not let him go empty away. I took one-half of +my rent-money and handed it to him. I dared not ask my landlady to favor +me further than that. His face lighted up radiantly—it might have been +hundreds from his look. "Dearie!" he said, "I'll pay this back to the +penny. You can ill spare it, I see that, crummie girl, but, oh, my lass, +it's worse to see another hungry than it is to hunger yourself. I'll pay +it back!" His eyes filled, he paused long, then he said, pathetically: +"Some time, crummie girl, some time!"</p> + +<p>My landlady granted me grace. Months passed away—many of them—waves +went over me sometimes, but they receded before my breath was quite gone. +Things were bettering a little, and then one day, when I came home from +work, a man had called in my absence—an old man, who had left this +little packet, and, oh! he had been so anxious for its safety!</p> + +<p>I opened it to find $25, all in bills of ones and twos. Such a pathetic +story those small bills told—they were for the crummie girl, "With the +thanks of the obliged, Charles W. Couldock."</p> + +<p>He had kept his word; he was the only man in this profession who ever +repaid me one dollar of borrowed money. Mr. Couldock was like some +late-ripening fruit that requires a touch of frost for its sweetening. In +his old age he mellowed, he became chaste of speech, his acting of +strong, lovable old men was admirable. He was honored by his profession +in life and honestly mourned in death—he would not have asked more.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="NINETEENTH"></a>NINETEENTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">I Come to a Turning-Point in my Dramatic Life—I play my First Crying +Part with Miss Sallie St. Clair.</p></div> + + + + +<p>We were in Columbus; things were moving along smoothly and quietly, when +suddenly that incident occurred which had the power to change completely +my dramatic prospects, while at the same time it convinced the people +about me, in theatrical parlance, my head was "well screwed on," meaning +it was not to be turned by praise.</p> + +<p>Miss Sallie St. Clair was the star of the week, and she was billed to +appear on Friday and Saturday nights in an adaptation of "La Maison +Rouge." I am not certain as to the title she gave it, but I think it was +"The Lone House on the Bridge." She was to play the dual characters—a +count and a gypsy boy. The leading female part Mrs. Ellsler declined, +because she would not play second to a woman. The young lady who had been +engaged for the juvenile business (which comes between leading parts and +walking ladies) had a very poor study, and tearfully declared she simply +<i>could</i> not study the part in time—"No—no! she co—co—could not, so +now!"</p> + +<p>There, then, was Blanche's chance. The part was sentimental, tearful, and +declamatory at the last, a good part—indeed, what is vulgarly known +to-day as a "fat" part, "fat" meaning lines sure to provoke applause.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bradshaw, who was herself ever ready to oblige her manager, could +not serve him in this instance, as the part was that of a very young +heroine, but she gladly offered her daughter's services in the emergency. +So sending for her to come to the theatre, the mother awaited her +arrival. She was very ambitious for Blanche, who had absolutely no +ambition for herself, outside of music, and here was the double +opportunity of playing a leading part, next to the star, and of obliging +the manager just at the time when contracts for the next season were in +order of consideration. No girl could help grasping at it eagerly, and +while Blanche studied the part, she, the mother, would baste up some +breadths of satin she had by her into a court dress. As she thus happily +planned it all Blanche sauntered in to inform her mother and her manager +that she would not do the part. <i>Would</i> not, mind you; she did not +condescend to claim she <i>could</i> not. Poor Mrs. Bradshaw drew her heavy +veil over her face with a shaking hand and moved silently away, only +waiting to reach the friendly privacy of her own room before yielding to +the tears caused by this cruel indifference to her wishes and to their +mutual welfare.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ellsler then tried, in vain, to induce Blanche to undertake the part. +He tried to bribe her, promising certain gifts. He tried to arouse her +pride—he absolutely commanded her to take the part.</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well, if you like," she answered, "but I'll spoil the play if I +do, you know!" And indeed he did "know" what she was capable of in the +line of mischief; and, knowing, gave her up in angry despair. There was +then but one chance left for the production of the play, to give the part +to one of the ballet-girls.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Ellsler, who felt a strong friendship for the brave, +hard-working, much-enduring Miss St. Clair and her devoted if eccentric +husband, said, gently: "I'm sorry, Sallie, but it's no fault of mine; you +know I can't give memories to these two women, who say they can't study +the part. The girl I want to offer it to now will speak the words +perfectly to the last letter, and that's all we can expect of her, but +that's better than changing the bill."</p> + +<p>Then I was called. I adored Miss St. Clair, as everyone else did. I +heard, I saw the long part, but instead of the instant smiling assent Mr. +Ellsler expected, I shook my head silently. Miss St. Clair groaned, Mr. +Barras snuffled loudly, and stammered: "W—what did you expect, if the +others can't study it, how can she?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," I answered, "I can study the lines, Mr. Barras, but," big tears +came into my eyes, I was so sorry to disappoint the lovely blond star, +"it's—it's a crying part—a great lady and a crying part! I—I—oh, if +you please, I can't cry. I can laugh and dance and sing and scold, but I +don't know how to cry; and look here," I caught up the part and fluttered +over the leaves and pointed to the oft-repeated word "weeps—weeps," +"and, Miss St. Clair," I excitedly finished, "I can't weep, and I won't +have a stitch of clothes for her back either!"</p> + +<p>All three hearers burst out laughing. Miss St. Clair was in radiant +good-humor in an instant. She dried my eyes, and said: "Child, if you +really can study that long part, and just walk through it after only one +rehearsal, you will be a very clever little girl. You need not try to +act, just give me the lines and hold a handkerchief to your eyes when +tears are called for. You shall have one of my prettiest dresses for the +court scene, and I guess you have a white muslin of your own for the +garden scene, have not you?"</p> + +<p>I had, yes, and so I went home, heavy-hearted, to undertake the study of +my first crying part.</p> + +<p>Good heavens! In spite of this memory, I catch myself wondering was there +ever a <i>first one</i>—did I ever do anything else. For it seems to me I +have cried steadily through all the years of my dramatic life. Tears +gentle, regretful; tears petulant, fretful; tears stormy, passionate; +tears slow, despairing; with a light patter, now and then, of my own +particular brand, kept for the expression of my own personal +troubles—very bitter, briny tears they are, and I find that a very few +answer my purpose nicely.</p> + +<p>Miss St. Clair, who was tall as well as fair, had measured the length of +my skirt in front, so that she might have one of her dresses shortened +for me during the afternoon, thus leaving me all the time possible for +study. After I had learned the words by heart, I began to study out the +character. It was an excellent acting part, very sweet and tenderly +pathetic in the first act, very passionate and fierce in the second, and +the better I understood the requirements of the part, the greater became +my terror of it. My room-mate tried to comfort me. "Think," she cried, +"of wearing one of Miss St. Clair's own dresses! I'll wager it will be an +awful nice one, too, since you are obliging her, and she is always kind, +anyway."</p> + +<p>But that leaden weight at my heart was too great for gratified vanity to +lift. "Bother the tears," she added; "I heard Mr. Barras say the tears of +all actresses were in their handkerchiefs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I heard him, too," I answered, "but he was just talking for +effect. There must be something else, something more. You can't move +anyone's heart by showing a handkerchief."</p> + +<p>"Well," she exclaimed, a bit impatiently, "what do you <i>want</i> to do? You +don't expect to shed real tears, do you?"</p> + +<p>"N-n-no!" I hesitated, "not exactly that, but there's a tone—a—Hattie, +last Wednesday, when you quarrelled with young Fleming—I was not +present, you know—but that night, a half-hour after our light was out, +you spoke to me in the darkness, and I instantly asked you why you were +crying and if you had been quarrelling, though you had not even reached +the sobbing stage yet. Now how did I know you were crying?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—anyway I had no handkerchief," she laughed; "you heard it +maybe in my voice."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered, eagerly, "that was it. That curious veiling of the +voice. Oh, Hattie, if I could only get that tone, but I can't, I've tried +and tried!"</p> + +<p>"Why," she exclaimed, "you've got it now—this very moment!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I broke in impatiently, and turning to her a pair of reproachful, +tear-filled eyes, "yes, but why? because I'm really crying, with the +worry and the disappointment, and, oh, Hattie, the fright!"</p> + +<p>And the landlady, a person who always lost one shoe when coming +up-stairs, announced dinner, and I shuddered and turned my face away. +Hattie went down, however, and bringing all her blandishments to bear +upon the head of the establishment, secured for me a cup of coffee—that +being my staff in all times of trouble or of need, and then we were off +to the theatre, Hattie kindly keeping at my side for companionship or +help, as need might be.</p> + +<p>I did not appear in the first act, so I had plenty of time to receive my +borrowed finery—to try it on, and then to dress in my own white muslin, +ready for my first attempt at a crying part. It was a moonlit scene. Miss +St. Clair, tall, slender, elegant, looked the young French gallant to the +life in her black velvet court dress. I had to enter down some steps from +a great stone doorway. I stood, ready to go on. I wore a mantilla with my +muslin. I held a closed fan in my hand. My heart seemed to suffocate +me—I thought, stupidly, "Why don't I pray?" but I could not think of a +single word. I heard the faint music that preceded my entrance—a mad +panic seized me. I turned and dashed toward the street-door. Mr. Ellsler, +who had just made his exit, caught me by the skirts. "Are you mad, girl?" +he cried; "go back—quick—quick! I tell you—there's your cue!"</p> + +<p>Next moment, tremulous but smiling, I was descending the steps to meet +the counterfeit lover awaiting me. My head was on his breast and my arm +stealing slowly about his neck before I knew that the closed fan in my +hand was crushed into fragments and marks of blood showing between my +clinched fingers. My first lines were simply recited, without meaning, +then the tender words and courtly manners aroused my imagination. The +glamour of the stage was upon me. The frightened actress ceased to +exist—I was the Spanish girl whose long-mourned lover had returned to +her; and there was something lacking in the greeting, some tone of the +voice, some glance of the eye seemed strange, alien. There was more of +ardor, less of tenderness than before. My lips trembled; suddenly I heard +the veiled, pathetic tone I had all day striven for in vain, and +curiously enough it never struck me that it was my voice—no! it was the +Spanish girl who spoke. My heart leaped up in my throat with a great +pity, tears rushed to my eyes, fell upon my cheeks. There was +applause—of course, was not Miss St. Clair there? Suspicion arose in my +mind—grew. I bethought me of the saving of my life on that stolen day +passed in the forest long ago. I took my lover's hand and with pretty +wiles drew him into the moonlight. Then swiftly stripping up the lace +ruffles, showed his arm smooth and unblemished by any scar, and with the +cry: "You are not Pascal de la Garde!" stood horror-stricken.</p> + +<p>The moment the curtain fell Miss St. Clair sprang to me, and taking my +face between her hands, she cried: "You would move a heart of stone!" She +wiped her eyes, and turning to her husband, said: "Good God! she's a +marvel!"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" he snuffled, "not yet, Sallie; but she's a marvel in embryo!" +He patted me on the shoulder. "You have a fortune somewhere between your +throat and your eyes, my girl—you have, indeed!"</p> + +<p>And then I rushed to don my borrowed robes for the next act, and stared +stupidly when Hattie said: "What lovely applause you got, Clara, and you +so frightened; you shook all over when you went on, we could see you."</p> + +<p>But I was too excited over what was yet to be done really to comprehend +her words. When I saw myself in the glass I was delighted. The open robe +of pale blue satin, brocaded with silver, was lifted at the sides with +big bunches of blush and deep-pink roses over a white satin petticoat. I +wore a high Spanish comb, a white mantilla, a pink rose over the ear, +after the national fashion, and a great cluster of roses at my breast, +and for the first time I felt the subtle joy that emanates from beautiful +and becoming garments. The fine softness of the rich fabric was pleasant +to my touch—its silken rustle was music to my ear. Miss St. Clair had +lent me of her best, and as I saw it all reflected there, I thought how +easy it must be for the rich to be good and happy, never dreaming that +the wealthy, who to escape <i>ennui</i> and absolute idleness sometimes did +wrong simply because there was nothing else to do, might think in turn, +ah! how easy it must be for the poor to be good and happy.</p> + +<p>But the overture ended abruptly. I gathered up my precious draperies and +ran to the entrance to be ready for my cue. The first speeches were cold, +haughty, and satirical. The gypsy who was personating my dead lover had +deceived everyone else, even the half-blind old mother had accepted him +as her son, though declaring him greatly changed in temper and in manner. +But I, the sweetheart, was not convinced, and ignoring the advice of the +highest at the court, was fighting the adventurer with the courage of +despair.</p> + +<p>As the scene went on, the stage hands (carpenters, gas-men, +scene-shifters, etc.) began to gather in the entrances, always a sign of +something unusual going on. I saw them—an ugly thought sprang up in my +mind. Ah, yes, they are there waiting to see the ballet-girl fail in a +leading part! An unworthy suspicion, I am sure, but it acted as a spur +would have done upon an already excited horse, and with the same result, +loss of self-control.</p> + +<p>In the denunciation of the adventurer as a murderer and a personator of +his own victim my passion rose to a perfect fury. I swept the stage, +storming, raging, fearing nothing under heaven but the possible escape of +the wretch I hated! Vaguely I noted the manager reaching far over a +balcony to see me—I didn't care even for the manager. The audience burst +into tremendous applause; I didn't care for that either, I only wanted +to see a rapier through the heart of the pale, sneering man before me. It +was momentary madness. People were startled—the star twice forgot her +lines. It was not correct, it was not artistic work. She, the part, was a +great lady, and even her passion should have been partially restrained; +but I, who played her, a ballet-girl, earning $5 a week, what could you +expect, pray, for the price? Certainly not polish or refinement. But the +genuine feeling, the absolute sincerity, and the crude power lavished +upon the scene delighted the audience and created a very real sensation.</p> + +<p>The curtain fell. Miss St. Clair took me into her kind arms and, without +a word, kissed me heartily. The applause went on and on. She caught my +hand and said, "Come!" As she led me to the curtain, I suddenly realized +her intention, and a very agony of bashfulness seized upon me. I +struggled frantically. "Oh, don't!" I begged. "Oh, please, I'm nobody, +they won't like it, Miss St. Clair."</p> + +<p>She motioned the men to pull back the curtain, and she dragged me out +before it with her. The applause redoubled. Shamed and stupid, I stood +there, my chin on my breast. Then I heard the laugh I so admired (Miss +St. Clair had a laugh that the word merry describes perfectly), her arm +went about my neck, while her fingers beneath my chin lifted my face till +I met her smiling glance and smiled back at her. Then the audience burst +into a great laugh, and bowing awkwardly to them and to her, I backed +off, out of sight, as quickly as I could; she, bowing like a young +prince, followed me. But again they called, and again the generous woman +took me with her.</p> + +<p>And that was the first time I ever experienced the honor of going before +the curtain with a star. I supposed I had received the highest possible +reward for my night's work; I forgot there were such things as newspapers +in the town, but I was reminded of their existence the next day.</p> + +<p>Never, never was I so astonished. Such notices as were given of the +performance, and what was particularly dwelt upon, think you? Why, the +tears. "Real tears—tears that left streaks on the girl's cheeks!" said +one paper. "Who is she—have you seen her—the wonderful Columbus +ballet-girl, who wins tears with tears, real ones, too?" asked another.</p> + +<p>I was ashamed. I was afraid people would make fun of me at the theatre. +At the box-office window that day many people were asking: "That girl +that made the hit last night, is she really one of the ballet, or is it +just a story, for effect?"</p> + +<p>Some women asked, anxiously: "Will that girl cry to-night, do you think?"</p> + +<p>It was very strange. One paper had a quieter article; it spoke of a rough +diamond—of an earnest, honest method of addressing speeches directly to +the character, instead of to the audience, as did many of the older +actors. It claimed a future, a fair, bright future for the girl who could +so thoroughly put herself in another's place, and declared it would watch +with interest the movements of so remarkable a ballet-girl.</p> + +<p>Now see how oddly we human dice are shaken about, and in what groups we +fall, again and again. Among the honorable gentlemen sitting at that time +in the Ohio Legislature was Colonel Donn Piatt, with the fever of the +Southern marshes yet in his blood as a souvenir of his services through +the war. He had gone languidly enough to the theatre that night, because +there was nothing else for him to do—unless he swapped stories of the +war in the hotel corridor with other ex-soldiers, and he was sick to +death of that, and he was so surprised by what he saw that he was moved +to write the article from which the last quotation is taken. Stopping in +the same hotel, but quite unknown to him, was a young man, hardly out of +boyhood, whose only lie, I honestly believe, was the one he told and +swore to in order to raise his age to the proper military height that +would admit him into the army. Bright, energetic, almost attaining +perpetual motion in his own person, ambitious John A. Cockerill just then +served in the double capacity of a messenger in the House and reporter on +a paper. Diphtheria, which was almost epidemic that winter, visited the +staff of the paper he was on, and in consequence he was temporarily +assigned to its dramatic work—thus he wrote another of the notices of my +first venture in the tearful drama. Every day these two men were in the +State-house—every day I walked through its grounds on my way to and from +the theater—each quite unconscious of the others.</p> + +<p>But old Time shakes the box and casts the dice so many, many times, +groupings must repeat themselves now and again, so it came about that +after years filled with hard work and fair dreams, another shake of the +box cast us down upon the table of Life, grouped together again—but each +man knew and served me now faithfully, loyally; each giving me a hand to +pull me up a step higher. They hated each other bitterly, vindictively, +as journalists have been known to do occasionally; and as I knew the +noble qualities of both, what better reward could I give for their +goodness to me than to clasp their hands together and make them friends? +It was not an easy task, it required <i>finesse</i> as well as courage, but +that was the kind of task a woman loves—if she succeeds, and I +succeeded.</p> + +<p>They became friends, strong, earnest friends for the rest of their lives. +Death severed the bond, if it is severed; I do not know, and they may not +return to tell me—I only know that in the years that were to come, when +each man headed a famous paper, Colonel John A. Cockerill, of the New +York <i>World</i>, who wrote many a high word of praise for me when victory +had at last perched on my banner, and Colonel Piatt, who with his +brilliant wife made me known to many famous men and women in their +hospitable Washington home, loved to recall that night in Columbus when, +all unconsciously, we three came so near to each other, only to drift +apart for years and come together again.</p> + +<p>And once I said, "like motes," and Donn Piatt swiftly added, "and a +sunbeam," and both men lifted their glasses and, nodding laughingly at +me, cried: "To the sunbeam!" while Mrs. Piatt declared, "That's a very +pretty compliment," but to me the unanimity of thought between those +erstwhile enemies was the prettiest thing about it.</p> + +<p>But even so small a success as that had its attendant shadows, as I soon +found. Though I was then boarding, with Hattie McKee for my room-mate, I +felt I still owed a certain duty and respect to Mrs. Bradshaw. Therefore, +when this wonderful thing happened to me, I thought I ought to go and +tell her all about it. I went; she gave me a polite, unsmiling +good-morning and pointed to a chair. I felt chilled. Presently she +remarked, with a small, forced laugh: "You have become so great a person, +I scarcely expected to see you here to-day."</p> + +<p>I looked reproachfully at her, as I quietly answered: "But you see I am +here;" then added, "I did not think you would make fun of me, Mrs. +Bradshaw, I only tried to do my best."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she replied, "one does not make fun of very successful people."</p> + +<p>I turned away to hide my filling eyes, as I remarked: "Perhaps I'd better +go away now."</p> + +<p>I moved toward the door, wounded to the heart. I had thought she would be +so pleased—you see, I was young yet, and sometimes very stupid—I forgot +she had a daughter. But suddenly she called to me in the old, kindly +voice I was so used to: "Come back Clara," she cried, "come back! It's +mean to punish you for another's fault. My dear, I congratulate you; you +have only proved what I have long believed, that you have in you the +making of a fine actress. But when I think who had that same chance, and +that it was deliberately thrown away," her lips trembled, "I—well, it's +hard to bear. Even all this to-do about you in the part does not make +her regret what she has done."</p> + +<p>Poor mother! I felt so sorry for her. I wished to go away then, I thought +my presence was unpleasant, but she made me tell her all about the +evening, and describe Miss St. Clair's dress, and what everyone said and +did. Loyal soul! I think that was a self-inflicted penance for a +momentary unkindness.</p> + +<p>Blanche gave me her usual kind greeting, and added the words: "Say, if I +hadn't given you the chance, you couldn't have been a big gun to-day. You +know Mr. Ellsler won't dare to give you anything, but he would have given +me a nice present if I had done the part for him. So after all I've lost, +I think you might give me a new piece of chewing-gum, mine won't snap or +squeak or stretch out or do anything, it's just in its crumbly old age."</p> + +<p>I gave the new gum; so, now, if that success seems not quite square, if +you think I made an unfair use of my funds in obtaining promotion, do +please remember that I was only an accessory <i>after</i> the act—not before +it. I am the more anxious this should be impressed upon your mind because +that penny was the only one I ever spent in paying for advancement +professionally.</p> + +<p>The second night of the "Lone House" was also the last night of Miss St. +Clair's engagement, and when I carried her blue-brocade gown back to her, +eagerly calling attention to its spotless condition, she stood with her +hand high against the wall and her head resting heavily upon her +outstretched arm. It was an attitude of such utter collapse, there was +such a wanness on her white face that the commonplace words ceased to +bubble over my lips, and, startled, I turned toward her husband. Charles +Barras, gentleman as he was by birth and breeding, and one time officer +in the American navy, was nevertheless in manner and appearance so odd +that the sight or the sound of him provoked instant smiles, but that +night his eyes were a tragedy, filled as they were with an anguish of +helpless love.</p> + +<p>For a sad moment he gazed at her silently—then he was counting drops +from a bottle, holding smelling-salts to her pinched nostrils, removing +her riding-boots, indeed, deftly filling the place not only of nurse, but +dressing-maid, and as the wanness gradually faded from her weary face, +bravely ignoring her own feelings, she made a little joke or two, then +gave me hearty thanks for coming to her rescue, as she called it, praised +my effort at acting, and asked me how I liked a crying part.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't like it at all," I answered.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she sighed, "we never like what we do best; that's why I can never +be contented in elegant light comedy, but must strain and fret after +dramatic, tragic, and pathetic parts—and to think that a young, +untrained girl should step out of obscurity and without an effort do what +I have failed in all these years!"</p> + +<p>I stood aghast. "Why—why, Miss St. Clair!" I exclaimed, "you have +applause and applause every night of your life!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," she laughed, "you foolish child, it's not the applause I'm thinking +of, but something finer, rarer. You have won tears, my dear, a thing I +have never done in all my life, and never shall, no, never, I see that +now!"</p> + +<p>"I wish I had not!" I answered, remorsefully and quite honestly, because +I was quite young and unselfish yet, and I loved her, and she understood +and leaned over and kissed my cheek, and told me not to bury my talent, +but to make good use of it by and by when I was older and free to choose +a line of business. "Though," she added, "even here I'll wager it's few +comedy parts that will come your way after to-night, young lady." And then +I left her.</p> + +<p>That same night I heard that a dread disease already abode with her, and +slept and waked and went and came with her, and would not be shaken off, +but clung ever closer and closer; and, oh! poor Charles Barras! money +might have saved her then—money right then might have saved this woman +of his love, and God only knows how desperately he struggled, but the +money came not. Then, worse still, Sallie was herself the bread-winner, +and though Mr. Barras worked hard, doing writing and translating, acting +as agent, as nurse, as maid, playing, too, in a two-act comedy, "The +Hypochondriac," he still felt the sting of living on his wife's earnings, +and she had, too, a mother and an elder sister to support; therefore she +worked on and disease worked with her.</p> + +<p>Charles Barras said, with bitter sarcasm in his voice: "I-I-I always see +m-my wife Sallie with a helpless woman over each shoulder, a-a-and myself +on her back, like the 'old man of the sea,' a-a-a pretty heavy burden +that for a sick woman to carry, my girl! a-a-and a mighty pleasant +picture for a man to have of his wife! A-a-and money—great God, money, +right now, might save her—might save her!" He turned suddenly from me +and walked on to the pitch-dark stage.</p> + +<p>Poor Mr. Barras, I could laugh no more at his heelless boots, his funny +half-stammer, and his ancient wig, not even when I recall the memory of +that blazing Sunday in a Cincinnati Episcopal church, when, the stately +liturgy over, the Reverend Doctor ascended the pulpit and, regardless of +the suffering of his sweltering hearers, droned on endlessly, and Mr. +Barras leaned forward, and drawing a large palm fan from the next pew's +rack, calmly lifted his wig off with one hand while with the other he +alternately fanned his ivory bald head and the steaming interior of his +wig. The action had an electrical effect. In a moment even the sleepers +were alert, awake, a fact which so startled the preacher that he lost his +place—hemmed—h-h-med, and ran down, found the place again, started, saw +Barras fanning his wig, though paying still most decorous attention to +the pulpit, and before they knew it they were all scrambling to their +feet at "Might, Majesty, and Power!"—were scrabbling for their pockets +at "Let your light so shine," for Mr. Barras had shortened the service +with a vengeance; hence the forgiving glances cast upon him as he +carefully replaced his wig and sauntered forth.</p> + +<p>Several years after that night in Columbus, when I had reached New York +and was rehearsing for my first appearance there, I one morning heard +hasty, shuffling steps following me, and before I could enter the +stage-door, a familiar "Er-er-er Clara, Clara!" stopped me, and I turned +to face the wealthy author of the "Black Crook"—Mr. Charles Barras. +There he stood in apparently the same heelless cloth gaiters, the same +empty-looking black alpaca suit, the clumsy turned-over collar that was +an integral part of the shirt and not separate from it, the big black +satin handkerchief-tie that he had worn years ago, but the face, how +bloodless, shrunken, lined, and sorrowful it looked beneath the +adamantine youthfulness of that chestnut wig!</p> + +<p>"D-d-don't you know me?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course I do," I answered as I took his hand.</p> + +<p>"W-w-well then don't run away—er-er it's against law, r-religion, or +decency to turn your back on a rich man. D-d-dodge the poor, Clara, my +girl! but never turn your back on a man with money!"</p> + +<p>I was pained; probably I looked so. He went on: "I-I-I'm rich now, Clara. +I've got a fine marine villa, and in it are an old, old dog and a dying +old woman. They both belonged to my Sallie, and so I'll keep hold of 'em +as long as I can, for her sake. A-a-after they go!" he turned his head +away, he looked up at the beautiful blue indifference of the sky, his +face seemed to tremble all over, his eyes came back, and he muttered: +"W-w-we'll see—w-w-we'll see what will happen then. But, Clara, you +remember that time when money could have saved her? The money I receive +in one week now, if I could have had it then, she, Sallie, might be over +there on Broadway now buying the frills and furbelows she loved and +needed, too, and couldn't have. The little boots and slippers—you +remember Sallie's instep? Had to have her shoes to order always," he +stopped, he pressed his lips tight together for a moment, then suddenly +he burst out: "By God, when a man struggles hard all his life, it's a +damn rough reward to give him a handsome coffin for his wife!"</p> + +<p>Oh, poor rich man! how my heart ached for him. A tear slipped down my +cheek; he saw it. "D-d-don't!" he said, "d-don't, my girl, she can't come +back, and it hurts her to have anyone grieve. I want you to come and see +me, when you get settled here, a-a-and I wish you a great big success. My +Sallie liked you, she spoke often of you. I-I-I'll let you know how to +get out there, and I-I-I'll show you her dog—old Belle, and you can +stroke her, and er-er sit in Sallie's chair a little while perhaps—and +er—don't, my girl, don't cry, she can't come back, you know," and +shaking my hands he left me, thinking I was crying for Sallie, who was +safe at rest and had no need of tears, while instead they were for +himself—so old, so sad, so lonely, such a poor rich man! Did he know +then how near Death was to him? Some who knew him well believe unto this +day that the fatal fall from the cars was no fall, but a leap—only God +knows.</p> + +<p>I never paid the promised visit—could find no opportunity—and I never +saw him again, that eccentric man, devoted husband, and honest gentleman, +Charles Barras.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTIETH"></a>TWENTIETH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">I Have to Pass through Bitter Humiliation to Win High Encomiums from +Herr Bandmann; while Edwin Booth's Kindness Fills the Theatre with +Pink Clouds, and I Float Thereon.</p></div> + + + + +<p>Occasionally one person united two "lines of business," as in the case of +Mrs. Bradshaw, who played "old women" and "heavy business" both, and when +anything happened to disqualify such a person for work the inconvenience +was of course very great. Mrs. Bradshaw, as I have said before, was very +stout, but her frame was delicate in the extreme, and her slender ankles +were unable to bear her great weight, and one of them broke. Of course +that meant a long lying up in dry-dock for her, and any amount of worry +for ever so many other people. Right in the middle of her imprisonment +came the engagement of the German actor, Herr Daniel Bandmann. He was to +open with "Hamlet," and, gracious Heaven! I was cast for the +<i>Queen-mother</i>. It took a good deal in the way of being asked to do +strange parts to startle me, but the <i>Queen-mother</i> did it. I was just +nicely past sixteen, but even I dared not yet lay claim to seventeen, and +I was to go on the stage for the serious Shakespearian mother of a star.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I couldn't!"</p> + +<p>"Can't be helped—no one else," growled Mr. Ellsler. "Just study your +lines, right away, and do the best you can."</p> + +<p>I had been brought up to obey, and I obeyed. We had heard much of Mr. +Bandmann, of his originality, his impetuosity, and I had been very +anxious to see him. After that cast, however, I would gladly have +deferred the pleasure. The dreaded morning came. Mr. Bandmann, a very big +man, to my frightened eyes looked gigantic. He was dark-skinned, he had +crinkly, flowing hair, his eyes were of the curious red-brown color of a +ripe chestnut. He was large of voice, and large of gesture. There was a +greeting, a few introductions, and then rehearsal was on, and soon, oh! +so soon, there came the call for the <i>Queen</i>. I came forward. He glanced +down at me, half smiled, waved his arm, and said: "Not you, not the +<i>Player-Queen</i>, but <i>Gertrude</i>."</p> + +<p>I faintly answered: "I'm sorry, sir, but I have to play <i>Gertrude</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no you won't!" he cried, "not with me!" He was furious, he stamped +his feet, he turned to the manager: "What's all this infernal nonsense? I +want a woman for this part! What kind of witches' broth are you serving +me, with an old woman for my <i>Ophelia</i>, and an apple-cheeked girl for my +mother! She can't speak these lines! she, dumpling face!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Ellsler said, quietly: "There is sickness in my company. The heavy +woman cannot act; this young girl will not look the part, of course, but +you need have no fear about the lines, she never loses a word."</p> + +<p>"Curse the <i>words</i>! It is, that that little girl shall not read with the +sense one line, no, not one line of the Shakespeare!" his English was +fast going in his rage.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ellsler answered: "She will read the part as well as you ever heard +it in your life, Mr. Bandmann." And Mr. Bandmann gave a jeering laugh, +and snapped his fingers loudly.</p> + +<p>It was most insulting, and I felt overwhelmed with humiliation. Mr. +Ellsler said, angrily: "Very well, as I have no one else to offer you, we +will close the theatre for the night!"</p> + +<p>But Mr. Bandmann did not want to close—not he. So, after swearing in +German for a time, he resumed rehearsal, and when my time came to speak I +could scarcely lift my drooping head or conquer the lump in my throat, +but, somehow, I got out the entreating words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Good Hamlet, cast thy Knighted color off,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark."</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">He lifted his head suddenly—I went on:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Seek for thy noble father in the dust." +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">He exclaimed, surprisedly: "So! so!" as I continued my speech. Now in +this country, "So—so!" is a term applied to restless cows at +milking-time, and the devil of ridicule, never long at rest in my mind, +suddenly wakened, so that when I had to say:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg." +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">and Mr. Bandmann smilingly cried: "So! so!" and I swiftly added the word +"Bossy," and every soul on the stage broke into laughter. He saw he was +laughed at, and it took a whole week's time and an elaborate explanation, +to enable him to grasp the jest—but when he got a good hold of it, he +so! so! bossied and stamped and laughed at a great rate.</p> + +<p>During the rehearsal—which was difficult in the extreme, as his business +(<i>i.e.</i>, actions or poses accompanying certain words) was very different +from that we were used to—he never found one single fault with my +reading, and made just one suggestion, which I was most careful to +follow—for one taste of his temper had been enough.</p> + +<p>Then came the night—a big house, too, I remember. I wore long and loose +garments to make me look more matronly; but, alas! the drapery <i>Queen +Gertrude</i> wears, passed under her jaws from ear to ear, was particularly +becoming to me, and brought me uncommonly near to prettiness. Mr. +Ellsler groaned, but said nothing, while Mr. Bandmann sneered out an "Ach +Himmel!" shrugged his shoulders, and made me feel real nice and happy. +And when one considers that without me the theatre must have closed or +changed its bill, even while one pities him for the infliction, one feels +he was unnecessarily unkind.</p> + +<p>Well, all went quietly until the closet scene—between <i>Hamlet</i>, the +<i>Queen</i>, and the <i>Ghost</i>. It is a great scene, and he had some very +effective business. I forgot Bandmann in <i>Hamlet</i>. I tried hard to show +shame, pride, and terror. The applause was rapturous. The curtain fell, +and—why, what, in the name of heaven, was happening to me?</p> + +<p>I was caught by the arms and lifted high in air; when I came down I was +crushed to <i>Hamlet's</i> bosom, with a crackling sound of breaking +Roman-pearl beads, and in a whirlwind of "Himmels!" "Gotts!" and things, +I was kissed with frenzied wet kisses on either cheek—on my brow—my +eyes. Then disjointed English came forth: "Oh, you so great, you kleine +apple-cheeked girl! you maker of the fraud—you so great nobody! ach! you +are fire—you have pride—you are a <i>Gertrude</i> who have shame!" More +kisses, then suddenly he realized the audience was still +applauding—loudly and heartily. He grasped my hand, he dragged me before +the curtain, he bowed, he waved his hands, he threw one arm about my +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" I thought, "he isn't going to do it all over again—out +here, is he?" and I began backing out of sight as quickly as possible.</p> + +<p>It was a very comforting plaster to apply to my wounds—such a success as +that, but it would have been so much pleasanter not to have received the +wound in the first place.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bandmann's best work, I think, was done in "Narcisse." His <i>Hamlet</i> +seemed to me too melodramatic—if I may say so. If <i>Hamlet</i> had had all +that tremendous fund of energy, all that love of action, the <i>Ghost</i> +need never have returned to "whet his almost blunted purpose." Nor could +I like his scene with his guilty mother. There was not even a <i>forced</i> +show of respect for her. There was no grief for her wrong-doing—rather, +his whole tone was that of a triumphant detective. And his speeches, +"Such an act!" and "Look upon this picture!" were given with such +unction—such a sneeringly, perfect comprehension of her lust, as to +become themselves lustful.</p> + +<p>His <i>Shylock</i> was much admired, I believe, but <i>Narcisse</i> was a most +artistic piece of work. His appearance was superb; his philosophical +flippancy anent his poverty, his biting contempt of the powerful +<i>Pompadour</i>; his passion and madness on discovering his lost wife in the +person of the dying favorite, and his own death, were really great.</p> + +<p>And just one little month after the departure of the impetuous German, +who should be announced but Mr. Edwin Booth. I felt my eyes growing wider +as I read in the cast, "<i>Queen Gertrude—Miss Morris</i>." Uncle Dick, +behind me, said: "Would you like me to d——n poor Brad's bones for you, +Clara? It's hard lines on you, and that's a fact!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I thought, "why won't her blessed old bones mend themselves! she is +not lazy, but they are! oh, dear! oh, dear!" and miserable tears slid +down my cheeks all the way home, and moistened saltily my supper of +crackers after I got there.</p> + +<p>I had succeeded before, oh, yes; but I could not help recalling just how +hot the ploughshares were over which I had walked to reach that success. +Then, too, all girls have their gods—some have many of them. Some girls +change them often. My gods were few. Sometimes I cast one down, but I +never changed them, and on the highest, whitest pedestal of all, grave +and gentle, stood the god of my professional idolatry—Edwin Booth. I +wiped off cracker-crumbs with one hand and tears with the other.</p> + +<p>It was so humiliating to be forced upon anyone, as I should be forced +upon Mr. Booth, since there was still no one but my "apple-cheeked" self +to go on for the <i>Queen</i>; and though I dreaded indignant complaint or +disparaging remarks from him, I was honestly more unhappy over the +annoyance this blemish on the cast would cause him. Well, it could not be +helped, I should have to bear a second cruel mortification, that was all. +I put my four remaining crackers back in their box, brushed up the +crumbs, wiped my eyes, repeated my childish little old-time "Now I lay +me," and went to sleep; only to dream of Mr. Booth holding out a hideous +mask, and pressing me to have the decency to put it on before going on +the stage for <i>Gertrude</i>.</p> + +<p>When the dreaded Monday came, lo! a blizzard came with it. The trains +were all late, or stalled entirely. We rehearsed, but there was no Mr. +Booth present. He was held in a drift somewhere on the line, and at +night, therefore, we all went early to the theatre, so that if he came we +would have time to go over the important scenes—or if he did not come +that we might prepare for another play.</p> + +<p>He came. Oh, how my heart sank! This would be worse for him even than it +had been for Mr. Bandmann, for the latter knew of his disappointing +<i>Queen</i> in the morning, and had time to get over the shock, but poor Mr. +Booth was to receive his blow only a few minutes before going on the +stage. At last it came—the call.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Booth would like to see you for a few moments in his room."</p> + +<p>I went, I was cold all over. He was so tired, he would be so angry. I +tapped. I went in. He was dressed for <i>Hamlet</i>, but he was adding a touch +to his brows, and snipping a little at his nails—hurriedly. He looked +up, said "Good-evening!" rather absently, then stopped, looked again, +smiled, and waving his hand slightly, said, just in Bandmann's very +words: "No, not you—not the <i>Player-Queen</i>—but <i>Gertrude</i>."</p> + +<p>Tears rushed to my eyes, my whole heart was in my voice as I gasped: "I'm +so sorry, sir, but <i>I</i> have to do <i>Queen Gertrude</i>. You see," I rushed +on, "our heavy woman has a broken leg and can't act."</p> + +<p>A whimsical look, half smile, half frown, came over his face. "That's bad +for the <i>heavy</i> woman," he remarked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I acquiesced, "but, if you please, I had to do this part with Mr. +Bandmann too, and—and—I'll only worry you with my looks, sir, not about +the words or business."</p> + +<p>He rested his dark, unspeakably melancholy eyes on my face, his brows +raised and then knit themselves in such troubled wise as made me long to +put an arm about his shoulders and assure him I wouldn't be so awfully +bad.</p> + +<p>Then he sighed and said: "Well, it was the closet-scene I wanted to speak +to you about. When the <i>Ghost</i> appears, you are to be—" He stopped, a +faint smile touched his lips, even reached his eyes; he laid down his +scissors, and remarked, "There's no denying it, my girl, I look a great +deal more like your father than you look like my mother—but," he went on +with his directions, and, considerate gentleman that he was, spoke no +single unkind word to me, though my playing of that part must have been a +great annoyance to him, when added to hunger and fatigue.</p> + +<p>When the closet-scene was over, the curtain down, I caught up my +petticoats and made a rapid flight roomward. The applause was filling the +theatre. Mr. Booth, turning, called after me: +"You—er—<i>Gertrude</i>—er—<i>Queen</i>! Oh, somebody call that child back +here," and someone roared: "Clara—Mr. Booth is calling you!"</p> + +<p>I turned, but stood still. He beckoned, then came to me, took my hand, +and saying: "My dear, we must not keep them waiting <i>too</i> long!" led me +before the curtain with him. I very slightly bent my head to the +audience, whom I felt were applauding <i>Hamlet</i> only, but turned and bowed +myself to the ground to him whose courtesy had brought me there.</p> + +<p>When we came off he smiled amusedly, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: +"My Gertrude, you are very young, but you know how to pay a pretty +compliment—thank you, child!"</p> + +<p>So, whenever you see pictures of nymphs or goddesses floating on pink +clouds, and looking idiotically happy, you can say to yourself: "That's +just how Clara Morris felt when Edwin Booth said she had paid him a +compliment."</p> + +<p>Yes, I floated, and I'll take a solemn oath, if necessary, that the whole +theatre was filled with pink clouds the rest of that night—for girls are +made that way, and they can't help it.</p> + +<p>In after years I knew him better, and I treasure still the little note he +sent me in answer to my congratulation on his escape from the bullet +fired at him from the gallery of the theatre in Chicago. A note that +expressed as much gentle surprise at my "kind thought for him," as though +I only, and not the whole country, was rejoicing at his safety.</p> + +<p>He had a wonderful power to win love from other men—yes, I use the word +advisedly. It was not mere good-fellowship or even affection, but there +was something so fine and true, so strong and sweet in his nature, that +it won the love of those who knew him best.</p> + +<p>It would seem like presumption for me to try to add one little leaf to +the tight-woven laurel crown he wore. Everyone knows the agony of his +"Fool's Revenge," the damnable malice of his <i>Iago</i>, the beauty and fire +of <i>Antony</i>, and the pure perfection of his <i>Hamlet</i>—but how many knew +the slow, cruel martyrdom of his private life! which he bore with such +mute patience that in my heart there is an altar raised to the memory of +that Saint Edwin of many sorrows, who was known and envied by the world +at large—as the great actor, Edwin Booth.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-FIRST"></a>TWENTY-FIRST</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Digress, but I Return to the Columbus Engagement of Mr. and Mrs. +Charles Kean—Their Peculiarities and Their Work.</p></div> + + + + +<p>Before one has "arrived," it is astonishing how precious the simplest +word of encouragement or of praise becomes, if given by one who has +"arrived." Not long ago a lady came up to me and said: "I am Mrs. D——, +which is, of course, Greek to you; but I want to thank you now for your +great goodness to me years ago. I was in the ballet in a Chicago theatre. +You were playing 'Camille.' One day the actress who played <i>Olympe</i> was +sick, and as I was, you said, the tallest and the handsomest of the +girls, you gave the part to me. I was wild with delight until the +nervousness got hold of me. I was not strong—my stomach failed me; the +girls thought that very funny, and guyed me unmercifully. I was surely +breaking down. You came along, ready to go on, and heard them. I could +scarcely stand. You said: 'What's the matter—are you nervous?' I tried +to speak, but only nodded. You took my hand and, stroking it, gently +said, 'Isn't it awful?' then, glancing at my tormentors, added, 'but it's +nothing to be ashamed of, and just as soon as you face the footlights all +your courage will come back to you, and, my dear, comfort yourself with +the knowledge that the perfectly collected, self-satisfied beginner +rarely attains a very high position on the stage.' Oh, if you only knew +how my heart jumped at your words. My fingers grew warmer, my nerves +steadier, and I really did succeed in getting the lines over my lips some +way. But you saved me, you made an actress of me. Ah, don't laugh! don't +shake your head, please! Had I failed that night, don't you see, I should +never have had a chance given me again; while, having got through safely, +it was not long before I was pointed out as the girl who had played +<i>Olympe</i> with Miss Morris, and on the strength of that I was trusted with +another part, and so crept on gradually; and now I want to thank you for +the sympathy and kindness you showed me so long ago"—and though her warm +gratitude touched me deeply, I had then—have now—no recollection +whatever of the incident she referred to, nor of ever having seen before +her very handsome face. And so, no doubt, many of whom I write, who from +their abundance cast <i>me</i> a word of praise or of advice now and again, +will have no memory of the <i>largesse</i> which I have cherished all these +years.</p> + +<p>Among my most treasured memories I find the gentle words and astonishing +prophecy of Mr. Charles Kean. That was the last visit to this country of +Mr. and Mrs. Kean, and his memory was failing him grievously. He had with +him two English actors, each of whom knew every line of all his parts, +and their duty was, when on the stage or off, so long as Mr. Kean was +before the house, to keep their eyes on him, and at the first sign of +hesitancy on his part one of them gave him the needed word. Once or +twice, when he seemed quite bewildered, Mr. Cathcart, turning his back to +the audience, spoke Mr. Kean's entire speech, imitating his nasal tones +to the life.</p> + +<p>But it was off the stage that the ancient couple were most delightful. +Ellen and Charles were like a pair of old, old love-birds—a little dull +of eye, nor quite perfect in the preening of their somewhat rumpled +plumage, but billing and cooing with all the persistency and satisfaction +of their first caging. Their appearance upon the street provoked +amusement—sometimes even excitement. I often saw drivers of drays and +wagons pull up their horses and stop in the crowded street to stare at +them as they made their way toward the theatre. Mrs. Kean lived inside +of the most astounding hoop woman ever carried. Its size, its weight, its +tilting power were awful. Entrances had to be cleared of all chairs or +tables to accommodate Mrs. Kean's hoop. People scrambled or slid sideways +about her on the stage, swearing mentally all the time, while a sudden +gasp from the front row or a groan from Mr. Cathcart announced a tilt and +a revelation of heelless slippers and dead-white stockings, and in spite +of his dignity Charles was not above a joke on Ellen's hoop, for one +rainy day, as she strove to enter a carriage door she stuck fast, and the +hoop—mercy! It was well Mr. Kean was there to hold it down; but as a +troubled voice from within said: "I'm caught somehow—don't you see, +Charles?" With a twinkling eye Charles replied: "Yes, Ellen, my dear, I +do see—and—and I'm trying to keep everyone else from seeing, too!" a +speech verging so closely upon impropriety that, with antique coquetry, +Mrs. Kean punished him by tweaking his ear when he squeezed in beside +her.</p> + +<p>The Kean bonnet was the wonder of the town. It was a large coal-scuttle +of white leghorn and at the back there was a sort of flounce of ribbon +which she called her "bonnet-cape"; draped over it she wore a great, +bright-green barège veil. But she was not half so funny as was her +husband on the street. His short little person buttoned up tightly in a +regular bottle-green "Mantellini" sort of overcoat, loaded with frogs of +heavy cord, and lined, cuffed, and collared with fur of such remarkable +color, quality, and marking as would have puzzled the most experienced +student of natural history to name; while vicious little street boys at +sight of it always put searching questions as to the cost of cat-skins in +London.</p> + +<p>As they came down the street together, Mrs. Kean, majestically towering +above her lord and master, looked like an old-time frigate with every +inch of canvas spread, while at her side Charles puffed and fretted like +a small tug. The street boys were a continual torment to him, but Mrs. +Kean appeared serenely unconscious of their existence, even when her +husband made short rushes at them with his gold-headed cane, and crying: +"Go a-way—you irreverent little brutes—go a-way!" and then puffed +laboriously back to her again as she sailed calmly on.</p> + +<p>One day a citizen caught one of the small savages, and after boxing his +ears soundly, pitched him into the alley-way, when the seemingly enraged +little Englishman said, deprecatingly: "I—I wouldn't hurt the little +beast—he—he hasn't anyone to teach him any better, you know—poor +little beggar!" and then he dropped behind for a moment to pitch a +handful of coppers into the alley before hurrying up to his wife's side +to boast of the jolly good drubbing the little monster had received—from +which I gathered the idea that in a rage Charles would be as fierce as +seething new milk.</p> + +<p>Everyone who knew anything at all of this actor knew of his passionate +love and reverence for his great father. He used always to carry his +miniature in <i>Hamlet</i>, using it in the "Look here, upon this picture, +then on this," scene; but I knew nothing of all that when he first +arrived to play engagements both in Cleveland and Columbus, but being +very eager to see all I could of him, I came very early to the theatre, +and as I walked up and down behind the scenes I caught two or three times +a glint of something on the floor, which might have been a bit of tinsel; +but finally I went over to it, touched it with my foot, and then picked +up an oval gold case, with handsome frame enclosing a picture; a bit of +broken ribbon still hung from the ring on top of the frame. I ran with it +to the prompter, who knew nothing of it, but said there would soon be a +hue and cry for it from someone, as it was of value. "Perhaps you'd +better take it to Mr. Kean—it might be his." I hesitated, but the +prompter said he was busy and I was not, so I started toward the +dressing-room the Keans shared together, when suddenly the door was flung +open and Mr. Kean came out in evident excitement. He bumped against me +as he was crying: "I say there—you—have you seen—oh, I—er beg your +pardon!"</p> + +<p>I also apologized, and added: "If you please, sir, does this belong to +you? I found it behind the scenes."</p> + +<p>He caught it from my hand, bent to look at it in the dim light, then, +pressing it to his lips, exclaimed fervently: "Thank the good God!" He +held up a length of broken black ribbon, saying: "Hey, but you have +played me a nice trick!" I understood at once that he used the locket in +"Hamlet," and I ventured: "If you can't wear gold and your ribbon cuts, +could you not have a silver chain oxidized for your 'property' picture, +sir?" He chucked me under the chin, exclaiming: "A good idea +that—I—I'll tell Ellen of that; but, my dear, this is no 'property' +locket—this is one of my greatest earthly treasures—it's the picture +of——"</p> + +<p>He stopped—he looked at me for quite a moment, then he said: "You come +here to the light." I followed him obediently. "Now can you tell me who +that is a miniature of?" and he placed the oval case in my hands. I gave +a glance at the curled hair, the beautiful profile, the broad turned-down +collar, and smilingly exclaimed: "It's Lord Byron!"</p> + +<p>Good gracious, what was the matter with the little old gentleman! "Ha! +ha!" he cried. "Ha! ha! listen to the girl!" He fairly pranced about; he +got clear out on the dark stage and, holding out his hands to the +emptiness, cried again: "Listen to the girl—Lord Byron, says she—at one +glance!"</p> + +<p>"Well," I replied resentfully, "it <i>does</i> look like Byron!" And he "Ha! +ha'd!" some more, and wiped his eyes and said, "I must tell Ellen this. +Come here, my dear, come here!" He took my hand and led me to the +dressing-room, crying: "It's Charles, my dear—it's Charles—and oh, my +dear, my dear, I—I have it—see now!" he held up the locket.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how glad I am! And now, Charles, perhaps you'll give up that +miserable ribbon," and she kissed his cheek in congratulation.</p> + +<p>But on the old gentleman went: "And, Ellen, my dear, look at this girl +here—just look at her. She found him for me, and I said, who is he—and +she up and said—Ellen, are you listening?—said she, 'It's Lord Byron!'"</p> + +<p>"Did she now?" exclaimed Mrs. Kean, with pleased eyes.</p> + +<p>But I was getting mad, and I snapped a bit, I'm afraid, when I said: +"Well, I don't know who it is, but it does look like Byron—I'll leave it +to anyone in the company if it doesn't!"</p> + +<p>"Listen to her, Ellen! Hang me if she's not getting hot about it, too!" +Then he came over to me, and in the gravest, gentlest tone said, "It <i>is</i> +like Byron, my girl, but it is not him—you found the picture of my +beloved and great father, Edmund Kean," and he kissed me gently on the +forehead, and said, "Thank you—thank you!" and as Mrs. Kean came over +and put her arm about me and repeated the kiss and thanks, Charles +snuffled most distinctly from the corner where he was folding his +precious miniature within a silk handkerchief.</p> + +<p>They were both at their very best in the tragedy of "Henry VIII." Mr. +Kean's <i>Wolsey</i> was an impressive piece of work, and to the eye he was as +true a Cardinal as ever shared in an Ecumenical Council in Catholic Rome, +or hastened to private audience at the Vatican with the Pope himself; and +his superb robes, his priestly splendor had nothing about them that was +imitation. Everything was real—the silks, the jewelled cross and ring, +and as to the lace, I gasped for breath with sheer astonishment. Never +had I seen, even in a picture, anything to suggest the exquisite beauty +of that ancient web. Full thirty inches deep, the yellowing wonder fell +over the glowing cardinal-red beneath it. I cannot remember how many +thousands of dollars they had gladly given for it to the sisters of the +tottering old convent in the hills, where it had been created long ago; +and though it seemed so fragily frail and useless a thing, yet had it +proved strong enough to prop up the leaning walls of its old home, and +spread a sound roof above the blessed altar there—so strong sometimes is +beauty's weakness.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Kean, what a <i>Catherine</i> she was! Surely nothing could have been +taken from the part, nothing added to it, without marring its perfection. +In the earlier acts one seemed to catch a glimpse of that Ellen Tree who +had been a beauty as well as a popular actress when Charles Kean had come +a-wooing. Her clear, strong features, her stately bearing were +beautifully suited to the part of <i>Queen Catherine</i>. Her performance of +the court scene was a liberal education for any young actress. Her regal +dignity, her pride, her passion of hatred for <i>Wolsey</i> held in strong +leash, yet now and again springing up fiercely. Her address to the <i>King</i> +was a delight to the ear, even while it moved one to the heart, and +through the deep humility of her speech one saw, as through a veil, the +stupendous pride of the Spanish princess, who knew herself the daughter +of a king, if she were not the wife to one. With most pathetic dignity +she gave her speech beginning:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Sir, I desire you do me right and justice;" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">maintaining perfect self-control, until she came to the words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"——Sir, call to mind</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That I have been your wife in this obedience</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Upward of twenty years and,——"</span></div> + + +<p class="noindent">Her voice faltered, the words trembled on her lips:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"——have been blest</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With many children by you."</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">In that painful pause one remembered with a pang that all those babes +were dead in infancy, save only the Princess Mary. Then, controlling her +emotion and lifting her head high, she went on to the challenge—if aught +could be reported against her honor. It was a great act, her passionate +cry to <i>Wolsey</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"——Lord cardinal,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To <i>you</i> I speak."</span></div> + + +<p class="noindent">thrilled the audience, while to his:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"——Be patient yet," +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">her sarcastic:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"I will, when you are humble!" +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">cut like a knife, and brought quick applause. But best, greatest, +queenliest of all was her exit, when refusing to obey the King's command:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"——Call her again." +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">for years one might remember those ringing words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"I will not tarry: no, nor ever more,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Upon this business, my appearance make</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In any of their courts." +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">It was a noble performance. Mr. Kean's mannerisms were less noticeable +in <i>Wolsey</i> than in other parts, and the scenes between the Queen and +Cardinal were a joy to lovers of Shakespeare.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-SECOND"></a>TWENTY-SECOND</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15"> I Hear Mrs. Kean's Story of Wolsey's Robe—I Laugh at an Extravagantly +Kind Prophecy.</p></div> + + + +<p>From the time I found the miniature and by accident fed Mr. Kean's +innocent vanity in his father's likeness to Byron, he made much of me. +Evening after evening, in Columbus, he would have me come to their +dressing-room, for after the habit of the old-time actor, they came very +early, dressed without flurry, and were ready before the overture was on. +There they would tell me stories, and when Charles had a teasing fit on +him, he would relate with great gusto the awful disaster that once +overtook Ellen in a theatre in Scotland, "when she played a Swiss boy, my +girl—and—and her breeches——"</p> + +<p>"Now, Charles!" remonstrated Mrs. Kean.</p> + +<p>"Knee breeches, you know, my dear——"</p> + +<p>"Charles!" pleadingly.</p> + +<p>"Were of black velvet—yes, black velvet, I remember because, when they +broke from——"</p> + +<p>"C-h-a-r-l-e-s!" and then the stately Mrs. Kean would turn her head away +and give a small sob—when Charles would wink a knowing wink and trot +over and pat the broad shoulder and kiss the rouged cheek, saying: "Why, +why, Ellen, my dear, what a great baby! now, now, but you know those +black breeches did break up before you got across the bridge."</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Kean turned and drove him into his own corner or out of the +door, after which she would exclaim: "It's just one of his larks, my +dear. I <i>did</i> have an accident, the seam of one leg of my breeches broke +and showed the white lining a bit; but if you'll believe me, I've known +that man to declare that—that—they fell off, my dear; but generally +that's on Christmas or his birthday, when only friends are by."</p> + +<p>Mr. Kean had been the first man to wear an absolutely correct cardinal's +robe on the stage, and very proud he was of that fact, and never failed +in giving his Ellen all the credit of it. Until this time actors had worn +a scarlet "something," that seemed a cross between a king's mantle or a +woman's wrapper. Mr. Kean had been quite carried away with enthusiasm +over his coming production of "Henry VIII.," and his wife, seeing his +disappointment and dissatisfaction over the costumer's best efforts in +the direction of a cardinal's robe, determined, some way or somehow, to +obtain for him an exact copy of the genuine article.</p> + +<p>One night, while "Louis XI." was going on, Mrs. Kean herself told me how +she had at last succeeded. They were in Rome for their holiday; they had +many letters, some to very important personages. In her story Mrs. Kean +gave names and dates and amounts of money expended, but they have passed +from my memory, while the dramatic incident remains.</p> + +<p>From the first she had made known to her most powerful Roman friend her +desire to see the robe of a cardinal—to obtain measurements from it, and +had been treated at first to a great showing of uplifted hands and eyes +and many "impossibles," but later on had received positive promises of +help. Yet days, even weeks passed, and always there was some +excuse—nothing came of the fine promises.</p> + +<p>One day, in her anxiety and disappointment, she mentioned to an English +friend, who had long resided in Rome, her trouble over the +procrastination of her Italian acquaintance, when the Englishwoman asked: +"What have you paid him?" "Paid him?" cried Mrs. Kean. "Do you know you +are speaking of F——, whose high official as well as social position is +such——"</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed the visitor, "his position has nothing to do with it—his +being your friend has nothing to do with it. The Italian palm is an +itching palm—no wonder time is being wasted. Soothe that palm the next +time he calls, and mention the day on which you are compelled to leave +for home, and he will act quickly enough, though you really are asking +for next to an impossibility, when you, a woman, ask to see and handle a +cardinal's robe."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Kean, "when that stately, gray-haired gentleman +next came, I almost fainted at the thought of putting such an insult upon +him as to offer him money. Indeed I could barely whisper, when clasping +his hand I left some broad gold pieces there, murmuring, 'For the poor, +sir!'—and if you'll believe me, he brightened up and instantly said: +'Keep to the house to-morrow, Madame, and I will notify you what you are +to do, and the effort to get a robe to you here having failed, you will +have to come to the general "audience" his Holiness will grant day after +to-morrow, and, and, hem! you will do well to have some loose <i>lire</i> in +your pouch, and be sure, sure, you carry a smelling-bottle. I suppose, of +course, so famous an actress as yourself can faint at command, if need +be? Then the tailor, an usher or two, possibly even a guard may require a +fee, for they will run great risk in serving you, Madame. A woman within +those sacred passages and chambers!'</p> + +<p>"He held up his hands in horror, but nevertheless he was doing directly +what he had been promising to do for weeks, and all for a few broad +pieces of gold. After he left me I was fairly sick with feverish +excitement. I dared not tell Charles of the arrangement; he would have +left Rome instantly, and here was I preparing to bribe tailor, ushers, +guard—and beyond them, to be still armed with loose <i>lire</i>. Oh, to what +depth was I falling!</p> + +<p>"Next day I received a card of admission for the 'audience,' and orders: +'To keep my eyes open—to show no surprise, but to follow <i>silently</i> +wherever a hand beckoned with a single finger. To bring all things +needful for my use—not forgetting the loose <i>lire</i> and the +smelling-bottle.'</p> + +<p>"When I entered the carriage to go to the Vatican, I was so weak with +hope and fear and fright that Charles was quite upset about me, and was +all for going with me; so I had to brace up and pretend the air was +already doing me good. As I looked back at him, I wondered if he would +divorce me, if in my effort to secure the pattern of a cardinal's gown I +should create a tremendous scandal? I wore the regulation black silk, +with black veil, demanded for the occasion, but besides the little pouch +of silk depending from my belt with <i>lire</i>, salts, and 'kerchief, I had +beneath my gown a pocket in which were some white Swiss muslin, pins, +pencil, and tablets, and small scissors.</p> + +<p>"There were many carriages—many people. I saw them all as in a dream. In +a magnificent room the ladies were formed in line, waiting to be admitted +to the Holy Father's presence. I was forgetting to keep my eyes +open—there was a stir. A great door was opening down its centre. I heard +a faint, low 'Hem!' The line began to move forward—a little louder that +'Hem!' Suddenly my eyes cleared—I looked. A pair of curtains, a little +ahead, trembled. I drew my smelling-bottle and held it to my nostrils, as +if ill, but no one noticed me—all were intent upon the opening of the +great door. As I came on a line with the curtains, a hand, dream-like, +beckoned. I stepped sidewise between the curtains, that parted, then fell +thick and soft behind me. Another white beckoning hand appeared at the +far side of this chamber. Swiftly I crossed toward it. A whisper of +'Quick! quick!' just reached me—a door opened, and I was in a +passage-way, and for the first time saw a guide.</p> + +<p>"At the foot of the stairs he paused—yet the voice had said 'Quick! +quick!' I thought of the loose <i>lire</i>—yes, that was it. I gave him +three, and saw him glide up the stairs with cat-like stealth. Here were +bare walls and floors, and all that cold cleanliness that makes a woman +shrink and shiver.</p> + +<p>"At last I was in a small, bare room, with brick-paved floor. A table +stood in its centre, and a small and wizened man, red-eyed and old, +glided in and laid upon the table—oh, joy—oh, triumph almost +reached!—a glowing-red cardinal's robe. As I laid my hand upon it the +ferret-like custodian gave a sort of whispered groan, 'Oh, the sacrilege! +and the danger! his whole life's occupation risked!'</p> + +<p>"I remembered the 'itching palm,' and as my hand went toward my pocket, +his brown claw was extended, and the glint of gold so warmed his heart +that smiles came about his toothless mouth, and seeing me, woman fashion, +measuring by finger-lengths, he offered me a dirty old tape-measure—then +stole to the second door 'to watch for me.' Oh, yes—to watch like the +cat—while with all the haste possible the good and most high lady would +gain such knowledge as she could, and after all the robe was but an old +one, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>"All whispered, while I with the deft fingers of a skilled seamstress and +the comprehending eye of the actress, well used to strange costumes, was +measuring here and putting down notes, swiftly pinning on a bit of muslin +there, and cutting an exact pattern. And, lo! the piece that crosses the +chest, cape-like, yet without visible opening, came near undoing me. +Tears began to blind me, but—but, ah well, my dear, I thought of +Charles, and it is astonishing what love can do to sharpen the eyes and +clear the brain. Suddenly the thing seemed quite plain to me. I then +turned the hem, and ripping it open an inch or so, I took a few +ravellings of the silk, where it was clean and bright, for a sample for +the dyers to go by—since the silk would have to be prepared especially +if it was to be absolutely correct.</p> + +<p>"I rearranged my veil, crept to the door, and agreeably surprised the +watchers by telling them I was through. The ferrety old man had the robe +in his arms, and was gliding swiftly out of the room in the merest +instant. I followed as softly as possible the other watcher. Once an +unseen man cleared his throat as we passed, and I thought my guide would +have fallen from sheer terror, but we reached in safety the frescoed +corridor again and stood at the door waiting. The guide scratched gently +with his nails on the lower panel—a pause, then the door began to move, +and he disappeared as a ghost might have done. Across the room a hand +appeared between the hangings, beckoning me; I moved swiftly toward it. I +could hear a hum of voices, low and restrained. There was but one room +now between me and the great chamber in which we had waited in line for +'audience.' No further signal came, what should I do? I was nearly +fainting. Then another hand, a hand I knew by the splendid ring on its +middle finger, appeared. I almost staggered to it. A whisper like a +breath came to me, 'smelling-salts,' in an instant the bottle was in my +hand, I was through the curtains, my Italian friend was asking me, was I +not wrong to remain in Rome so late? He hoped my faintness was quite +past, but he must himself see me to my carriage, and so he swept me +forth, under cover of his courteous chatter, and the next day I sent him +money for those who had to be rewarded.</p> + +<p>"And for fear of Charles's rage about the infamy of bribing, said +nothing, till he, in great anxiety about my feverish state, removed me +from Rome. And then, my dear! I threw my arms about his neck and told him +he should have a true and veritable cardinal's robe for his <i>Wolsey</i>, and +in outrageous pride I cried: '<i>Ego hoc feci!</i>'" At which <i>I</i> gravely +said: "That sounds like 'I have done something,' anyway it's I; but that +'<i>fetchy</i>' word bothers me."</p> + +<p>And she laughed and laughed, and said: "It means <i>I</i> did this! And I am +ashamed to have used a Latin term to you, child. You must forgive me for +it, but I <i>must</i> tell Charles that 'fetchy' word that bothered you—I +must indeed, because he does so love his laugh!"</p> + +<p>Then came the night when by chance I played an important part in one of +their plays. My scenes were mostly with Mr. Cathcart, and I only came in +contact with Mr. Kean for a moment in one act. I was as usual frightened +half out of my life, and as I stood in the entrance ready to go on, Mr. +Kean smilingly caught my fingers as he was passing me, but their icy +coldness brought him to a stand-still. "Why, why! bless my soul, what's +the matter? this—this is not nervousness, is it?" he stammered.</p> + +<p>I nodded my head. "Oh, good Lord!" he cried. "I say, Cathcart, here's a +go—this poor child can't even open her mouth now——"</p> + +<p>I tried to tell him I should be all right soon, but there was no time. +The word of entrance came, and a <i>cue</i> takes the <i>pas</i> even in presence +of a star. I went on, and as my lines were delivered clearly and +distinctly, I saw the relieved face of Mr. Kean peering at us, and when +Mr. Cathcart (who enacted my soldierly lover) gave me a sounding kiss +upon the cheek as he embraced me in farewell, we plainly heard the old +gentleman exclaim: "Well, well, really now, James, upon my word, you +<i>are</i> coming on!" and Mr. Cathcart's broad shoulders shook with laughter +rather than grief as he rushed from me.</p> + +<p>When, later on, Mr. Kean took my hand to give it in betrothal to my +lover, he found it so burning hot as to attract his attention.</p> + +<p>Next night I did not play at all, but came to look on, and being invited +to the dressing-room, Mr. Kean suddenly asked me: "Who are you, child?"</p> + +<p>"No one," I promptly answered.</p> + +<p>He laughed a little and nudged his Ellen, then went on: "I mean—who are +your people?"</p> + +<p>"I have none," I said, then quickly corrected, "except my mother."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, yes, that's what we want to get at—who is that mother? for I +recognize an inherited talent here—a natural grace and ease, impossible +for one so young to acquire by any amount of effort."</p> + +<p>I was a bit confused—I hesitated. Mrs. Kean asked: "Were both of your +parents actors, child?"</p> + +<p>Suddenly I broke into laughter. The thought of my mother as an actress +filled me with amusement. "Oh, I beg your pardon," I cried, "I have no +father, and my mother just works at sewing or nursing or housekeeping or +anything she can get to do that's honest."</p> + +<p>They looked disappointedly at each other, then Mrs. Kean brightened up +and exclaimed: "Then it's foreign blood, Charles—you can see it in her +use of her hands."</p> + +<p>They turned expectantly to me. I thought of the big, smiling +French-Canadian father, who had been the <i>bête noire</i> of my babyhood. My +head drooped. "He, my father, was bad," I said, "his father and mother +were from the south of France, but he was a horrid Canadian—my mother, +though, is a true American," I proudly ended.</p> + +<p>"That's it!" they exclaimed together, "the French blood!" and Mr. Kean +nodded his head and tapped his brow and said: "You remember, Ellen, what +I told you last night—I said 'temperament'—here it is in this small +nobody; no offence to you, my girl. Here's our dear niece, who can't act +at all, God bless her! our 'blood,' but no temperament. Now listen to me, +you bright child!"</p> + +<p>He pushed my hair back from my forehead, so that I must have looked quite +wild, and went on: "I have seen you watch that dear woman over there, +night after night; you admire her, I know." (I nodded hard.) "You think +her a great, great way from you?" (More nods.) "A lifetime almost?" +(Another nod.) "Then listen to what an old man, but a most experienced +actor, prophesies for you. Without interest in high places, without help +from anyone, except from the Great Helper of us all, you, little girl, +daughter of the true American mother and the bad French father, will, +inside of five years, be acting my wife's parts—and acting them well."</p> + +<p>I could not help it, it seemed so utterly absurd, I laughed aloud. He +smiled indulgently, and said: "It seems so funny—does it? Wait a bit, my +dear, when my prophecy comes true you will no longer laugh, and you will +remember us."</p> + +<p>He gave me his hand in farewell, so did his gracious wife, then with +tears in my eyes I said: "I was only laughing at my own insignificance, +sir, and I shall remember your kindness always, whether I succeed or not, +just as I shall remember your great acting."</p> + +<p>Simultaneously they patted me on the shoulder, and I left them. Then Mr. +Kean put his arm about his wife and kissed her, I know he did, because I +looked back and saw them thus reflected in the looking-glass. But did I +not say they were love-birds?</p> + +<p>Four years from that month I stood trembling and happy before the +audience who generously applauded my "sleep-walking scene" in "Macbeth," +and suddenly I seemed to hear the kind old voice making the astonishing +prophecy, and joyed to think of its fulfilment, with a whole year to the +good.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-THIRD"></a>TWENTY-THIRD</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">Mr. E. L. Davenport, his Interference, his Lecture on Stage Business, +his Error of Memory or too Powerful Imagination—Why I Remain a +Dramatic Old Slipper—Contemptuous Words Arouse in Me a Dogged +Determination to Become a Leading Woman before Leaving Cleveland.</p></div> + + + +<p>Just what was the occult power of the ballet over the manager's mind no +one ever explained to me. I found my companions very every-day, +good-natured, kind-hearted girls—pretty to look at, pleasant to be with, +but to Mr. Ellsler they must have been a rare and radiant lot, utterly +unmatchable in this world, or else he knew they had awful powers for evil +and dared not provoke their "hoodoo." Whatever the reason, the fact +remained, he was <i>afraid</i> to advance me one little step in name, even to +utility woman; while, in fact, I was advanced to playing other people's +parts nearly half the time, and the reason for this continued holding +back was "fear of offending the other ballet-girls." Truly a novel +position for a manager. One feels at once there must have been something +unusually precious about such a ballet, and he feared to break the set. +Anyway, before I got out, clear out, this happened:</p> + +<p>A number of stars had spoken to me about my folly in remaining in the +ballet, and when I told them Mr. Ellsler was afraid to advance me for +fear of offending the other girls, they answered variously, and many +advised me to break the "set" myself, saying if I left he would soon be +after me and glad to engage me for first walking lady. But my crushed +childhood had its effect, I shall always lack self-assertion—I stayed +on and this happened.</p> + +<p>There was no regular heavy actress that season, and the old woman was a +tiny little rag of a creature, not bigger than a doll. Mr. E. L. +Davenport was to open in "Othello." Mrs. Effie Ellsler was to play the +young <i>Desdemona</i> and I was to go on for <i>Emilia</i>. Mr. Davenport was a +man of most reckless speech, but he was, too, an old friend of the +Ellslers, calling them by their first names and meeting them with hearty +greetings and many jests. So, when in the middle of a story to Mrs. +Ellsler at rehearsal, the call came for <i>Othello</i>, <i>Desdemona</i>, and +<i>Iago</i>, she exclaimed: "Excuse me, Ned, they are calling us," but he held +her sleeve and answered, "Not you—it's me," and glancing hurriedly +about, his eye met mine, and he added pleasantly, "You, my dear; they're +calling <i>Desdemona</i>."</p> + +<p>I stood still. Mrs. Ellsler's round, black eyes snapped, but this man who +blundered was a star and a friend. She tossed her head and petulantly +pushed him from her toward the stage. He went on, and at the end of his +speech:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"This only is the witchcraft I have used;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Here comes the lady, let her witness it." +</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">he turned to face Mrs. Ellsler entering with <i>Iago</i> and her attendants. +Looking utterly bewildered, he exclaimed: "Why, for God's sake, Effie, +you are not going on for <i>Desdemona</i>, are you?"</p> + +<p>Perhaps his dissatisfaction may be better understood if I mention that a +young man twenty-three years old, who took tickets at the dress-circle +door, called Mrs. Ellsler mother, and that middle-aged prosperity +expressed itself in a startling number of inches about the waist of her +short little body. Though her feet and hands were small in the extreme, +they could not counteract the effect of that betraying stodginess of +figure. Mrs. Ellsler, in answer to that rude question, laughed, and said: +"Well, I believe the leading woman generally does play <i>Desdemona</i>?"</p> + +<p>"But," cried Mr. Davenport, "where's—w-who's <i>Emilia</i>?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Ellsler took him by the arm and led him a little to one side. Several +sharp exclamations escaped the star's lips, and at last, aloud and ending +the conference, he said: "Yes, yes, John, I know anyone may have to twist +about a bit now and then in a cast, but damn me if I can see why you +don't cast Effie for <i>Emilia</i> and this girl for <i>Desdemona</i>—then they +would at least look something like the parts. As it is now, they are both +ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>It was an awful speech, and the truth that was in it made it cut deep. +There were those on the stage who momentarily expected the building to +fall, so great was their awe of Mrs. Ellsler. The odd part of the +unpleasant affair was that everyone was sorry for Mr. Ellsler, rather +than for his wife.</p> + +<p>Well, night came. I trailed about after <i>Desdemona</i>—picked up the fatal +handkerchief—spoke a line here and there as Shakespeare wills she +should, and bided my time as all <i>Emilias</i> must. Now I had noticed that +many <i>Emilias</i> when they gave the alarm—cried out their "Murder! +Murder!" against all the noise of the tolling bells, and came back upon +the stage spent, and without voice or breath to finish their big scene +with, and people thought them weak in consequence. A long hanging bar of +steel is generally used for the alarm, and blows struck upon it send +forth a vibrating clangor that completely fills a theatre. I made an +agreement with the prompter that he was not to strike the bar until I +held up my hand to him. Then he was to strike one blow each time I raised +my hand, and when I threw up both hands he was to raise Cain, until I was +on the stage again. So with throat trained by much shouting, when in the +last act I cried:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Though I lost twenty lives."</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">I turned, and crying:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Help! help, ho! help!"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">ran off shouting,</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"The Moor has killed my mistress!"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">then, taking breath, gave the long-sustained, ever-rising, blood-curdling +cry:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Murder! Murder! Murder!"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">One hand up, and one long clanging peal of a bell.</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Murder! Murder! Murder!"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">One hand up and bell.</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Murder! Murder! Murder!"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">Both hands up, and pandemonium broken loose—and, oh, joy! the audience +applauding furiously.</p> + +<p>"One—two—three—four," I counted with closed lips, then with a fresh +breath I burst upon the stage, followed by armed men, and with one last +long full-throated cry of "Murder! the Moor has killed my mistress!" +stood waiting for the applause to let me go on. A trick? yes, a small +trick—a mere pretence to more breath than I really had, but it aroused +the audience, it touched their imagination. They saw the horror-stricken +woman racing through the night—waking the empty streets to life by that +ever-thrilling cry of "Murder!" A trick if you like, but on the stage +"success" justifies the means, and that night, under cover of the +applause of the house, there came to me a soft clapping of hands and in +muffled tones the words: "Bravo—bravo!" from <i>Othello</i>.</p> + +<p>When the curtain had fallen and Mr. Davenport had been before it, he +came to me and holding out his hands, said: "You splendid-lunged +creature—I want to apologize to you for the thoughts I harbored against +you this morning." I smiled and glanced uneasily at the clock—he went +on:</p> + +<p>"I have always fancied my wife in <i>Emilia</i>, but, my girl, your readings +are absolutely new sometimes, and your strength is—what's the matter? a +farce yet? well, what of it? you, <i>you</i> have to go on in a farce after +playing Shakespeare's <i>Emilia</i> with E. L. Davenport? I'm damned if I +believe you!"</p> + +<p>And I gathered up my cotton-velvet gown and hurried to my room to don +calico dress, white cap and apron, and then rush down to the +"property-room" for the perambulator I had to shove on, wondering what +the star would think if he knew that his <i>Emilia</i> was merely walking on +in the farce of "Jones's Baby," without one line to speak, the second and +speaking nursemaid having very justly been given to one of the other +girls. But the needless sending of me on, right after the noble part of +<i>Emilia</i>, was evidently a sop thrown by my boldly independent manager to +his ballet—Cerberus.</p> + +<p>Heretofore stars had advised or chided me privately, but, oh, dear, oh, +dear! next morning Mr. Davenport attacked Mr. Ellsler for +"mismanagement," as he termed it, right before everybody. Among other +things, he declared that it was a wound to his personal dignity as a star +to have a girl who had supported him, "not acceptably, but brilliantly," +in a Shakespearian tragedy, sent on afterward in a vulgar farce. Then he +added: "Aside from artistic reasons and from justice to her—good Lord! +John, are you such a fool you don't understand her commercial value? Here +you have a girl, young and pretty" (always make allowances for the warmth +of argument), "with rare gifts and qualifications, who handles her +audience like a magician, and you cheapen her like this? Placing her in +the highest position only to cast her down again to the lowest. If she is +only fit for the ballet, you insult your public by offering her in a +leading part; if she's fit for the leading part, you insult her by +lowering her to the ballet; but anyway I'm damned if I ever saw a +merchant before who deliberately cheapened his own wares!"</p> + +<p>If the floor could have opened I would have been its willing victim, and +I am sure if Mr. Davenport had known that I would have to pay for every +sharp word spoken, he would have restrained his too free speech for my +sake—even though he was never able to do so for his own.</p> + +<p>And what a pity it was, for he not only often wounded his friends, but +worse still, he injured himself by flinging the most boomerang-like +speeches at the public whenever he felt it was not properly appreciating +him. He was wonderfully versatile, but though versatility is a requisite +for any really good actor, yet for some mysterious reason it never meets +with great success outside of a foreign theatre. The American public +demands specialists—one man to devote himself solely to tragedy, another +to romantic drama and duels, another to dress-suit satire. One woman to +tears, another to laughter, and woe betide the star who, able to act both +comedy and tragedy, ventures to do so; there will be no packed house to +bear witness to the appreciation felt for such skill and variety of +talent.</p> + +<p>Mr. Davenport's vogue was probably waning when I first knew him. He had a +certain intellectual following who delighted in the beautiful precision +and distinctness of his reading of the royal Dane. He always seemed to me +a <i>Hamlet</i> cut in crystal—so clear and pure, so cold and hard he was. +The tender heart, the dread imaginings, the wounded pride and love, the +fits and starts, the pain and passion that tortures <i>Hamlet</i> each in +turn, were utterly incompatible with the fair, highbrowed, princely +philosopher Mr. Davenport presented to his followers. And after that +performance I think he was most proud of his "horn-pipe" in the play of +"Black-Eyed Susan"; and he danced it with a swiftness, a lightness, and a +limberness of joint that were truly astonishing in a man of his years. +Legend said that in London it had been a great "go," had drawn—oh, +fabulous shillings, not to mention pounds—but I never saw him play +<i>William</i> to a good house, never—neither did I ever see the dance +<i>encored</i>. The people did not appreciate versatility, and one night, +while before the curtain in responding to a call, he began a bitter +tirade against the taste of the public—offering to stand there and count +how many there were in the house, and telling them that next week that +same house would not hold all who would wish to enter, for there would be +a banjo played by a woman, and such an intellectual treat was not often +to be had, but they must not spend all their money, he was even now +learning to swallow swords <i>and</i> play the <i>banjo</i>; he was an old dog now, +but if they would have a little patience he would learn their favorite +tricks for them, even though he could not heartily congratulate them on +their intelligence, etc., etc. Oh, it was dreadful taste and so unjust, +too, to abuse those who were there for the fault of those who remained +away.</p> + +<p>However, during the week's engagement of which I have been speaking, I +had two nights in the ballet, then again I was cast for an important +part. It was a white-letter day for me, professionally, for, thanks to +Mr. Davenport, I learned for the first time the immense value of +"business" alone, an action unsustained perhaps by a single word. I am +not positive, but I believe the play was "A Soldier of Fortune" or "The +Lion of St. Mark"—anyway it was a romantic drama. My part was not very +long, but it had one most important scene with the hero. It was one of +those parts that are talked about so much during the play that they gain +a sort of fictitious value. At rehearsal I could not help noticing how +fixedly Mr. Davenport kept gazing at me. His frown grew deeper and deeper +as I read my lines, and I was growing most desperately frightened, when +he suddenly exclaimed: "Wait a minute!" I stopped; he went on roughly, +still staring hard at me, "I don't know whether you are worth breaking a +vow for or not."</p> + +<p>Naturally I had nothing to say. He walked up the stage; as he came down, +he said: "I've kept that promise for ten years, but you seem such an +honest little soul about your work—I've a good mind, yes, I have a +mind——"</p> + +<p>He sat down on the edge of the prompt-table, and though he addressed +himself seemingly to me alone, the whole company were listening +attentively.</p> + +<p>"When I first started out starring I honestly believed I had a mission to +teach other less experienced actors how to act. I had made a close study +of the plays I was to present, as well as of my own especial parts in +them, and I actually thought it was my duty to impart my knowledge to +those actors who were strange in them. Yes, that's the kind of a fool I +was. I used to explain and describe, and show how, and work and sweat, +and for my pains I received behind my back curses for keeping them so +long at rehearsals, and before my face stolid indifference or a thinly +veiled implication that I was grossly insulting them by my minute +directions. Both myself and my voice were pretty well used up before I +realized that my work had been wasted, my good intentions damned, that I +had not been the leaven that could lighten the lump of stupid +self-satisfaction we call the 'profession'; and I took solemn oath to +myself never again to volunteer any advice, any suggestion, any hint as +to reading, or business, or make-up to man or woman in any play of mine. +If they acted well, all right; if they acted ill, all right too. If I +found them infernal sticks, I'd leave them sticks. I'd demand just one +thing, my <i>cue</i>. As long as I got the word to speak on, all the rest +might go to the devil! Rehearsals shortened, actors had plenty of time +for beer and pretzels; and as I ceased to try to improve their work, they +soon called me a good fellow. And now you come along, willing to work, +knowing more than some of your elders, yet actually believing there is +still something for you to learn. Ambitious, keenly observant, you tempt +me to teach you some business for this part, and yet if I do I suppose +what goes in at one ear will go out of the other!"</p> + +<p>Embarrassed silence on my part.</p> + +<p>"Well," he went on, whimsically, "I see this is not your day for making +protestations, but I'm going to give you the business, and if you choose +to ignore it at night—why, that will serve me right for breaking my +promise."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Davenport," I said, "I always try to remember what is told me, and I +don't see why I should not remember what you say; goodness knows you +speak plainly enough," at which, to my troubled surprise, everyone, star +and all, burst out laughing, but presently he returned to the play.</p> + +<p>"See here," he said, "you, the adventuress, are worsted in this scene. +You sit at the table. I have forced you to sign this paper, yet you say +to me: 'You are a fool!' Now, how are you going to say it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know yet," I answered, "I have not heard the whole play +through."</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with it?" he asked, sharply.</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "I don't know the story—I don't know whether she is +really your enemy, or only injures you on impulse; whether she truly +loves anyone, or only makes believe love."</p> + +<p>"Good!" he cried, "good! that is sound reasoning. Well, you <i>are</i> my +enemy, you love no one, so you see your 'fool' is given with genuine +feeling. It's years since the line has drawn fire, but you do this +business, and see. You sit, I stand at the opposite side of the table. +You write your name—you are supposed to be crushed. I believe it and +tower triumphantly over you. The audience believes it too. Now you lay +down your pen—but carefully, mind you, carefully; then close the +inkstand, and with very evident caution place it out of danger of a fall. +Be sure you take your time, there are places where deliberation is as +effective as ever rush and hurry can be. Then with your cheek upon your +hand, or your chin on your clasped hands—any attitude you fancy will +do—look at me good and long, and <i>then</i> speak your line. Have you +thought yet how to deliver it?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I answered, hesitatingly, "to call you a fool in a colloquial +tone would make people laugh, I think, and—and the words don't fit a +declamatory style. I should think a rather low tone of sneering contempt +would be best," and he shouted loudly: "You've hit it square on the head! +Now let's see you do it to-night. Don't look so frightened, my girl, only +take your time, don't hurry. I've got to stand there till you speak, if +you take all night. Be deliberate; you see, you have played all the rest +so fiercely fast, the contrast will tell."</p> + +<p>The night came. Cornered, check-mated, I slowly signed the paper, wiped +the pen, closed the inkstand, and set it aside. He stood like a statue. +The silence reached the house. I stretched out my arms and rested my +crossed hands lightly on the table. I met his glance a moment, then, with +a curling lip, let my eyes sweep slowly down length of body to boot-tip +and back again, rose slowly, made a little "pouf" with lips and wave of +hand, and contemptuously drawled: "My friend, you are a fool!" while, +swift and sharp, came the applause Mr. Davenport at least had +anticipated. The act ended almost immediately, and I hurried to him, +crying: "Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Davenport. I never, never could have +found applause in a speech like that."</p> + +<p>"Ah, it was the business, child, not the speech. Always try to find good +business."</p> + +<p>"Suit the action to the word?" I laughed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered, "and remember, Miss, actions speak louder than words, +too! But, my dear, it's a comfort to teach you anything; and when I saw +you trying so carefully to follow directions to-night, I swear I almost +prayed for the applause you were so honestly earning. You are a brick, my +girl! oh, I don't mean one of those measly little common building +bricks—I mean a great lovely Roman tile!"</p> + +<p>And when, in God's good time, success came to me, as I entered the +green-room at the Fifth Avenue one evening, a tall man in a gray suit +released himself from a bevy of pretty women, and coming over to me, held +out his hands, saying: "Did I ever make any remarks to you about building +materials?" and, laughingly, I answered: "Yes, sir, you said something +about bricks some years ago."</p> + +<p>And while I ran away to change, he called after me: "Say, 'Jones's Baby' +isn't on to-night, is it?" and immediately began to tell about <i>Emilia</i>, +and such is the power of imagination that he declared "She raged up and +down behind the scenes crying 'Murder,' till the very house broke loose, +and <i>right through all the pealing of the bells high and clear, you heard +her voice topping everything</i>!"</p> + +<p>I was resting and getting breath while the bell clanged, remember, but so +much for human memory.</p> + +<p>It is strange how often the merest accident or the utterance of a chance +word may harden wavering intentions into a fixed resolve. Though I am not +aggressive, there is in me a trace of bull-dog tenacity, made up of +patient endurance and sustained effort. Rather slow to move, when I am +aroused I simply <i>cannot</i> let go my hold while breath is in me, unless I +have had my will, have attained my object.</p> + +<p>Perhaps people may wonder why I retained my anomalous position in that +theatre—why I did not follow the advice of some of the lady stars, who +gave me a kindly thought and word now and then. And at the risk of giving +them a poor opinion of my wisdom, I present the reason that actuated me. +One day at rehearsal, while waiting for the stage to be reset, several of +the actresses gossiped about theatrical matters. One had a letter from a +friend who announced her advance to "first walking lady," which turned +the talk to promotion generally, and laughingly she asked me: "What line +of business shall you choose, Clara, when your turn comes?" but before I +could reply, the eldest woman present sneered: "Oh, she can save herself +the trouble of choosing; if she's ever advanced it will be in some other +city than this."</p> + +<p>I was astonished; I had just made one of my small hits, and had a nice +little notice in the paper, but it did not occur to me that <i>envy</i> could +sustain itself, keeping warm and strong and bitter on such slight +nourishment as that. And then, she of the letter, answered: "Why, Clara's +getting along faster than anyone else in the company, and I shall expect +to see her playing leading business before so very many seasons pass by."</p> + +<p>"Leading business here?" cried the other, "I guess not!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed the first, "I see, you mean that Mrs. Ellsler will claim +the leading parts as long as she lives? Well, then, I shall expect to see +Clara playing the leading juveniles."</p> + +<p>"Well, you go right on expecting, and your hair will be as gray as mine +is, when she gets into any line of business in this town!"</p> + +<p>Unspeakably wounded, I asked, timidly: "But if I work hard and learn to +act well, can't I hold a position as well as anyone else?"</p> + +<p>She looked contemptuously at me, and then answered: "No, you must be a +fool if you suppose that after standing about in the ballet for months on +end that Cleveland will ever accept you in a respectable line of +business. You've got to go to some other place, where you are not known, +and then come back as a stranger, if you want to be accepted here."</p> + +<p>A dull anger began to burn in me—there was something so suggestive of +shame in the words, "Some other place, where you are not known." I had +nothing to hide. I could work, and by and by I should be able to act as +well as any of them—better perhaps. I felt my teeth come together with a +snap, the bull-dog instinct was aroused. I looked very steadily at the +sneering speaker and said: "I shall never leave this theatre till I am +leading woman." And they all laughed, but it was a promise, and all these +provoking years I was by way of keeping it. The undertaking was hard, +perhaps it was foolish, but of the group of women who laughed at me that +day every one of them lived to see my promise kept to the letter. When I +left Cleveland it was to go as leading woman to Cincinnati, one season +before I entered New York.</p> + +<p>But after I had at last escaped the actual ballet, and was holding a +recognized position, I was still treated quite <i>en haut—en bas</i> by the +management. Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler had acquired the old-shoe habit. I was +the easy old dramatic slipper, which it was pleasant to slip on so +easily, but doubly pleasant to be able to shake off without effort.</p> + +<p>That you may thoroughly understand, I will explain that I was an +excellent <i>Amelia</i> in "The Robbers" when a rather insignificant star +played the piece, but when a Booth or some star of like magnitude +appeared as <i>Charles de Moor</i>, then the easy slipper was dropped off, and +Mrs. Ellsler herself played <i>Amelia</i>. Any part belonging to me by right +could be claimed by that lady, if she fancied it, and if she wearied of +it, it came back to me. When we acted in the country in the summer-time, +at Akron or Canton, where there were real theatres, she played +<i>Parthenia</i> or <i>Pauline</i> in the "Lady of Lyons," or any other big part; +but if the next town was smaller, I played <i>Parthenia</i> or <i>Pauline</i> or +what not. Because I had once been in the ballet I had become an old pair +of dramatic slippers, to be slipped on or kicked off at will—rather +humiliating to the spirit, but excellent training for the growing +actress, and I learned much from these queer "now-you're-in-it and now +you're-not-in-it" sort of casts, and having much respect and admiration +for Mr. Ellsler, I fortunately followed in his wake, rather than in that +of any woman. He was one of the most versatile of actors. <i>Polonius</i> or +<i>Dutchy</i> (the opposite to Chanfrau's <i>Mose</i>), crying old men or broad +farce-comedy old men. Often he doubled <i>King Duncan</i> and <i>Hecate</i> in +"Macbeth," singing any of the witches when a more suitable <i>Hecate</i> was +on hand—acquainted with the whole range of the "legitimate," his +greatest pleasure was in acting some "bit" that he could elaborate into a +valuable character. I remember the "switch-man" in "Under the +Gaslight"—it could not have been twenty lines long, yet he made of him +so cheery, so jolly, so kindly an old soul, everyone was sorry when he +left the stage. He always had a good notice for the work, and a hearty +reception ever after the first night. It was from him I learned my +indifference to the length of my parts. The value of a character cannot +always be measured by the length and number of its speeches, but I think +the only word of instruction he ever gave me was: "Speak loud—speak +distinctly," which was certainly good as far as it went. He was the most +genial of men, devotedly fond of children, he was "Uncle John" to them +all, and while never famous for the size of the salaries he paid, he was +so good a friend to his people that he often had trouble in making +desirable changes, and the variegated and convoluted falsehoods he +invented in order to get rid of one excessively bad old actor with an +affectionate heart, who wished to stay at a reduced salary, must lay +heavy on his conscience to this hour.</p> + +<p>I used to wonder why he had never taken to starring, but he said he had +not had enough self-assertion. He was a hard-working man, but he seemed +to lack resolution. He had opinions—not convictions. He was always +second in his own theatre—often letting "I dare not wait upon I would." +After years of acquaintanceship, not to say friendship, when my ambition +had been aroused, and I turned hopeful eyes toward New York, Mr. Ellsler +opposed me bitterly, telling me I must be quite mad to think that the +metropolis would give me a hearing. He said many pleasant and encouraging +things, or wrote them, since I was in Cincinnati then. Among them I find: +"The idea of your acting in New York; why, better actresses than you are, +or can ever hope to be, have been driven broken-hearted from its stage. +Do you suppose you could tie the shoe of Eliza Logan, one of the greatest +actresses that ever lived—but yet not good enough for New York? How +about Julia Dean, too? Go East, and be rejected, and then see what +manager will want you in the West."</p> + +<p>Verily not an encouraging friend. Again I find: "Undoubtedly you are the +strongest, the most original, and the youngest leading lady in the +profession—but why take any risk? why venture into New York, where you +may fail? at any rate, wait <i>ten years</i>, till you are surer of yourself."</p> + +<p>Good heavens! If I was original and strong in the West, why should I wait +ten years before venturing into the East?</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-FOURTH"></a>TWENTY-FOURTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15"> I recall the Popularity and too Early Death of Edwin Adams.</p> +</div> + + + +<p>I hear many tales of the insolence of stars—of their overbearing +manners, and their injustice to "little people," as the term goes; but +personally I have seen almost nothing of it. In the old days stars were +generally patient and courteous in their manners to the supporting +companies.</p> + +<p>Among the stars whose coming was always hailed with joy was Edwin Adams, +he of the golden voice, he who should have prayed with fervor, both day +and night: "Oh, God! protect me from my friends!" He was so popular with +men, they sought him out, they followed him, and they generally expressed +their liking through the medium of food and drink. Like every other +sturdy man that's worth his salt, he could stand off an enemy, but he was +as weak as water in the hands of a friend, and thus it came about that he +often stood in slippery places, and though he fell again and again, yet +was he forgiven as often as he sinned, and heartily welcomed back the +next season, so great was his power to charm.</p> + +<p>He was not handsome, he was not heroic in form, but there was such dash +and go, such sincerity and naturalness in all his work, that whether he +was love-making or fighting, singing or dying, he convinced you he was +the character's self, whether that character was the demented victim of +the <i>Bastille</i>, young <i>Rover</i> in "Wild Oats," or that most gallant +gentleman <i>Mercutio</i>, in which no greater ever strode than that of Edwin +Adams. His buoyancy of spirit, his unconquerable gayety made it seem but +natural his passion for jesting should go with him to the very grave. +Many a fine <i>Mercutio</i> gives:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"——a plague o' both your houses!"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">with a resentful bitterness that implies blame to <i>Romeo</i> for his "taking +off," which would be a most cruel legacy of grief and remorse to leave to +his young friend—but Adams was that brave <i>Mercutio</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"That gallant spirit that aspired the clouds,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Which too untimely here did scorn the earth."</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">and whose last quips, coming faintly across paling lips, expressed still +good-natured fun, and so:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"——a plague o' both your houses!"</span></div> + +<p class="noindent">but no blame at all.</p> + +<p>His grace of movement and his superb voice were his greatest gifts. Most +stars had one rather short play which they reserved for Saturday nights, +that they might be able to catch their night train <i>en route</i> for the +next engagement; so it happened that Mr. Adams, having bravely held +temptation from him during the first five nights, generally yielded to +the endearments of his friends by the sixth, and was most anyone but +himself when he came to dress for the performance of a play most +suggestively named: "The Drunkard." It was a painful and a humiliating +sight to see him wavering uncertainly in the entrance. All brightness, +intelligence, and high endeavor extinguished by liquor's murky fog. His +apologies were humble and evidently sincere, but the sad memory was one +not to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>I had just married, and we were in San Francisco. I was rehearsing for my +engagement there. The papers said Mr. Adams had arrived from Australia +and had been carried on a stretcher to a hotel, where, with his devoted +wife by his side, he lay dying. A big lump rose in my throat, tears +filled my eyes. I asked my husband, who had greatly admired the actor, +and who was glad to pay him any courtesy or service possible, to call, +leave cards, and if he saw Mrs. Adams, which was improbable, to try to +coax her out for a drive, if but for half an hour, and to deliver a +message of remembrance and sympathy from me to her husband. To his +surprise, he was admitted by the dying man's desire to his room, where +the worn, weary, self-contained, ever gently smiling wife sat and, like +an automaton, fanned hour by hour, softly, steadily fanned breath between +those parched lips, that whispered a gracious message of congratulation +and thanks.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Adams never left him, scarce took her eyes from him. Poor wife! who +knew she could hold him but a few hours longer.</p> + +<p>My husband was deeply moved, and when he tried to describe to me that +wasted frame—those helpless hands, whose faintly twitching fingers could +no longer pluck at the folded sheet, my mind obstinately refused to +accept the picture, and instead, through a blur of tears, I saw him as on +that last morning, when in his prime, strong and gentle, at his rehearsal +of "Enoch Arden," he said to me: "I am disappointed to the very heart, +Clara, that you are not my <i>Annie Lee</i>."</p> + +<p>He took his hat off, he drew his hand across his eyes. "I can't find +her," he said, with that touch of pathos that made his voice +irresistible; "no, I have not found her yet—they are not innocent and +brave! They are bouncing, buxom creatures or they are whimpering little +milk-sops. They are never fisher-maidens, flower-pure, yet strong as the +salt of the sea! She loved them both, Clara, yet she was no more weak nor +bad than when, with childish lips, she innocently promised to be 'a +little wife to both' the angry lads—to Philip and young Enoch! Now your +eyes are sea-eyes, and your voice—oh, I am disappointed! I thought I +should find my <i>Annie</i> here!"</p> + +<p>And so I see him now as I think with tender sorrow of the actor who was +so strong and yet so weak—dear Ned Adams!</p> + +<p>When Mr. Joseph Jefferson came to us I found his acting nothing less than +a revelation. Here, in full perfection, was the style I had feebly, +almost blindly been reaching for. This man, this poet of <i>comedy</i>, as he +seemed to me, had so perfectly wedded nature to art that they were indeed +one. Here again I found the immense value of "business" the most minute, +the worth of restraint, if you had power to restrain, and learned that +his perfect naturalness was the result of his exquisite art in cutting +back and training nature's too great exuberance.</p> + +<p>I was allowed to play <i>Meenie</i>, his daughter, in the play of "Rip Van +Winkle," and my delight knew no bounds. He was very gentle and kind, he +gave me pleasant words of praise for my work; he was very great, and—and +his eyes were fine, and I approved of his chin, too, and I was, in fact, +rapidly blending the actor and the man in one personality. In the last +act, when kneeling at his feet, during our long wait upon the stage, I +knelt and adored! and he—oh, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson, that I should +say it, but <i>did</i> you not hold my fingers unnecessarily close when you +made some mild little remarks that were not in the play, but which filled +my breast with quite outrageous joy, and pride—indeed, my crop of young +affections, always rather a sparse growth, came very near being gathered +into a small sheaf and laid at your feet.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, I learned in time that there was an almost brand-new wife in +the hotel next door, and I looked at him with big, reproachful eyes and +kept my fingers to myself, and wisely put off the harvesting of my +affections until some distant day.</p> + +<p>Mind you, I was well within my rights in this matter. Girls always fall +in love with stars—some fall in love with all of them, but that must be +fatiguing; besides, as I said before, my affections were of such sparse +growth they could not go round. Yet since I could honor thus but one +star, I must say I look back with complete approval upon my early choice, +and the shock to my heart did not prevent me from treasuring up some +kindly words of advice from the artist-actor anent the making-up of eyes +for the stage.</p> + +<p>Said he to me one evening: "My girl, I want to speak to you about that +'make-up' you have on your eyes."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir?" I answered, interrogatively, feeling very hot and +uncomfortable, "have I too much on?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," he said, "I think you have, though you have much less than +most women wear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," I hurriedly interposed, "there was a French dancer here who +covered nearly a third of her eyelids with a broad blue-black band of +pomatum, and she said——"</p> + +<p>"Oh," he protested, "I know, she said it made the eyes large and +lustrous, and as you see yourself in the glass it does seem to have that +effect; but, by the way, what do you think of my eyes?"</p> + +<p>And with truth and promptness, I made answer: "I think they're lovely."</p> + +<p>My unexpected candor proved rather confusing, for for a moment he +"Er-er-erd," and finally said: "I meant as a feature of acting, they are +good acting eyes, aren't they? Well, you don't find <i>them</i> made up, do +you? Now listen to me, child, always be guided as far as possible by +nature. When you make up your face, you get powder on your eyelashes, +nature made them dark, so you are free to touch the lashes themselves +with ink or pomade, but you should not paint a great band about your eye, +with a long line added at the corner to rob it of every bit of +expression. And now as to the beauty this lining is supposed to bring, +some night when you have time I want you to try a little experiment. Make +up your face carefully, darken your brows and the lashes of one eye; as +to the other eye, you must load the lashes with black pomade, then draw a +black line beneath the eye, and a broad line on its upper lid, and a +final line out from the corner. The result will be an added lustre to the +made-up eye, a seeming gain in brilliancy; but now, watching your +reflection all the time, move slowly backward from the glass, and an odd +thing will happen, that made-up eye will gradually grow smaller and +smaller, until, at a distance much less than that of the auditorium, it +will really look more like a round black hole than anything else, and +will be absolutely without expression. You have an admirable stage +eye—an actor's eye, sensitive, expressive, well opened, it's a pity to +spoil it with a load of blacking."</p> + +<p>And I said, gratefully: "I'll never do it again, sir," and I never have, +first from respect to a great actor's opinion, and gratitude for his +kindly interest, later having tried his experiment, from the conviction +that he was right, and finally because my tears would have sent inky +rivulets down my cheeks had I indulged in black-banded eyes. So in all +these years of work, just once, in playing a tricky, treacherous, +plotting female, that I felt should be a close-eyed, thin-lipped +creature, I have painted and elongated my eyes, otherwise I have kept my +promise "not to do it again."</p> + +<p>I met Mr. Jefferson in Paris at that dreadful time when he was threatened +with blindness, and I never shall forget his gentle patience, his +marvelous courage. That was a day of real rejoicing to me, when the news +came that his sight was saved. Blindness coming upon any man is a horror, +but to a man who can see nature as Joseph Jefferson sees her it would +have been an almost incredible cruelty.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-FIFTH"></a>TWENTY-FIFTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15"> I See an Actress Dethroned—I Make Myself a Promise, for the World +Does Move.</p></div> + + + +<p>To be discarded by the public, that is the <i>bête noire</i>, the +unconquerable dread and terror of the actor. To fail in the great +struggle for supremacy is nothing compared to the agony of falling after +the height has once been won.</p> + +<p>Few people can think of the infamous casting down of the great column +Vendôme without a shiver of pain—the smashing of the memorial tablet, +the shattering of the statue, these are sights to shrink from, yet what +does such shrinking amount to when compared to the pain of seeing a human +being thrust from the sunlight of public popularity into the darkness of +obscurity?</p> + +<p>I was witness once to the discrowning of an actress, and if I could +forget the anguish of her eyes, the pallor beneath her rouge, I would be +a most grateful woman.</p> + +<p>She had been handsome in her prime, handsome in the regular-featured, +statuesque fashion so desirable for an actress of tragic parts; but Mrs. +P—— (for I shall call her only by that initial, as it seems to me that +naming her fully would be unkind) had reached, yes, had passed, middle +age and had wandered far into distant places, had known much sorrow, and, +alas, for her, had not noticed that her profession, like everything +alive, like the great God-made world itself, moved, moved, moved! So not +noticing, she, poor thing, stood still in her method of work, loyally +doing her best in the style of acting that had been so intensely admired +in her triumphant youth.</p> + +<p>She had most successfully starred in Cleveland years before, but at the +time I speak of she was returning from distant parts, widowed and poor, +yet quite, quite confident of her ability to please the public, and with +plans all made to star two, possibly three, years, long enough to secure +a little home and tiny income, when she would retire gracefully from the +sight of the regretful public. Meantime she entreated Mr. Ellsler, if +possible, to give her an engagement, that she might earn money enough to +carry her to New York and see the great agents there.</p> + +<p>By some unlooked-for chance the very next week was open, and rather +tremulously as manager, but kind-heartedly as man, Mr. Ellsler engaged +her for that week.</p> + +<p>The city was billed accordingly: "Mrs. P——, the Queen of +Tragedy!"—"The celebrated Mrs. P——, Cleveland's great +favorite!"—"Especial engagement of Mrs. P——!" etc., etc.</p> + +<p>I had a tiny part in the old Grecian tragedy she opened in. I came early, +as was my wont, and when dressed went out to look at the house—good +heavens! I gasped. Poor? it was worse than poor. Bad? it was worse than +bad. My heart sank for her as I recalled how, that morning, she had +asked, with a little nonchalant air of: "It doesn't really matter, of +course, but do the people here throw their flowers still, or do they send +them up over the footlights?" Flowers? Oh, poor Mrs. P——!</p> + +<p>The overture had ended before she came out of her dressing-room, so she +had no warning of what the house was like. She was all alight with +pleasant anticipation. At a little distance she looked remarkably well; +her Grecian robes hung gracefully, her hair was arranged and filleted +correctly and becomingly, her movements were assured; only looking at the +deeply drawn lines about her mouth, made one regret that her opening +speeches referred so distinctly to her "dewy youth"; but Cleveland was +well used to that sort of contradiction, and I might have taken heart of +grace for her if only she had not looked so very pleased and happy.</p> + +<p>The opening scene of the old-fashioned play was well on when the star +appeared, and smiling graciously—faced the almost empty house. She +halted—she gave the sort of sudden gasp that a dash of icy water in the +face might cause. The humiliating half-dozen involuntary hand-claps that +had greeted her fell into silence as she came fully into view, where she +stood dismayed, stricken—for she was an old actress and she read the +signs aright, she knew this was the great <i>taboo</i>.</p> + +<p>Her face whitened beneath her rouge, her lips moved silently. One moment +she turned her back squarely upon the audience, for she knew her face was +anguished, and moved by the same instinct that makes an Indian draw the +blanket across his dying face, or the wounded animal seek deepest +solitude, she sought to hide <i>her</i> suffering from the coldly observant +few.</p> + +<p>With the light stricken from her eyes they looked dull and sunken, while +every nerve and muscle of her poor face seemed a-quiver. It was a +dreadful moment for us who looked on and understood.</p> + +<p>Presently she clinched her hands, drew a long breath, and facing about, +took up the burden of the play, and in cold, flat tones began her part. +She did her best in the old, stilted declamatory style, that was as dead +as many of the men and women were who used to applaud it. Once only the +audience warmed to her a trifle, and as she accepted their half-hearted +"call," her sad eyes roved over the empty spaces of the house, a faint, +tired smile touched her lips, while two great tears coursed down her +cheeks. It was the moment of renunciation! They denied her right to the +crown of popularity, and she, with that piteous smile, bowed to their +verdict, as an actress must.</p> + +<p>At the curtain's final fall her stardom was over. She went very quietly +to Mr. Ellsler and gave him back the engagement he had granted her, +saying, simply: "They do not want me any longer."</p> + +<p>A short time after that, she sat one evening in Mr. Ellsler's family box, +and with wide, astonished eyes gazed at the packed house which greeted +the jig, the clog, the song, the banjo of Miss Lotta, whose innocent +deviltries were bringing her a fortune, and when, in response to a +"call," instead of appearing, Miss Lotta thrust her foot and ankle out +beyond the curtain and wriggled them at the delighted crowd, poor Mrs. +P—— drew her hand across her forehead and said, in bewildered tones: +"But—I don't understand!"</p> + +<p>No, she could not understand, and Miss Lotta had not yet faced New York, +hence John Brougham, the witty, wise, and kindly Irish gentleman, had not +yet had his opportunity of summing up the brilliant and erratic star, as +he did later on in these words: "Act, acting, actress? what are you +thinking of? she's no actress, she's—why, she's a little dramatic +cocktail!" which was a delicious Broughamism and truthful withal.</p> + +<p>But that sad night, when Mrs. P—— first set her feet in the path of +obscurity, I took to myself a lesson, and said: "While I live, I will +move. I will not stand still in my satisfaction, should success ever come +to me—but will try to keep my harness bright by action, in at least an +effort to keep abreast with the world, for verily, verily, it does +move!"</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-SIXTH"></a>TWENTY-SIXTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">Mr. Lawrence Barrett the Brilliant and his Brother Joseph the +Unfortunate.</p></div> + + + + +<p>There were few stars with whom I took greater pleasure in acting than +with Mr. Lawrence Barrett. I sometimes wonder if even now this profession +really knows what great reason it has to be proud of him. He was a man +respected by all, admired by many, and if loved but by few, theirs was a +love so profound and so tender it amply sufficed.</p> + +<p>We are a censorious people, and just as our greatest virtue is generosity +in giving, so our greatest fault is the eagerness with which we seek out +the mote in our neighbor's eye, without feeling the slightest desire for +the removal of the beam in our own eye. Thus one finds that the first and +clearest memory actors have of Mr. Barrett is of his irascible temper and +a certain air of superiority, not of his erudition, of the high position +he won socially as well as artistically, of the almost Titanic struggle +of his young manhood with adverse circumstances.</p> + +<p>Nor does that imply the slightest malice on their part. Actors, as a +family trait, have a touch of childishness about them which they come by +honestly enough. We all know the farther we get from infancy the weaker +the imagination grows. Now it is imagination that makes the man an actor, +so it is not wonderful if with the powerful creative fancy of childhood +he should also retain a touch of its petulance and self-consciousness. +Thus to many actors Mr. Barrett's greatness is lost sight of in the +memory of some dogmatic utterance or sharp reproval that wounded +self-love.</p> + +<p>It would seem like presumption for me to offer any word of praise for the +artistic work of his later years; the world remembers it; the world +knows, too, how high he climbed, how secure was his position; but twice I +have heard the stories of his earlier years—some from the lips of his +brave wife, once from the lips of that beloved brother Joe, who was yet +his dread and sorrow—and at each telling my throat ached at the pain of +it, while my nerves thrilled with admiration for such endurance, such +splendid determination.</p> + +<p>A paradox is, I believe, something seemingly absurd, yet true in fact. In +that case I was not so very far wrong, in spite of general laughter, +when, after my first rehearsal with him, I termed Mr. Barrett a man of +cold enthusiasm. "But," one cried to me, "you stupid—that's a paradox! +don't you see your words contradict each other?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I answered, with shame-faced obstinacy, "perhaps they do, but +they are not contradicted by <i>him</i>. You all call him icy-cold, and <i>I</i> +know he is truly enthusiastic over the possibilities of this play, so +that makes what I call cold enthusiasm, however par-a-paradoxy (?) <i>it</i> +sounds."</p> + +<p>And now, after all the years, I can approve that childish judgment. He +was a man whose intellectual enthusiasm was backed by a cold +determination that would never let him say "die" while he had breath in +his body and a stage to rehearse on.</p> + +<p>I have a miserable memory for names, and often in the middle of a remark +the name I intended to mention will pass from my remembrance utterly; so, +all my life, I have had the very bad habit of trying to make my hearers +understand whom I meant by imitating or mentioning some trait peculiar to +the nameless one, and I generally succeeded.</p> + +<p>As, for instance, when I wished to tell whom I had seen taking away a +certain book, I said: "It was Mr.—er—er, oh, you know, Mr.—er, why +this man," and I pulled in my head like a turtle and hitched up my +shoulders to my ears, and the anxious owner cried: "Oh, Thompson has it, +has he?" Thompson having, so far as <i>we</i> could see, no neck at all—my +pantomime suggested his name.</p> + +<p>Everyone can recall the enormous brow of Mr. Barrett, and how beneath his +great, burning eyes his cheeks hollowed suddenly in, thinning down to his +sensitive mouth. I was on the stage in New Orleans, the first morning of +my engagement there (I was under Mr. Daly's management, but he had loaned +me for a fortnight), and I started out with: "Mr. Daly said to please ask +Mr.——," away went the name—goodness gracious, should I forget my own +name next!</p> + +<p>The stage manager suggested: "Mr. Rogers."</p> + +<p>"No, oh, no! I mean Mr.—er—er," and I trailed off helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Seymour?" offered a lady.</p> + +<p>"No, no! that's not it!" I cried; "why, goodness mercy me! you all know +whom I mean—the—the actor with the <i>hungry eyes</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Barrett!" they shouted, all save one voice, that with a mighty laugh +cried out: "That's my brother Larry, God bless him! no one could miss +that description, for sure he looks as hungry to-day as ever he did when +he felt hungry to his heart's core!"</p> + +<p>And so it was that I first met poor Joe Barrett, who worshipped the +brother whose sore torment he was. For this great, broad-shouldered, +ruddy-faced fellow with the boyish laugh had ever in his veins the +craving for liquor—that awful inherited appetite that can nullify prayer +and break down the most fixed determination.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he cried to me, "no one, no one can ever know how good Larry has +been to me, for while he is fighting and struggling to rise, every little +while some lapse of mine drags him back a bit. Yet he never casts me +off—never disowns me. He has had to discharge me for the sake of +discipline here, but he has re-engaged me. He has sent me away, but he +has taken me back again. I promise, and fail to keep my promise. I fall, +and he picks me up. Through the cursed papers I have dragged my brother +through the mud, but the sweet Saviour could hardly forgive me more fully +than Larry does, for, look you, he never forgets that I am the son of my +father, who was accursed before me, while he is the son of our poor +mother—blessed be her name! It isn't that I don't try. I keep straight +until the agony of longing begins to turn into a mad desire to do bodily +harm to someone—anyone, and then, fearing worse, I drink my fill, and +the papers find me out, and are not content to tell of the disgraceful +condition of Joseph Barrett, but must add, always, 'the brother of the +prominent actor, Mr. Lawrence Barrett.' Poor Larry! poor little delicate +chap that he used to be, with his big, brainy head—too heavy for his +weak neck and frail body to carry."</p> + +<p>And then he told me of their sorrowful life, their poverty. The +often-idle father and his dislike for the delicate boy, whose only moment +of happiness was when the weary mother, the poor supper over, sat for a +little to breathe and rest, and held his heavy head upon her loving +breast, while Joe sang his songs or told all the happenings of the day.</p> + +<p>That happy Joe, who had no pride and was quite as satisfied without a +seat to his small trousers as with one! Then he told me how hard it was +for Lawrence to learn; how he had to grind and grind at the simplest +lesson, but once having acquired it, it was his for life.</p> + +<p>"Why, even now," said he, "in confidence I'm telling you, my brother is +studying like a little child at French, and it does seem that he cannot +learn it. He works so desperately over it, a doctor has warned him he +must choose between French and his many 'parts' or break down from +overwork. But he <i>will</i> go on hammering at his <i>parlez-vous</i> until he +learns them or dies trying."</p> + +<p>"If you were to live with your brother, might not that help to keep you +strong?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear little woman," he smiled, "Larry is human, in some +respects, if he is almost God-like toward me. Remember he has a young +family now, and though his wife is as good as gold and always patient +with me, I am not the kind of example a man would care to place before +his little ones, and as Lawrence is devoured with ambition for them and +their future, he rightly guards them from too close contact with the drag +and curse of his own life, in whom he, and he alone, can see the sturdy +tow-headed brother of the old boyish days, who saved him from many and +many a kick and thump his delicate body could ill have borne."</p> + +<p>Joe told me of his dead wife—Viola Crocker that was—the niece of Mrs. +Bowers and Mrs. Conway; of their happiness and their misery. Describing +himself as having been "in heaven or in hell—without any betwixts and +betweens." His devotion to me was very great. He was "hard-up" for money, +as the men express it, but he would manage to bring me a single rose or +one bunch of grapes or a half-dozen mushrooms or some such small offering +every day; and learning of his bitter mortification because he could not +hire a carriage to take me out to see the curious old French cemetery, I +made him supremely happy by expressing a desire to ride in one of those +funny bob-tailed, mule-drawn street-cars—the result being a trip by my +mother, Mr. Barrett, and myself to the famous cemetery.</p> + +<p>I don't know that I ever heard anyone sing Irish and Scottish ballads +more tenderly, more pathetically than did Joe Barrett, and as my mother +was very fond of old songs, he used to sit and sing one after another for +her. That day there was no one in the crawling little car but we three, +and presently he began to sing. But, oh, what was it that he sang? Irish, +unmistakably—a lament, rising toward its close into the <i>keen</i> of some +clan. It wrung the very heart.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" I exclaimed. My mother's face was turned away, my throat ached, +even Joe's eyes had filled. "What is it?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know its name," he answered, "I have always put it on programmes +as 'A Lament.' I learned it from an Irish emigrant-lad, who was from the +North, and who was dying fast from consumption and home-hunger. Is not +that wail chilling? As he gave the song it seemed like a message from the +dying."</p> + +<p>At the end of our stroll among the flowers and trees and past those +strange stone structures that look so like serious-minded bake-ovens, +having to wait for a car, we sat on a stone bench, and in that quiet city +of the dead Joe's voice rose, tenderly reverent, in that simple air that +was yet an anguish of longing, followed by a wail for the dead.</p> + +<p>My mother wept silently. I said, softly: "It's a plaint and a farewell," +and Joe brought his eyes back from the great cross, blackly silhouetted +against the flaming sky, and slowly said: "Beloved among women, it is a +message—a message from the dying or the dead, believe that."</p> + +<p>And a time came when—well, when <i>almost</i> I did believe that.</p> + +<p>Later on, when Mr. Barrett stood second only to Mr. Booth in his +profession, well established, well off, well dressed, polished and +refined of manner, aye, and genial, too, to those he liked, I came by +accident upon a most gracious act of his and, following it up, found him +deep in a conspiracy to deceive a stricken woman into receiving the aid +her piteous determination to stand alone made impossible to offer openly. +I looked at the generous, prosperous, intellectual, intensely active +gentleman, surrounded by clever wife and the pretty, thoroughly educated +daughters, who were chaperoned in all their walks to and from park or +music-lesson or shopping-trip, and I wondered at the distance little +"Larry," with the heavy head and frail body, had traveled, and bowed +respectfully to such magnificent energy.</p> + +<p>Even then there arose a cry from the profession that Mr. Barrett was +dictatorial, that he assumed airs of superiority. Mr. Barrett was +wrapped up, soul and body, in the proper production of the play in hand. +He was keenly observant and he was sensitive. When an actor had his mind +fixed upon a smoke or a glass of beer, and cared not one continental +dollar whether the play failed or succeeded, so long as he got his +"twenty dollars per—," Mr. Barrett knew it, and became "dictatorial" in +his effort to force the man into doing his work properly. I worked with +him, both as a nobody and as somebody, and I know that an honest effort +to comprehend and carry out his wishes was recognized and appreciated.</p> + +<p>As for his airs of superiority—well, the fact is he was superior to +many. He was intellectual and he was a student to the day of his death. +When work at the theatre was over he turned to study. He never was well +acquainted with Tom and Dick, nor yet with Harry. His back fitted a +lamp-post badly. He would not have known how "to jolly the crowd." He was +not a full, voluminous, and ready story-teller for the boys, who called +him cold and hard. God knows he had needed the coldness and the so-called +hardness, or how could he have endured the privations of the long journey +from his weary mother's side to this position of honor.</p> + +<p>Cold, hard, dictatorial, superior? Well, there is a weak lean-on-somebody +sort of woman, who will love any man who will feed and shelter her—she +doesn't count. But when a clear-minded, business-like, clever woman, a +wife for many years, loves her husband with the tenderest sentiment and +devotion, I'm ready to wager something that it was <i>tenderness</i> and +<i>devotion</i> in the husband that first aroused like sentiments in the wife.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barrett was shrewd, far-seeing, business-like—a devoted and +watchful mother, but her love for her husband had still the freshness, +the delicate sentiment of young wifehood. When she thought fit, she +bullied him shamefully; when she thought fitter, she "guyed" him +unmercifully. Think of that! And it was delightful to see the great, +solemn-eyed personification of dignity smilingly accepting her buffets.</p> + +<p>But, oh, to hear that wife tell of the sorrows and trials they had faced +together, of their absurd makeshifts, of their small triumphs over +poverty, of Lawrence's steady advance in his profession, of that +beautiful day when they moved into a little house all by themselves, when +he became, as he laughingly boasted, "a householder, not a forlorn, +down-trodden boarder!"</p> + +<p>Their family, besides themselves, then consisted of one little girl and +Lawrence's beloved old mother, and he had a room to study in in peace, +and the two women talked and planned endlessly about curtains and +furniture, and—oh, well, about some more very small garments that would, +God willing, be needed before a very great while. And one day Lawrence +looked about his little table, and said: "It's too good, it can't last, +it can't!" and the women kissed him and laughed at him; yet all the time +he was right, it did not last. An awful bolt seemed to fall from the blue +sky. It was one of those pitiful disasters that sometimes come upon the +very old—particularly to those who have endured much, suffered much, as +had the elder Mrs. Barrett in the past.</p> + +<p>I wept as I heard the story of the devoted son's dry-eyed agony, of the +awful fears his condition aroused in the minds of those close to him, and +then suddenly she, the wife, had been stricken down, and her danger and +that of the tiny babe had brought him to his old self again.</p> + +<p>He worked on then for some months, grateful for the sparing of his dear +ones, when quite suddenly and painlessly the stricken old mother passed +from sleep to life everlasting. Then when Joseph was to be summoned—Joe +who worshipped the mother's footprint in the dust—he was not to be +found. He had fallen again into disgrace, had been discharged, had +disappeared, no one knew whither.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear Father!" cried Mrs. Barrett, "what did not Lawrence suffer for +Joe! knowing what his agony would be when he knew all—but we could do no +more. The funeral took place. White as marble, Lawrence sent us all +home, and himself waited till the last clod of earth was piled upon the +grave; then waited till the men had gone, waited to kneel and pray a +moment before leaving the old mother there alone. And as he knelt he +noted how nearly dark it was, and thought he must not linger long or the +gates would be locked upon him. As he rose from his knees, he was +startled to see, through the dusk, a tall form coming toward him. It +would dodge behind a monument, and after a moment's pause would come a +little nearer. Suddenly the drooping, lurching figure became familiar to +him. With a groan he hid himself behind a tombstone and waited—waited +until suspicion became certainty, and he knew that the bent, weary +funeral guest was his brother, Joe!</p> + +<p>"He held his peace until the wanderer found his way along the darkening +path to that pathetic stretch of freshly broken earth, where, with an +exceeding bitter cry, he flung his arms above his head and fell all his +length along the grave that held the sweetest and the holiest thing God +had ever given him, an honest, loving mother, and clutched the damp clods +in his burning hands, and gasped out: 'Oh, mother! I have hungered and I +have tramped with the curse upon me, too; I have hungered and tramped so +far, so far, hoping just to be in time to see your dear face once more, +and now they've shut you away from me, from the bad boy you never turned +your patient eyes away from! Oh, mother! whatever can I do without you, +all alone! all alone!'</p> + +<p>"At that child-like cry from the broken man, prostrate on the grave, +Lawrence Barrett's heart turned to water, and kneeling down he lifted to +his breast the tear-blurred, drink-blemished face of his brother, and +kissed him as his mother might have done. Thus they prayed together for +the repose of the soul of their beloved, and then, with his arm about the +wanderer, to steady his failing steps, Lawrence led him to his little +home, and, as they entered, he turned and said: 'Joe, can't you take back +those words, "all alone," can't you?' and Joe nodded his head, and +throwing his arms about his brother's neck, answered: 'Never alone, while +my little brother Larry lives and forgives!'"</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-SEVENTH"></a>TWENTY-SEVENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I play "Marie" to Oblige—Mr. Barrett's Remarkable Call—Did I Receive +a Message from the Dying or the Dead? +</p></div> + + + +<p>From the time when, as a ballet-girl, I was called forward and given the +part of <i>Marie</i> in "The Marble Heart," a play Mr. Barrett was starring +in, to the then distant day of that really splendid combination with Mr. +Edwin Booth, I never saw the former when he was not burning with +excitement over some production he had in mind, if not yet in rehearsal. +Even in his sleep he saw perfect pictures of scenery not yet painted, +just as before "Ganalon" he used to dream of sharp lance and gay pennon +moving in serried ranks, of long lines of nobles and gentlemen who wore +the Cross of the Crusader.</p> + +<p>His friends were among the highest of God's Aristocracy of Brains—'twas +odd that sculptors, artists, poets, thinkers should strike hands with so +"cold" a man and call him friend!</p> + +<p>I remember well the dismayed look that came upon his face when I was +ordered from the ballet ranks to take the place of the lady—a hard, +high-voiced soubrette, who was to have played <i>Marie</i>, had not a sore +throat mercifully prevented her. But at my first "Thank you—I'd rather +go—yonder—," pointing to the distant convent, his eyes widened, +suddenly a sort of tremor came to his lips. He was at my side in an +instant, telling me to indicate my convent as on the opposite side, so +that my own attitude would be more picturesque to the audience. Between +the acts he said to me: "Have you any opinion of <i>Marie</i>, Miss er—er?"</p> + +<p>"My name's 'just Clara,'" I kindly interjected.</p> + +<p>"Well," he smiled, "'just Clara,' have you formed any idea of this +<i>Marie's</i> character?"</p> + +<p>"Why," I answered, "to me she seems a perfect walking gratitude; in real +life she would be rather dog-like, I'm afraid; but in the play she is +just beautiful."</p> + +<p>He looked solemnly at me, and then he said: "And <i>you</i> are just +beautiful, too, for you are a little thinking actress. Now if you have +the power of expressing what you think, do you know I am very honestly +interested, 'just Clara,' in your share of to-night's work."</p> + +<p>The play went well as a whole, and as <i>Marie</i> is one of the most tenderly +pathetic creations conceivable, I sat and wept as I told her story; but +imagine my amazement when, as Mr. Barrett bent over my hand, a great hot +tear fell from his cheek upon it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my girl," he said, when the play was over, "don't let anything on +God's footstool dishearten you. Work! work! you have such power, such +delicacy of expression with it—you <i>are Marie</i>, the little stupidly +religious, dog-like 'Marie the resigned,' that you have renamed for me +'Marie the grateful.'"</p> + +<p>When I was leading woman he wished to do that play for a single night. Of +course <i>Marco</i> belonged to me, but the big, handsome, cold-voiced second +woman could well talk through <i>Marco</i>, while she would (artistically +speaking) damn <i>Marie</i>. Mr. Barrett was very hungry-eyed, there was +positive famine in them, as he mournfully said: "I would give a great +deal to hear you tell <i>Marie's</i> story again—to see you and your little +bundle and bandaged foot. Such a clever touch that—that bandaged foot, +no other <i>Marie</i> dares do that; but you have turned your back on the +'grateful one'; you can't afford to do her again."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Barrett," I asked, "do you wish me to play <i>Marie</i> now?"</p> + +<p>"Do I wish it?" he echoed, "I wish it with all my heart, but I have no +right to ask a sacrifice from you even if it would benefit the whole +performance, as well as give me a personal pleasure."</p> + +<p>"If the manager does not object," I said, "I am quite willing to give up +the leading part and play <i>Marie</i> again."</p> + +<p>He held my hands, he fairly stammered for a moment, then he said: "You +are an <i>artiste</i> and a brave and generous girl. I shall remember this +action of yours, 'just Clara,' always."</p> + +<p>The amazed manager, after some objection, having consented, I once more +put on the rusty black gown, took my small bundle, and asked of the gay +ladies from Paris my way to the convent, yonder—finding in the tears of +the audience and the excellence of the general performance, full reward +for playing second fiddle that evening.</p> + +<p>In my early married days, when the great coffee-urn was still a menace to +my composure and dignity, at a little home-dinner, when Mr. William +Black, the famous writer of Scottish novels, honored me by his presence +on my right, Mr. Barrett on my left, moved, no one knows by what freak of +memory, lifted his glass, and, speaking low, said: "'Just Clara,' your +health!"</p> + +<p>I laughed a little, and was nodding back, when Mr. Black, who saw +everything through those glasses of his, cried out: "Favoritism, +favoritism! why, bless my heart, I drank your health ten minutes ago, and +you never blushed a blush for me! And I am chief guest, and on the right +hand of the hostess—explanations are now in order!"</p> + +<p>And Mr. Barrett said that he would explain on their way to the club, +whereupon Mr. Black wrinkled up his nose delightedly, and said he +"scented a story"—"and, oh," he cried, "it's the sweetest scent in the +world, the most fascinating trail to follow!"</p> + +<p>But I was thankful that he did not hunt down his quarry then and there, +for he could be as mischievous as a squirrel and as persistent as any +<i>enfant terrible</i>, if he thought you were depriving him of a story.</p> + +<p>Though tears creep into my eyes at the same moment, yet must I laugh +whenever I think of Mr. Barrett's last "call" upon me. We were +unknowingly stopping in the same hotel. On the way to the dining-room for +a bit of lunch, Mr. Harriott and Mr. Barrett met, exchanged greetings, +and when the latter found I was not going to luncheon, and was moreover +suffering from a most severe attack of neuralgia, he asked if he could +not call upon me for a few moments.</p> + +<p>Mr. Harriott looked doubtful, and while he hesitated, Mr. Barrett hastily +added: "Of course I shall merely say 'How do you do,' and express my +sympathy, since I know something about neuralgia myself—that's all."</p> + +<p>Upon which they turned back, and Mr. Harriott ushered the unexpected, the +spick-and-span caller into my presence, with the reassuring word: "Mr. +Barrett is sparing a moment or two of his time, Clara, to express his +sympathy for you."</p> + +<p>When a woman knows she is an "object," words of welcome for the +unexpected visitor are apt to come haltingly from the tongue, and that I +was an "object" no one can deny. A loose, pink dressing-gown was bad, a +knit white shawl huddled about the shoulders was worse, but, oh, worst of +all, my hair was all scrambled up to the top of my head (hair was dressed +low then), and a broad handkerchief bandage concealed from the eye, but +not from the nose, the presence of a remedial poultice of flour and +brandy.</p> + +<p>Truly it is such acts as this that brings many a well-meaning but +apparently demented husband into the divorce court. Now any friend, +relative, or servant would have bravely but politely prevaricated to the +last gasp rather than have admitted a caller to me in that state, but +husbands have no discretion, husbands have no—well, that's too large a +contract, so I'll keep to that call.</p> + +<p>I was aghast for a moment, but the warm pressure of Mr. Barrett's hand, +his brightening eye gave me such an impression of sincerity in his +pleased greeting that I forgot I was an "object," and asked him to sit +down for a chat, as eagerly as though I had had all my war-paint on.</p> + +<p>We were soon exchanging memories of the past, and Mr. Harriott, having a +business engagement ahead, excused himself and withdrew. Mr. Barrett, +calling after him: "I'll join you in a moment," resumed his conversation. +There still stood on the table a pot of tea and a plate holding two +pieces of toast. They had been meant for my lunch, but neuralgia had the +call, and lunch had been ignored; so, as we talked on and on, presently +Mr. Barrett, seeing my bandage sliding down over my eyes, rose, and, +without pausing in his rapid description of a certain picture he had seen +abroad in its creator's studio, he passed behind me, tightened the knot +of the handkerchief, put the sofa-pillow behind my head, a stool under my +feet, and resumed his seat.</p> + +<p>Then I talked and talked, and grew excited, then thirsty. I drew the tray +nearer and poured out a cup of tea.</p> + +<p>"Give me some," said Mr. Barrett, who was now telling me about a sitting +of Parliament in London.</p> + +<p>"Let me order some that's fresh," I replied.</p> + +<p>"No, no!" he cried, impatiently, "that will be such an interruption—no, +no!"</p> + +<p>I gave him then a cup of cold tea. Presently I broke off a bit of the +stiff and repellant toast, with its chilled, pale gleam of butter, and +nibbled it. His hand went forth and broke off a bit also. We were on a +new poem then, and Mr. Barrett seemed thrilling to his fingertips with +the delight of it. He repeated lines; I questioned his reading; we +experimented, placing emphasis first on this word, then on that. We +generally agreed, but we came an awful cropper over Gladstone.</p> + +<p>How fiercely we clashed over the grand old man those who knew Mr. Barrett +will guess from the fact that during the fray he excitedly undid two +buttons of his tight frock-coat. The ends of his white silk muffler now +hung down his back, fluttering when he moved like a small pair of white +wings. I have a recollection, too, of his rising, and, apparently +unconscious of his act, lighting the gas, while he passionately demanded +of me the reason why Dickens could not create a real woman.</p> + +<p>At last we came up hard and fast against <i>Hamlet</i>. The air was thick with +stories. Part of the time we talked together in our eagerness. Mr. +Barrett's coat was quite unbuttoned; the curl on his wide brow had grown +as frizzly as any common curl might grow. Two round, red spots spread +over his high cheek-bones, his eyes were hungrily glowing; he had just +taken a long breath and made a start on an audience with the Pope, when +Mr. Harriott entered and said: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrett, there's a +man outside who is very anxiously inquiring for you."</p> + +<p>"For me?" exclaimed Mr. Barrett, with astonishment, "that's rather +impertinent, it seems to me!"</p> + +<p>Suddenly he noticed the gas-light. He started violently, he pulled out +his watch, then sprang to his feet, crying: "Good God! Harriott, that's +my dresser looking for me—I ought to be in my dressing-room. What will +Mr. Booth think has become of me, and what, in heaven's name, do you +think of me?"</p> + +<p>He hastily buttoned himself into rigidity, rescued the flying ends of his +muffler, and holding my hands for a moment, he laughed: "You are not only +'just Clara,' but you are the only Clara that would make me so utterly +forgetful of all rules of etiquette. Forgive, and good-by!" and he made +an astonishingly hasty exit.</p> + +<p>That "call," that lasted from one till seven, with the accompanying +picture of the stately Lawrence Barrett drinking cold tea and eating +stiff cold toast, while he talked brilliantly of all things under heaven, +is one of my quaintest memories.</p> + +<p>One loves to think of those years of his close relations with Mr. Booth. +Artistically, the combination was an ideal one; commercially, it was a +most successful one; while it certainly brought out qualities of +gentleness and devotion in Mr. Barrett that the public had not +accredited him with.</p> + +<p>The position of manager and co-star was a difficult one, and only +Barrett's loving comprehension of Booth's peculiarities, as well as his +greatness, made that position tenable. Mr. Booth loathed business +details; he was sorrowful and weary; he had tasted all the sweets the +world had to offer, but only their under tang of bitterness was left upon +his lips. He had grown coldly indifferent to the call of the public, but +Mr. Barrett believed that under this ash of lassitude there still glowed +the clear fire of genius, and when they went forth to try their great +experiment, Mr. Booth found himself respected, honored, guarded as any +woman might have been. He was asked no questions about scene or scenery, +about play or percentage—his privacy and peace were ever of the first +consideration. Mr. Barrett was his agent, manager, stage-manager, friend, +co-worker, and dramatic guardian angel—all he asked of him in return was +to act.</p> + +<p>And how splendidly Mr. Booth responded the public can well remember. As +he said laughingly to a friend, at the end of the first season: "Good +work, eh? well, why should I not do good work, after all Barrett has done +for me. Why, I never knew what c-o-m-f-o-r-t spelled before. I +arrive—someone says: 'Here's your room, Mr. Booth.' I go in and smoke. +At night, someone says: 'Here's your dressing-room, sir,' and I go in and +dress, yes, and smoke, and then act. That's all, absolutely all that I +have to do, except to put out my hand and take my surprisingly big share +of the receipts now and then. Good work, eh? well, I'll give him the best +that's in me, he deserves it."</p> + +<p>And in the beautiful friendship that grew up between the melancholy, +gentle Booth and the nervously energetic Barrett I believe each gave to +the other the best that was in him.</p> + +<p>Before leaving the Barretts I should like to mention an odd happening +connected with Joe and my visit to New Orleans, where the theatre was +under the management of Lawrence Barrett and Mr. Rogers. The company had +taken for me one of those quick likings peculiar to our people; +principally, I think, because being a temporary star (by the grace of Mr. +Daly's will) they had expected me to be haughtily dictatorial, instead of +shy to the point of misery, and because of their mistake they treated me +like a long-sought sister, instead of the stranger I was.</p> + +<p>They publicly presented me with a gift on my last night, and almost in a +body saw my mother and myself off on our Sunday night start for home. +Everyone had left the car but big, hearty Joe Barrett—he still clung +silently to my hands, though my mother begged him to go before he met +with an injury. The train was out of the depot—the speed increasing +rapidly, before he dropped off, safely landing just beneath a light, high +above his head. His hat was off, his empty hand held out toward me, and +in that light his face was as the face of the sorrowful dead. It chilled +me, all my high spirits flattened down suddenly; I turned, and said: "Did +<i>you</i> see, mother?" and she answered: "It was the light, and his +unhappiness, that made him look so like a—so sad," so I knew she had +seen him as I had.</p> + +<p>Our journey was saddened by an accident, and when the train backed to +take up the creature it had crushed, not knowing what had happened, by +chance, I glanced down from the window, full into the face of the victim +as they bore him past. He had been a large, broad-shouldered man, and the +still, white face was so like Barrett's that I almost fainted. Everyone +in the car seemed to feel some measure of culpability for the mishap; and +at every unusual jolt or jar we looked with frightened eyes from the +windows, dreading lest another stretcher might be borne into view. At +last we were at home, and in work I regained my usual spirits.</p> + +<p>A few weeks, three or four, had passed. One morning I awakened myself +from a dreamless sleep by my own singing. I faced the blank wall. I +smiled sleepily at the absurdity of the thing, then I grew more awake, +and as I sang on, I said to myself: "What is it—why, what can it be, +that I am singing?"</p> + +<p>There were no words to this mournful, heart-breaking air, that ended with +a wail, long and weird.</p> + +<p>"Mother," I called, the door being open between our rooms, "Mother, did +you hear me singing just now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," she replied, "since I am not deaf, I heard you very +plainly."</p> + +<p>"Oh," I cried, "can you tell me what it was I sang?"</p> + +<p>My mother raised her head and looked in at me surprisedly: "Why, what is +the matter with you, child—aren't you awake, that you don't know what +you are doing? You were singing 'the lament' Joe Barrett sang in the +French cemetery."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I cried, in late-coming recognition, "you are right." I scrambled +up, and thrusting back my hair from my face, started to sing it again, +and lo! not a note could I catch. Again and again I tried; I shut my eyes +and strove to recall that wail—no use. Then, remembering what a memory +my mother had for <i>airs</i> heard but once or twice, I called: "Dear, can't +you start 'the lament' for me, I have lost it entirely?"</p> + +<p>She opened her lips, paused, looked surprised, then said, positively: "I +might never have heard it, I can't get either its beginning or ending."</p> + +<p>I sprang from the bed, and in bare, unslippered feet, ran to the piano in +the front room—no use; I never again heard, waking or sleeping, another +note of "the lament."</p> + +<p>Mother called out presently: "Do you know what time it is? Go back and +finish your sleep, it's not quite six o'clock."</p> + +<p>As I obediently returned to my room, I said, in a troubled voice: "What +do you suppose it means, mother?" and as she snuggled her head back upon +her pillow, she laughingly answered: "Oh, I suppose it's a sign you are +going to hear from Joe Barrett soon. If you do, I hope it won't be +anything bad, poor fellow!" for mother liked the "big Irish boy," as she +called him.</p> + +<p>I fell asleep again, but was up and ready at nine for our rather-foreign +breakfast of coffee, rolls, and salad. Now in our partnership mother was +mistress of the house, and I, doing the outside work, being the +wage-winner, was the <i>man</i> of the house, and as such had the master's +inalienable right to the morning paper with my coffee. That the mistress +occasionally peeped at the headlines before the <i>master</i> rose was a fact +judiciously ignored by both, so long as the paper was ever found neatly +folded beside the waiting coffee-cup. Imagine then my surprise when, +coming into the room, I found my mother sitting at table with the badge +of authority in her own hands, and my cup standing shorn of all its +dignity. She avoided my eye, and hastily pouring coffee, said: "Drink it +while it's hot, dear, and—and I'll just glance at the paper a moment."</p> + +<p>I sat back and stared, and I was just beginning to laugh at our small +comedy when I discovered that mother, she of the rock-steady nerves, was +trembling. Without looking up, she said again: "Drink your coffee—I'll +give you the paper presently."</p> + +<p>I sipped a little and watched. She was not reading a line. I put down the +cup. "Mother," said I, "is there anything in that paper that will +interest me?"</p> + +<p>She looked up hastily: "Drink your coffee, and I'll——"</p> + +<p>"Is there?" I broke in.</p> + +<p>Tears rose in her eyes. "Y-y-yes," she stammered, "there is something +here that will interest—rather that will grieve you, but if you would +please take your coffee!"</p> + +<p>I caught up the cup and emptied it at a draught, then held out my hand. +Mother gave me the paper and left the room; as her first sob reached my +ear, I read: "Sudden death of the actor, Joseph Barrett." I sat staring +stupidly, and before I saw another word there came to my ears the +shivering of leaves, and a grave voice, saying: "It is a message from the +dying or—the dead—believe that."</p> + +<p>"What," I asked, dully, "what is a message?" and then the blood chilled +at my heart as I recalled "the lament," Joe had said: "It is a message +from the dying—or the dead."</p> + +<p>After rehearsal, Mr. Daly wished to see me in his bit of a +staircase-office in front of the house. He desired help in deciding about +several scenes he meant to have built from old engravings. Suddenly he +came to a stand-still. "What's the matter with you?" he cried; "where are +your splendid spirits? you have been absent and heavy all morning—what's +the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much," I began, when he angrily interrupted: "For heaven's +sake, spare me that senseless answer. If you won't tell me, say so. +Refuse me your confidence, if you choose, but don't treat me as though I +were a fool by saying <i>nothing</i>, when you look as if you'd seen a ghost!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't!" I cried, and astonished my irate manager by bursting into +tears. He instantly became gentle, and forcing a thimbleful of +<i>Chartreuse</i> (which I loath) upon me, he once more asked what was the +matter.</p> + +<p>And then I told him of the dying emigrant—of Joe's feeling for me—of +the singing of "the lament," and at Joe's words: "It's a message from the +dying, or the dead."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly's fingers trembled like aspen leaves, his eyes dilated to +perfect blackness, and almost he whispered the words: "Well, +child—well?"</p> + +<p>I told of the song, begun in sleep, continued in wakefulness to its +wailing end, and then lost—utterly lost! And leaning his pale face +eagerly toward me, Mr. Daly exclaimed: "He proved his words, good God! +don't you see that—that air was his message to you? a message from the +dying or the dead!" his fingers nervously sought the little amulet he +wore.</p> + +<p>"But," I objected, "he had been dead many hours before the song came to +me?"</p> + +<p>When, with the utmost conviction, he instantly answered: "Think how far +you were asunder—what a distance he had to come to you!"</p> + +<p>Being a very practical young person, a smile was rising to my lips, but a +glance into his earnest eyes, that had become strange and mystic, checked +it.</p> + +<p>"I shall tell Father D——y of this," he said, half to himself, then, +looking at me, he added: "The man loved you greatly, whatever he may have +been, for you have received his message—whether it came from the man +dying or the man dead. Go home, child; never mind about the scenes +to-day—go home!"</p> + +<p>And with that weird idea firmly fixed in his mind, he dismissed me.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-EIGHTH"></a>TWENTY-EIGHTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">I accept an Engagement with Mr. Macaulay for Cincinnati as Leading +Lady—My Adieus to Cleveland—Mr. Ellsler Presents Me with a Watch. +</p></div> + + + +<p>After years of weary waiting, years of patient work, I had reached the +position of juvenile leads <i>de jure</i>, but of general lack <i>de facto</i>, and +then, lacking as my character was in the element of "push," even <i>I</i> +could see plainly that I was throwing away myself and my chances in life +by remaining in a position where I faced the sign of "No thoroughfare."</p> + +<p>That Mrs. Ellsler would retain the leading business while her husband +retained a theatre was certain. I knew positively that some of +Cleveland's leading business men, sturdy supporters of the theatre, +finding that their mildly expressed dissatisfaction with the make-up of +the company was ignored, had written and plainly asked for a change, just +as Mr. Ellsler, every two years, changed the comedian, leading man, etc., +etc. They declared that his business would double in consequence; and +this was submitted with the kindliest intentions and no wish to wound +anyone, etc., and they were, with great respect—various business men.</p> + +<p>At all events, when the letter had produced embarrassed discomfort in one +quarter and fierce anger in another, it became inactive. I rightly judged +that the "No thoroughfare" sign was permanent—there was no further +advancement possible in that theatre; therefore I rejoiced greatly when I +had an engagement offered me, even though, for reasons touching the +reputation of the manager who wrote, I refused it—still an offer of +leading business heartened me, and I felt gratefully sure some star had +spoken a kind word in my behalf. There was so much hanging upon that +possible engagement, too; it meant more than advancement professionally, +more than gratified ambition. Never yet had I been able to go beyond the +taking care of myself and lending a helping hand in sickness to my +mother; while, to my unsleeping distress, my bitter mortification, she +had still to work. We were still apart, save for my regular weekly visit, +and such a small increase in salary would have made it possible for us to +live together, after a manner, in a very small way, but we would rather +have been half alive and together than have thrilled with superabundant +vitality while separated.</p> + +<p>As my services had never seemed to be regarded seriously by anyone but +the star of the especial occasion, I was not utterly taken aback when I +found my intention of stepping bravely out into the big world received +with surprise and cold disapproval. Really, I was almost convinced that I +had still the very a-b-abs of my business yet to learn, that I was rash +and headstrong and all puffed up with strange, unseemly vanity; but just +as I was sinking back to that "old-slipper" state of mind desired, a +letter came from the well-known, thoroughly established actor-manager, +Mr. Barney Macaulay, who offered me the leading business at Wood's +Museum, Cincinnati, O.</p> + +<p>The salary was very small, but I understood perfectly that any manager +would offer as small a salary to any actress whose <i>first</i> season it was +as leading woman.</p> + +<p>Oh, my! oh, my! but there followed a period of scant sunshine, of hot +argument, of cold and cautious advice, of terrifying hints of lacking +qualities. Want of dignity, of power, of authority! The managerial forces +were winning all along the line of argument, when, like many another +combatant who faces annihilation, I took a desperate chance; I called up +every dissatisfied speech of my absent mother, every complaint, regret, +reproach, every word of disappointment, of vexation, of urging, of +goading, of stern command, and arming these words with parental authority +I mounted them upon a mother's fierce wrath, and thus, as cavalry, +recklessly hurled them at full charge upon the enemy's line. I had no +infantry of proof to support my cavalry's move, it was sheer desperation; +but Fortune is a fickle jade, she sprang suddenly to my side. The +managerial lines broke before the mother's charge, and before he had them +reformed I had written Mr. Macaulay that I was ready to consider to +accept the offered engagement, if, etc., etc., and then put on my hat and +jacket and went forth and cleverly showed, first the offered engagement +to arouse my victimized parent's hopes, then descanted upon the +opposition offered to my acceptance of it, and when <i>she</i> was warmed with +indignation I confessed to using her as my principal weapon—even +admitted making up some speeches, and being hot and pleased, indignant +and proud, she forgave me, and I bit my lips hard to keep silence about a +great hope that she might possibly go with me to that new engagement; +but, to spare her a possible disappointment, I held my peace.</p> + +<p>Later, when everything was seemingly settled and only the contract left +to sign, came the amazing suggestion from Mr. Macaulay, that, because of +my youth, I would undoubtedly be perfectly willing to let him reserve a +few heavy <i>parts</i> for his wife's acting. It is quite needless for me to +explain that the few <i>parts</i> to be reserved were the choicest of the +legitimate drama. And then an amusing thing came to pass. I, who was so +lacking in self-confidence, so backward and retiring, so easily cast down +by a look of disapprobation, suddenly developed (on paper) an ability to +stand up for my rights that was startling. By return mail I informed Mr. +Macaulay that my youth did not affect me in the manner he anticipated; +that I was not willing to resign all those important parts to another—no +matter whose wife that other happened to be.</p> + +<p>A long, argumentative, soothing sort of letter came back to me, ending +with the positive conviction that I would yield two parts to his +wife—great pets of hers they were, too, and one of them being <i>Lady +Macbeth</i>, I would of course be grateful to have it taken off my hands, +while <i>Julia</i>, in "The Hunchback," had really come to be considered, in +Cincinnati, as Miss Johnson's special property—Miss Rachael Johnson +being the stage name of Mrs. Macaulay.</p> + +<p>Had he asked two <i>parts</i> in the first place I would have granted them, +but now my blood was up (on paper, mind you), and with swift decision I +boldly threw the engagement up, declaring I would be the leading woman or +nothing. For, you see, I had been in the frying-pan of one family theatre +all my dramatic life, and I was not willing to throw myself at once into +the fire of another one.</p> + +<p>The next letter contained a great surprise: a couple of signed contracts +and a pleasant request for me too to sign both and return one +immediately. Then the writer quite gently regretted my inability to grant +his request, but closed by expressing his respect for my firmness in +demanding my rights; and straightway I signed my first contract; went out +and mailed one copy, and when I returned I had made up my mind to take +the great risk—I had decided that my mother should never again receive +commands from anyone. That my shoulders were strong enough to bear the +welcome burden, and so we would face the new life and its possible +sufferings together—<i>together</i>, that was the main thing.</p> + +<p>As I stood before the glass, smoothing my hair, I gravely bowed to my +reflection, and said: "Accept my congratulations and best wishes, 'Wood's +leading lady,'" and then fell upon the bed and sobbed, as foolish +nerve-strained women will; because, you see, the way had been so long and +sometimes so hard, dear Lord! so hard, but by His mercy I had won one +goal—I was a leading woman!</p> + +<p>And then began my good-by to the city that I loved. I had lived in so +many of its streets; I had attended so many of its schools, and still +more of its churches. There was the great lake, too. I had sailed on it, +had been wrecked on it, but against that I set the memory of those days +when, in night-gown bath-dress, I reveled in its blue waters on Fourth of +July family picnics.</p> + +<p>One church—old Bethel on Water Street—I hated, because the +Sunday-school superintendent had been a hypocrite, and we knew it, and +because in every one of its library books the good child died at the end, +which was very discouraging to youthful minds.</p> + +<p>Another church, on Prospect Street, I loved, because that Sunday-school +teacher had been so gentle and smiling and had worn such pretty pink +flowers in her bonnet.</p> + +<p>Then there was the fountain in the square. I laughed as I said good-by to +that, recalling the morning when, because of a bad throat, I had +unobservedly, as I supposed, swallowed a powder (hom[oe]opathic), and +next moment heard hurrying footsteps behind me and felt a heavy hand on +my shoulder, while a rough voice cried: "Where's the paper? what did you +do it for? what's your name? say, answer up, now, before it gets hold of +you—what's your name?"</p> + +<p>Frightened and bewildered, 'twas with difficulty I convinced the +suspicious policeman that I was not attempting suicide by poison, but was +trying to cure a sore throat. A theatre bill-board was in fair view, and +my part in the <i>play</i>, which I luckily held rolled in my hand, induced +him to let me go to rehearsal instead of the station-house; and while the +policeman dispersed the crowd his own error had gathered, I resolved, as +I flew toward the theatre, to take no more powders in public parks—no +matter how empty they might seem to be.</p> + +<p>And then there was the <i>jail</i>, and as I nodded a good-by at its blackened +walls I saw again that sunny morning when, in greatest haste, I passed +that way and observed, coming toward me, three men walking very closely, +who showed no intention of making way for me—which made me look at them +surprisedly. And then the astonishing beauty of the tail, white-clothed +central figure brought me to a halt. His ruddy features were as severely +perfect as those stamped on an ancient coin. His glittering hair and +mustache were of that pale and precious gold most often seen crowning a +baby's head. His figure was tall, broad-shouldered, small-waisted, and +his hands, good God! I whispered, and stopped there, for he wore the +hand-cuffs, and on either side of him a strong and grimy hand gripped his +arm. That was why they made no room for me; and as I swerved swiftly out +into the middle of the street to pass them by, there came a glitter of +bold blue eyes, a flash of white teeth, and a deep voice cried back to +me: "I'm awfully sorry; I beg your pardon," and then they wheeled inside +the iron gates, and five minutes later I knew the physically splendid +creature I had seen was that Dr. Hughes who had just been taken for the +murder of his victim (of a mock marriage), poor little sixteen-year-old +Tamsie Parsons—she of the curly head, but steel-firm mouth, who loved +passionately this God-like devil, yet had the moral courage to resist him +to the death.</p> + +<p>And then the post-office was quite full of memories. One made my brow +grow moist, even after years had passed since the damp autumn day when, +as a child, I had let fall upon the stone floor a good large bottle of +benzine. The crushed thing, wrapped nicely in blue paper, lay there, +innocent to behold, while its escaping volatile contents got in some +really fine work. First, two ladies held their noses, then a fierce old +be-whiskered man looked about suspiciously, working his offended member +just as a dog would. Then two men hurrying in opposite directions, but +with their eyes turned up inquiringly toward the gas-fixture overhead, +collided violently, and instead of apologizing, each abused the other as +a blundering idiot, and wrinkling up their noses disgustedly, unlocked +their boxes, and still grumbling went their ways, one declaring that the +gas being wasted there was sufficient to illuminate the whole building. +Then doors began to open violently, and pale men in office coats of +alpaca darted out and ran about, frantically trying to turn off gas that +was not turned on; and there I stood, shivering over the innocent blue +package, very wet by that time, with my fear of a whipping for breaking +the bottle losing itself in the greater terror of some swift public +expiation of my fault. The unknown is always terrifying, and I strove in +vain to imagine what the punishment would be for creating evil odors in a +public building that brought postal clerks from their work in pursuit of +them. But the sight of a policeman advancing toward the delivery window +suddenly set me in motion, and with a bound I was out of the door and +running like mad for a (then) Kinsman Street car. I wonder yet if that +gas leak was ever properly located.</p> + +<p>Another day I had been sent for an advertised letter, and as several +grown-ups were ahead of me at the little window, I withdrew to lean +against the wall and rest a bit while waiting, for I had walked far and +was very tired. And then a very white-haired, white-whiskered, white-tied +old gentleman entered one of the many doors and looked nervously about +him; when, seeing me, he brightened up, and at once began to beckon me +toward him. Always respectfully obedient to the old, I at once approached +the pink and white chipper old man, who nodded, smiled, and patting my +head, asked, eagerly: "Er—er, do you—can you get letters from the +office-window yonder?"</p> + +<p>His restless eyes wandered all over the place. "Oh, yes, sir," I +answered, "I often get them for my mother, and for other people, too!"</p> + +<p>"Quite right, yes, yes, quite right, quite right!" responded the old +gentleman, then added, reflectively: "Yes, she's a female, but females +receive letters, though they don't vote, yes, yes! Well, my child, I want +you to help me in a great and good work. You know people are taught from +their earliest infancy the necessity of minding their P's and Q's, and +that they don't do it! Now you and I will mind the P's and Q's of this +great city, won't we, my dear? So, you just go to the window there and +get all the letters there are for Parker, Purley, Prentiss, and Porter, +and I'll come after you and get all the letters for Pixley, Pratt, +Prince, and Pettigrew, and to-morrow, my dear, we'll come down and get +all the Q's—the Quigley, Quinn, and Quiller crowd—and—and we'll take +all the letters over to the fountain and throw them in the basin of +water, and if they float we'll pitch bricks at 'em! Now, now's your time, +go ahead, and get all the P's you can—it's a great scheme, great!" and +then he stopped, for an almost breathless voice called out: "Here he is, +Hank! confound him!" And as two men hurried toward my chipper old +reformer, one said, reproachfully: "Now, look-a-here, Mr. Peiffer, if you +don't keep your word no better nor this, Hank and me'll have to keep hold +of you on your walks, and you won't like that!"</p> + +<p>"No," meekly murmured the old man, "I—er—I won't like that, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>Then Hank turned to me and asked, suspiciously: "Has he been filling you +full of P's and Q's?"</p> + +<p>I nodded. "Then," said the other man, "we'd better get him back quick, +that's the way he begins. Come on, now, Mr. Peiffer, come on!" and +between them they led away the poor white-haired old madman, who looked +back as he passed me, and whispered: "Pitch 'em in the fountain, I'll get +the Q's to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>There, too, was the old, old grave-yard that the city had crept up to, +cautiously at first, then finding them quite harmless—the quiet +dead—had stretched out brick and mortar arms and circled it about. A +network of streets had tangled about it, and turbulent life dashed +against its very gates on the outside, but inside there was a great green +silence.</p> + +<p>How well I knew the quiet place—the far, damp corner where, in lifting +bodies for removal to a new cemetery, one had been found petrified; the +giant sycamore-tree that guarded the grave of a mighty Indian chief, the +lonely hemlock blackened nook where a grave had been cruelly robbed, the +most expensive tomb, the most beautiful tomb, the oldest tomb, I knew +them all. But the special attraction for me was a plain white headstone +that happened to bear my own name. Whenever my mother boxed my ears, or +was too hasty in her judgment to be quite just, I went over to my silent +city and sat down and looked at the tombstone, and thought if it were +really mine how sorry my mother would feel for what she had done. And +when I had, in imagination, seen her tears and remorse, I would begin to +feel sorry for her and to think she was punished enough, especially if it +was rather late, and the shadows of tombstones and trees all fell long +upon the sunny walks, all pointing like warning black fingers toward the +gate. Then, indeed, I was apt to forgive my mother and flee to her—and +supper.</p> + +<p>And so, up and down, smiling and sighing, I went, taking <i>congé</i> of the +city that had been home to me all my life, save just two years. I even +paused at the little old cottage whose gate was the only one I had ever +swung on, and I had hated the swinging, but I was six and was +passionately enamoured of a small person named Johnnie, who lived there +and who wore blue aprons; so I swung on the gate with him and to please +him, and then, being like most of his sex, fickle of fancy, he deserted +me for a new red dress worn by another. And when he spilled milk on it +(his mother sold milk) and spoiled its glory, she scratched his face, and +he wanted to return to me; but my love was dead, so dead I wouldn't even +accept sips of milk out of the little pails he had to carry around to +customers. And, so cruel is life, there I stood and laughed as I took +leave of the small gate.</p> + +<p>At last all was done, my trunks were gone, I sat in my empty room waiting +for the carriage. I had to make my journey quite alone, since my mother +was to join me only when I had found a place to settle in. I was very +sad. Mr. Ellsler was ill, for the first time since I had known him, and I +had been over to his home, three or four blocks away, and bade good-by +to Mrs. Ellsler and gentle little Annie—the other children were out. And +finding I had no fear of contagion from a bad throat, she showed me into +Mr. Ellsler's room. I was shocked to see him so wasted and so weak, and +not being used to sickness I was frightened about him. Judge, then, my +amazement, when, hearing a knock on my door and calling, "Come in," +instead of a bell-boy, there entered, pale and almost staggering, Mr. +Ellsler. A rim of red above his white muffler betrayed the bandaged +throat, and his poor voice was but a husky whisper.</p> + +<p>"I could not help it," he said; "you were placed under my care once by +your mother. You were a child then, and though you are pleased to +consider yourself a woman now, I could not bear to think of your leaving +the city, at this saddest hour of the day, to begin a lonely journey, +without some old friend being by for a parting God-speed."</p> + +<p>I was inexpressibly grateful, even through all my fright at his rashness; +but he had yet another surprise for me. He said: "I wanted, too, Clara, +to make you a little present, to give you a keepsake that would last long +and would remind you daily of—of—er the years you have passed in my +theatre."</p> + +<p>He drew a small box from his pocket. "A good girl and a good actress," he +said, "needs and ought to own a—" he touched a spring, the box flew +open—"a good watch," he finished.</p> + +<p>I gave a cry, I could not realize it was for me—I <i>could</i> not! I clasped +my hands in admiration instead of taking it, so, with his thin, sick +man's fingers, he took it from its case and dropped it in my lap. I +caught it then, and "Oh!" and again "Oh!" was all that I could cry, while +I pressed it to my cheek and gloated over it.</p> + +<p>Literally, I could not speak, such an agony of delight in its beauty, of +pride in its possession, of satisfaction in a need supplied, of gratitude +tremendous and surprise immeasurable were more than I could find words +for. If you are inclined to think this exaggeration, remember how poor I +was—had always been; remember, too, there were no cheap watches then; +this was of the best make and had a chain attached as well; then think +how great was my need of it for the theatre, day and night, and for +traveling. By my utter inability to earn such a thing measure my joyful +surprise at receiving it, a gift.</p> + +<p>It was one of the red-letter days of my life, the day I owned a watch. My +thanks must have been sadly jumbled and broken, but my pride and pleasure +made Mr. Ellsler laugh, and then the carriage was there, and laughter +stilled into a silent, close hand-clasp. As I opened the door of the +dusty old hack, I glanced up and saw the first star prick brightly +through the evening sky. Then the hoarse voice said, "God bless you!" and +I had left my first manager.</p> + +<p>As I stepped out of the carriage at the depot, glancing up again I saw +the sky sown thick with stars, like a field of heavenly daisies. I smiled +a little at the thought, then suddenly <i>drew my watch</i> to see the time, +and hurried to my train. Thus grateful for a kindly send-off, made happy +by a gift, I turned my back upon the old, safe life and brightly, +hopefully faced the new. For I was young, and therefore confident; and it +is surely for the old world's need that God has made youth so.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="TWENTY-NINTH"></a>TWENTY-NINTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">My first Humiliating Experience in Cincinnati is Followed by a +Successful Appearance—I Make the Acquaintance of the Enthusiastic +Navoni.</p></div> + + + + +<p>It is a deep humiliation to relate my first experience in Cincinnati, but +for reasons I set it down.</p> + +<p>A friend of mine, who hailed from Cincinnati and who wished to serve me, +had said: "One thing I think I can do for you, friend Clara, I can save +you the weariness and annoyance of a long search in a strange city for +board. My wife and I were never so comfortable in our lives before as we +were at the house of a Mrs. Scott. She is a gentlewoman, therefore she +never pries, never gossips, never 'just runs in a moment,' when you want +to study a 'part.' Her charges are reasonable, the table a little close, +perhaps, but the cooking perfect. You and your mother would suit her +demands as to regularity of habits, quiet conduct, etc., completely, and +going there so early in September you will stand a good chance of +securing a room. Try for 'ours'—it was so sunny and bright." And I, +delighted at such a prospect, looked upon my letter of introduction as a +very valuable document—a sort of character from my last place, and early +on Monday morning went forth from my temporarily sheltering hotel to find +Mrs. Scott and beg her to take me in on the word of her boarders of a +year ago.</p> + +<p>I found the house easily, but, modest as was its exterior, its rich +interior sent my heart down rapidly—it was going to be away beyond my +salary I decided. Yet after a, to me, most bewildering interview, I found +myself inspecting the big sunny room, and shrinking at the thought of my +rough trunks coming in contact with such a handsome carpet. Mrs. Scott +had remarked, casually, that she had put her earnings back on the house, +as a pure matter of business, and I was radiant when she named her price +for the room, and hastily engaging it, I started out at once to order my +trunks taken there and to telegraph mother to come.</p> + +<p>As I descended the steps I could not help humming a little tune. A +policeman strolled across the street toward me, and I had a hazy notion +that he had been there when I went in. As I reached the pavement he +stepped up, and holding out to me a handkerchief, palpably his own, +asked, while looking at me closely, if it was mine.</p> + +<p>I was indignant, and I answered, sharply: "It is not mine—as you very +well know!"</p> + +<p>He laughed rather sheepishly, and said: "Well, you are not stupid, if you +are innocent," then asked: "Are you a stranger here?"</p> + +<p>I turned back toward the house I had just left, then paused as I said, +angrily: "I have a mind to go back and ask Mrs. Scott to come out with me +to protect me from the impertinence of the police!"</p> + +<p>"Who?" he asked, with wide-open, wondering eyes, "you will go back to +who?"</p> + +<p>"To Mrs. Scott," I snapped.</p> + +<p>"Why," said he, "there's no Mrs. Scott there."</p> + +<p>"No?" I questioned satirically. "No? Well, as I have just engaged board +from Mrs. Scott, I venture to differ with you."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, Miss," the man said, "Mrs. William Scott's been dead these +nine months or more. That's no place for honest people now. Why—why, +we're watchin' the house this moment, hoping to catch that woman's +jail-bird son, who has broken jail in Louisville—don't look so white, +Miss!"</p> + +<p>"But—but," I whispered, "I—I was sent here by a friend—I—I have +engaged a room there! Oh, what shall I do?"</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Miss," reassuringly answered the policeman, "I'll give +up the room for you. You ain't the only one that has come here expecting +to find Mrs. Scott in the house. You don't need to go back to the door;" +and the theatre being in full view, in an agony of humiliation and +terror, I flung myself into its friendly, just-opened office, where Mr. +Macaulay presently found me shaking like a leaf and almost unable to make +plain my experience.</p> + +<p>He was furious, and finding my name was mentioned in the letter of +introduction to Mrs. Scott, and that "Mrs. Scott" had retained it, he +called the policeman and together they went to the house and demanded the +letter back. It was given up, but most unwillingly, as the woman, with +the superstition of all gambling people, looked upon it as a +luck-breeder, a mascot; and an hour later, by Mr. Macaulay's aid, I had +found two wee rooms, whose carpets would welcome my trunks as hiders of +holes—rooms that were dull, even dingy, but had nevertheless securely +sheltered honest poverty for long years past, and could do as much for +years to come.</p> + +<p>I mention this unpleasant incident simply to show how utterly unexpected +are some of the pitfalls that make dangerous the pathway of honest +girlhood. To show, too, that utter ignorance of evil is in itself a +danger. The interview that bewildered me would have been, for instance, a +danger signal to my mother, who would, too, having seen how the richness +of furniture contradicted outside shabbiness, have had her suspicions +aroused. I noted that fact, but not knowing of gambling being unlawful +and secretly carried on, my observation was of no service to me, as it +suggested nothing. Ignorance of the existence of evil may sometimes +become the active foe of innocence.</p> + +<p>No one learned of the unpleasant experience, so I was spared +disagreeable comment; and, sending for my mother to join me, I devoted +myself to preparations of my opening night.</p> + +<p>The meeting with strangers, which I had greatly dreaded, passed off so +easily, even so pleasantly, as to surprise me. Everyone offered a kind +word of greeting, and all the women expressed their sympathy because I +had to open in so poorly dressed a part. That troubled <i>me</i> very little, +however.</p> + +<p>The character was that of a country girl (<i>Cicely</i>) in some old comedy, +whose name I have forgotten. She wore just one gown—a black and white +print, as she was in mourning for her old, farmer father. A rustic wench, +a milk-maid come up to "Lun'un-town," she had one speech that was a trial +for any woman to have to speak. It was not as brutally expressed as are +many of the speeches given to rustics in the old English comedies—but it +was the <i>double-entendre</i> that made it coarse.</p> + +<p>Some of the ladies were speaking with me of the matter, and the "old +woman" suggested that I just mumble the words. I said I could not well do +that, as it was a part of the principal scene of the play.</p> + +<p>"Well," declared another, "I should hang my head and let the house see +that I was ashamed of the speech."</p> + +<p>I said nothing, but I thought that would be a most inartistic breaking +away from the part of the rustic <i>Cicely</i>, and a dragging in of +scandalized Miss Morris.</p> + +<p>The girl was supposed to make the speech through blundering ignorance, +she alone not seeing its significance; and to my idea there was but one +way to deliver it, and that certainly was not with a hanging head and +shamefaced manner, thus showing perfect, if disapproving, knowledge of +its double meaning.</p> + +<p>When the opening night came a pleasant little thing happened to me. As I +entered with straw hat tied under chin and bundle in hand, I received a +modest little reception, what would about equal the slight raising of a +hat in passing a woman in a corridor; but the moment I had spoken the +first insignificant speech the house gave me as hearty a greeting as any +leading woman could wish for.</p> + +<p>I was startled and much confused for a few moments, but very pleased and +grateful withal, yet when I came off, Mr. Macaulay's pleasure seemed +twice as great as mine, and as I laughingly told him so, he said: "Well, +now I'm going to make a confession. Your letters gave me an impression +of—of—well, you are entirely unlike your letters—you are smaller, and +you look even younger than you really are. There isn't the very faintest +suggestion of the actress in your manner, and—and—to be honest, I was a +bit frightened over the engagement I had made. Then your having to open +in this insignificant part was against you. But they are no fools out +<i>there</i>, my girl. They have found you out already. Your eyes and voice +alone won that welcome, and I'd not be afraid to wager something now that +the last curtain falls to-night upon a new favorite."</p> + +<p>I was greatly pleased, but those broad lines were still hanging over me, +still disturbing me.</p> + +<p>At last the scene arrived. I gave the inquiring speech, with its wretched +double meaning, clearly and plainly, looking squarely and honestly into +the eyes of the person I addressed—the result was described as follows +by a morning paper:</p> + +<p>"That one speech proved the newcomer an actress of superior quality. +Clearly and simply given, the great guffaw that instantly responded to +the <i>double-entendre</i> had scarcely risen, when the girl's perfect +honesty, her wide-eyed innocence, so impressed the audience that applause +broke from every part of the house. It was the most dramatic moment of +the evening, for that outburst was not merely approbation for the +actress, it was homage to the woman."</p> + +<p>So it came to pass that Mr. Macaulay's words came true—the curtain fell +upon a favorite, by grace of the warm and kindly hearts of the +Cincinnatians, who were quick to see merits and ever ready to forgive +errors.</p> + +<p>The Hebrew citizens, who are enthusiastic and most generous patrons of +the theatre, became especially fond of me, so much so indeed that the +company christened me "Rebecca," in jesting allusion to their favor, of +which I was nevertheless very proud, for better judges of matters +theatrical it would be hard to find.</p> + +<p>When my mother arrived, we settled down in our little rooms, where my +trunks, which had to be opened every day for the nightly change of +costume, had to stand one on top of another in order to make room for an +old battle-scarred piano that I had hired.</p> + +<p>I do not know its maker's name—no one knows—which was well for that +person, because his act in constructing such a thing placed him in the +criminal classes. It seemed to be a cross between a coffin and a +billiard-table, and there was just enough left of its rubber cover to +make an evil smell in the room.</p> + +<p>Had it not been for the generosity of the leader of the orchestra (Mr. +Navoni) I could not have enjoyed the luxury of even a few music lessons, +but he saw my willingness to learn—to practise when possible, and loving +music rapturously himself, he took a generous delight in helping others +to the knowledge he had such a store of. Therefore, for a ridiculously +small price, just enough, he said, to properly mark our relations as +master and pupil, he introduced me to my notes and lines and +ledger-lines, too (confound them!), and accidentals and sharps (which I +hated) and flats (which I liked), and I developed a great affection for +<i>c</i>, because I could always find it, while I hate <i>a</i> to this hour +because of the trouble it gave me so long ago.</p> + +<p>One thing I am sure of, had anyone awakened me suddenly from a deep sleep +at that time I would instantly have exclaimed: "One <i>and</i> two <i>and</i> three +<i>and</i>." Mr. Navoni and his wife had the room directly over ours; of +course I knew every loud sound we made must penetrate to his room, and as +I could conceive of nothing more maddening than to have to listen to a +beginner's <i>one</i>, two, three—<i>one</i>, two, three, I tried to practise when +he was out, which was difficult, as our hours were the same. Then one +day, knowing he was composing a march for a special occasion, I closed +the piano and determined I would not disturb him with any noise of mine.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, then, Mr. Navoni sat, rumpled as to hair, fiery as to eye, with +violin on table and pen in hand. He hummed a little, tried one or two +bars on the violin, then savagely threw a few notes of ink on to his +ruled paper. Then he hummed a little, and seemed to listen, jotted down a +note or two, listened attentively, and then burst out: "Do you hear a +sound of practice from Miss Morris's room?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear," gently replied Mrs. Navoni, "she doesn't want to disturb you +at your work, she——"</p> + +<p>But a burst of wrath stopped her. Mr. Navoni was clattering down-stairs +and pounding on our door: "What does this mean? Get you to that devilish +bad piano and do your scales—<i>scales</i>, mind you—let the exercises wait +till the last! Interrupt me? Love I not music! nothing is sweeter to me +than the '<i>one</i>, two, three' of the beginner—<i>if</i> the beginner is not a +fool—<i>if</i> the beginner counts the '<i>one</i>, two, three' correctly! Damn! +yes, I say <i>damn</i>! look at the time lost! afraid to disturb me? How the +devil am I to compose that march they want with this room still as the +dead? Now I go back, and if you don't do those scales, all smooth and +even, and the exercises rightly timed, you—well, you know what you'll +get! I can hear, even if I am composing. So you get to work, quick now! +before I get back to my table!"</p> + +<p>And he tore off again, while, with clammy fingers, I sat down to the +wretched old piano, that was showing its teeth at me in a senile grin, +and feebly and uncertainly began to wobble up and down the keyboard.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Navoni afterward told me that when her husband returned to his work +he hummed to himself a few moments, jotted down a few notes, listened to +the sound of the rattling old piano, and, smiling and nodding, remarked: +"<i>Now</i> I can do something—<i>one</i>, two, three—<i>one</i>, two, three—that's +right. I couldn't compose a bar with her wasting a precious hour down +there. She keeps good time, eh, doesn't she? Now I'll give the boys +something that will move their feet for them!" and he returned to the +march.</p> + +<p>The thing which I was to get if I failed to practise correctly was so +unusual that I feel I must explain it. Mr. Navoni wore an artificial foot +and leg of the cumbrous type then offered to the afflicted, and in the +privacy of his own room he used to remove the burdensome thing and lay it +on a chair by the couch on which he rested or read or wrote, and when I, +down-stairs, made a first mistake in my practice, he growled and kicked +viciously with his "for-true" leg, while a second blunder would make him +seize his store-leg and pound the floor. Then when I began again he would +whack the correct time with it with such emphasis that bits of my ceiling +would come rattling down about me and the gas-fixture threatened not to +remain a fixture.</p> + +<p>Another trick of his was to bring down his violin with him. How my heart +sank when I saw it, and, my lesson over, he requested me to play such or +such an exercise: "And keep to your own business, and leave my business +to me, if you please, Miss. <i>Now!</i>"</p> + +<p>I was then expected to go over and over that exercise and keep perfect +time, while he stood behind me and improvised on the violin, growing more +and more distracting every moment, and if that led my attention away from +my <i>one</i>, two, three, what a crack I got across the top of my ear from +his fiddle-bow, and a sharp order to: "Go back—go back! <i>one</i>, two, +three; <i>one</i>, two, three! Cry by and by, but now play! <i>One</i>, two, +three!"</p> + +<p>I should have thought myself a hopeless case, and given up, had I not one +morning overheard him boasting to some of the musicians: "That I was a +good enough leading woman, he supposed, but it was as a piano pupil that +I really counted for something. Why," he cried, "she has the most perfect +ear, and such steadiness—a whole band-wagon of instruments turned loose +on her wouldn't make her lose time!"</p> + +<p>I smiled and felt of my even then burning ear, but still his boast +encouraged me to return to my scales, which were wofully interrupted by +the necessity I experienced of clawing up with my nails several old keys +that were too weak to rise again having once been pressed down.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Navoni played, and he came to one of those tired-out ivories, he +put a <i>damn</i> in the place of the absent note, but for obvious reasons I +could not do that. But Mr. Navoni was an earnest, determined, and +enthusiastic teacher, and I remember him gratefully and respectfully.</p> + +<p>The widow of the boarding-house differs from the widow of the Testament +in that the boarding-house widow's cruse of oil seems always "just out," +and her meal at a like low ebb. Neither my mother nor myself were used to +luxuries; we expected little, and, truth to tell, we got it. To say we +were nearly always hungry would be putting things quite mildly, but we +were <i>together</i>! and so 'twas better to feel a bit "gone" under the belt +than to be filled to repletion and live apart.</p> + +<p>I worked hard at all times, and five nights out of seven I had to study +till far on toward morning. The Saturday brought me a double performance, +and left me a wreck; thus I thought I had a right to a bit of a treat on +Sunday; and I can see the important air mother unconsciously assumed as +she went forth on her secret errand—secret that no offence might be +given to the economical landlady.</p> + +<p>When the matinée was over I brought home my personal offering for our +next day's comfort and pleasure—a copy of an illustrated weekly paper +and five cents' worth of candy, always something hard that would last us +long while we read. Thus on Saturday night, on the sill of the back +window, there stood a small can of oysters, while in the top drawer +rested a box marked handkerchiefs, but which held crackers, beside it a +folded paper, and on top of that the wee package of candy.</p> + +<p>I had a membership at the library on the corner, so we had books, too, +thank heaven! I have always been a fairly regular church-goer; in +Cincinnati the limitations of my wardrobe would have made me conspicuous. +I had but one street dress in the world, and constant wear in rain or +shine made it a very shabby affair. In novels the heroine who has but one +gown is always so exquisitely gloved and shod, and her veil and neck-wear +are so immaculately fresh, that no one notices the worn dress; but in +real life it's just the gloves and shoes and veils and ruffles that cost +the most money, yet their absence stamps you ill-bred in the eyes of +other women. Therefore I knew the inside of but one church in Cincinnati, +"Christ's Episcopal," and only knew that in the spring, when I had +fluttered forth in new gown and gloves and things; so Sundays were given +over to a late breakfast, a little reading in the Bible, a good long +reading of secular matter, sweetened by candy, a calm acceptance (that +was puzzling to the Navonis) of a shadowy dinner, a short walk if weather +permitted, then, oh, then! a locked door, a small tea-pot, a tiny +saucepan (we had not the bliss of owning a chafing-dish), and presently +we sat enjoying, to the last spoonful, a hot and delicious stew, a pot of +tea, that brought to mind many stories and made old jokes dance forth +with renewed youth, and kept us loitering over our small banquet in a +quite disgraceful way. Then back to our novels again till bed-time, and +next day, all fresh and rested, I began my "one <i>and</i> two <i>and</i> three +<i>and</i>" before breakfast, and thus won approval from Navoni and started a +new week's work under fair auspices.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTIETH"></a>THIRTIETH</span></h2> +<div class="center"><p class="thin15">New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington and +Mr. Johnson—Mr. Ellsler's Mild Assistance—I Journey to New York, and +Return to Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly.</p></div> + + + +<p>To say I made a success in Cincinnati is the barest truth. Almost at +once—the third night of the season, to be exact—I received my first +anonymous gift: a very beautiful and expensive set of jewelry, pale-pink +corals in combined dead and burnished gold. They rested in their +satin-lined nest and tempted me. The sender wrote: "Show that you forgive +my temerity by wearing my offering in the third act."</p> + +<p><i>I did not wear them in any act</i>, and yet, oh, eternal feminine! I "tried +them on"—at least I put one ring in my ear and held the pendant against +my throat, "just to see" how they <i>would</i> have looked, you know.</p> + +<p>Flowers came over the footlights, the like of which I had never seen in +my life before—great baskets of hot-house beauties, some of them costing +more than I earned in a week. Then one night came a bolder note, with a +big gold locket. A signature made it possible for me to return that gift +next morning.</p> + +<p>All that sort of thing was new to me, and, naturally, pleasing—yes, +because earned approbation pleases one, even though it be not quite +correctly expressed. It soon became whispered about that I sent back all +gifts of jewelry, and lo! one matinée, with a splendid basket of white +camelias, fringed about with poinsettia leaves, there came a box of +French candied fruit. My! what a sensation it created in the +dressing-room. I remember some of the ladies (we dressed in one great +long room there) took bits of peach and of green figs to show their +friends, while I devoted myself to the cherries and apricots. That seemed +to start a fashion, for candies, in dainty boxes, came to me as often as +flowers afterward, and, to my great pride and pleasure, were often from +women, and my Saturday five cents' allowance was turned over to mother +for the banqueting fund—that meant a bit of cheese for supper.</p> + +<p>At the time of the season's opening there was a man in Cincinnati who was +there sorely against his will, a wealthy native of the city, a lawyer who +would not practise, a traveler in distant lands, he had lived mainly for +his own pleasure and had grown as weary of that occupation as he could +possibly have grown had he practised the law. Tired of everything else, +he still kept his liking for the theatre. Living in New York in the +winter, at Cape May in the summer, he only came to his old home when +someone was irritating enough to die and need burying in state, or when +some lawsuit required his attention, as in this instance. So, being +there, and not knowing what else to do, he had gone dully and moodily to +the theatre, saying to his cousin companion: "I'll take a look at +Macaulay's new leading lady, and then I'll sleep through the rest of the +evening comfortably, for no one can talk to me here as they do at the +hotel"—and the country <i>Cicely</i> had appeared, and, to use Mr. +Worthington's own words: he had sat up straight as a ramrod and as +wide-awake as a teething baby for the rest of the evening.</p> + +<p>Between acts he had made inquiries as to the history of the new actress, +only to find that, like most happy women, she had none. She came from +Cleveland, she lived three doors away with her mother—that was all. On +that first night he had said: "Good Lord, Will, what is that girl doing +out here in the West? I must see her in a better part. What's on +to-morrow night? Secure our seats for the season, that will save a lot +of trouble;" and incidentally it made a lot of annoyance for me.</p> + +<p>Next night I played what actresses call a "dressed part," which, in spite +of suggestion, does not mean that there are parts that are not dressed, +only that the character wears fine clothes instead of plain ones. It was +a bright, light comedy part. The audience was enthusiastic, though, of +course, I was only supporting the star. Then Mr. Worthington exclaimed: +"That girl ought to be in New York this very moment!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" questioned his inseparable.</p> + +<p>"Do I think so?" mocked his cousin. "Yes, I know it. I know the theatres +foreign—their schools and styles, as well as I know the home theatres +and their actors. I believe I've made a discovery!"</p> + +<p>A beautiful mass of flowers came to me that night with Mr. Worthington's +visiting card, without message. The third night I played a tearful part; +the papers (as the women put it) "went on awful," and Mr. Worthington, +snapping his glasses into their case, said, as he rose: "I shall never +rest till this Clara Morris faces New York. She need clash with no one, +need hurt no one, she is unlike anyone else, and New York has plenty of +room for her. I shall make it my business to meet her some way or other, +and preach New York until she accepts the idea and acts upon it."</p> + +<p>His visit to Cincinnati was prolonged; his young cousin, Mr. Will +Burnett, thought he was on the high-road to crankiness on the subject. +Then Mr. Worthington discovered we had a common friend in lawyer Egbert +Johnson, and he was presented in proper form to my mother (oh, wise Mr. +Worthington), and winning her approval by praise of her wonderful chick +(where is the mother that does not readily believe her goose a swan?), +she in her turn presented him to me, and for the first time I listened to +a suggestion of coming to New York.</p> + +<p>To say I was amused at the idea would be putting it mildly indeed, for I +was tickled to such laughter that tears came to my eyes. He was annoyed, +but I laughed on. He waited—I was called upon for some heavy tragic +parts. He came again—I laughed still.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" I cried, "I'm not pretty enough!"</p> + +<p>He said: "You have your eyes and voice and expression, and you don't seem +to be suffering much here from your lack of beauty."</p> + +<p>"N-no," I answered, naïvely, "you see, all the women in this company are +rather plain."</p> + +<p>He laughed, but he continued to urge me to try for an engagement in New +York.</p> + +<p>"I don't know enough," I faltered.</p> + +<p>"You lack polish of manner, perhaps," he admitted, "but you will acquire +that quickly, while no one can acquire your fire and strength and pathos! +For God's sake, let me do one unselfish act in my life—let me serve you +in this matter. I will go to the managers in New York and speak for you."</p> + +<p>But that offer I curtly declined, asking him how long my reputation would +remain unassailed if I allowed him to act for me.</p> + +<p>In spite of all his praise of my work, I should have remained unmoved had +Mr. Johnson not joined forces with Mr. Worthington, and calmly assured me +that he, too, knew the New York theatres and actors, and he honestly +believed I had a chance of acceptance by the public, if only a manager +would give me an opening, for, said he: "Worthington is right this time, +you really are an exceptionally clever girl, so why should you bury +yourself in small Western cities?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I indignantly cried, "Cleveland and Cincinnati are very big cities, +indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," smiled Mr. Johnson, "but New York is quite a bit larger, and +besides you would like to be accepted by the metropolis of your country, +would you not?"</p> + +<p>And straightway my heart gave a bound, my cheeks began to burn, the +leaven was working at last—my ambition was awakened! I wondered day and +night, could I act well enough to please New York? I thought not; I +thought yes! I thought—I thought there could be no harm just to ask the +managers if they had an opening. But there my courage failed me—I could +not. I never had written to a manager in my life, save to answer a +letter. Finally, I wrote to Mr. Ellsler—he knew all the New York +managers (few then)—and told him I was about to ask my first favor at +his hands. Would he write to one or two managers for me, or give me a +line of introduction to them? and his unexpected opposition to my plans, +the cold water he cast upon my warm hopes, instead of crushing my spirit +utterly, aroused the old dogged determination to do what I had undertaken +to do—make a try for a New York opening!</p> + +<p>The controversy finally ended in my receipt of a letter from Mr. Ellsler +informing me he had written to four managers, and said what he could for +me—which proved to be mighty little, as I afterward saw two of the four +letters, as they were in duplicate, though one was to a stranger, one to +an acquaintance, and two to friends. He simply asked: "If they had an +opening for a young woman, named Clara Morris, for leading or +leading-juvenile business." That was all; not a word of recommendation +for ability or mention of years of thorough experience—not even the +conventional expression of a personal obligation if they were able to +consider my application.</p> + +<p>Had I been a manager, and had I received such a letter, I know I should +have cast it aside, thinking: "Oh, that's a duty letter and amounts to +nothing. If the girl had any recommendations for the position he would +have said so." Still, some answers were returned, though Mr. Wallack +ignored his copy. Mr. Jarrett (of Jarrett & Palmer) wrote Mr. Ellsler +that they were bound to spectacular ("Black Crook") for the year to come, +and had no earthly use for an actress above a soubrette or a walking +lady. Mr. Edwin Booth wrote: "If you had only addressed me a few days +earlier. I remember well the young woman of whom you speak. I have +unfortunately" (this last word was crossed out)—"I have just closed with +Miss Blanche DeBar—old Ben is persistent and has great confidence in +her, and, as I said, I have just closed with her for the coming season. +With," etc., etc.</p> + +<p>Then there was a wee bit of paper—little, niggly-naggly, jetty-black, +impishly vindictive-looking writing on two short-waisted lines of about +eleven words each. That was from Mr. Daly, and it snapped out this +information: "If you send the young woman to me I will willingly consider +proposal. Will engage no actress without seeing her. A. Daly."</p> + +<p>These letters were blithely sent to me by Mr. Ellsler, who evidently +looked upon the question as closed, but that was where we differed. I +considered it a question just fairly opened. I admit Mr. Daly's calm +ordering of me from Cincinnati to his office in New York for inspection +staggered me at first, but there was that line: "I will willingly +consider the proposal;" that was all I had to trust to; not much, heaven +knows! "Yet," I argued, "he is evidently a man who says much in little; +at all events, though the chance is small, it is the only one offered, +and, if I can stand the expense, I'll go and take that chance."</p> + +<p>I would have to obtain leave of absence; I would have to pay a woman for +at least two performances, even if I got off on Saturday night; I would +have to stop one night in a hotel at New York, and, oh, dear, oh, dear! +would I dare to risk so much—to spend all my little savings toward the +summer vacation for this trip that might end disastrously after all? I +read again: "<i>Will engage no actress without seeing her.</i>" Well, that +settled the matter. Suddenly I seemed to hear my old Irish washerwoman +saying: "Ah, well! God niver shuts one dure without opening anither!" I +laughed a bit and decided to risk my savings—nothing venture, nothing +win!</p> + +<p>That very night I asked leave of absence; the time was most favorable—I +obtained it. I found next day an actress to take my place on Monday and +Tuesday evenings. Then mother and I emptied out our flat and old +pocket-books. I brought from its secret hiding-place the little roll of +bills saved for summer's idle time, and we put all in a pile. Then I drew +out a week's board in advance and gave it to mother; drew out enough to +pay the woman who took my place, and all the rest, to the last dollar, +was required for the expenses of my solitary journey to the great +beckoning city by the sea.</p> + +<p>As I closed my pocket-book, I said to myself: "There, I have shut one +door with my own hand, but I'll trust God to open another for me before +vacation arrives."</p> + +<p>There's an old saw that gravely states: "It never rains but it pours," +and surely business opportunities "poured" upon me at that time, for in +that very week I received two offers of engagements, and one of them, had +not the New York bee been buzzing so loudly in my bonnet, would have +driven me quite wild with delight. That was from Mr. Thomas Maguire, of +San Francisco, and the salary was to me enormous. One hundred dollars a +week in gold, a benefit, and no vacation at all, unless I wished it. I +temporized. I wished to gain time enough to learn my fate in New York +before deciding. But Mr. Maguire was in haste, and as I hurried from the +theatre to start on my journey, a long envelope was placed in my hands. I +opened it on the cars, and found signed contracts for the leading +business at San Francisco, with an <i>extra</i> benefit added as an inducement +for me to accept.</p> + +<p>So I journeyed onward to tempt Fate, a little forlorn and frightened at +first, but receiving so many courtesies and little kindnesses from my +more fortunately placed fellow-travelers, that I quite forgot to be +either frightened or forlorn—but was amazed at the beauty of the stately +river we crossed, whose ripples caught the glowing color of the sky and +broke them into jewels; and beyond that silvery curtain of haze stretched +the great city of my dreams, all circled round and guarded by living +waters.</p> + +<p>Then I was ashore again and clambering into the great swaying coach of +the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the conductor having told me it was right next +door to the theatre. I breakfasted, took from my bag a new gray veil, a +pair of gray gloves, a bit of fresh ruffling, and a needle and thread, +with which I basted the ruffle into the neck of my gown; put on the veil +and gloves, that being all the preparation I could make by way of toilet +to meet the arbiter of Fate, said "Our Father," and coming to "Amen" with +a jerk, discovered I had not been conscious of the meaning of one single +word, and whispering with shame, "only lip service," remorsefully +repeated again, and with absolute sincerity, that prayer which expresses +so simply, so briefly, all our needs, physical and spiritual; that places +us at once in the comforting position of a beloved child asking with +confidence for a father's aid. A prayer whose beauty and strength share +in the immortality of its Divine composer.</p> + +<p>And then I rose and went forth, prepared to accept success or defeat, +just as the good Lord should will.</p> + +<p>As I passed around the hotel and approached the theatre on Twenty-fourth +Street, an enormous upheaval of ice blocked the way—ice piled shoulder +high in front of the theatre door, and on one side of the glittering mass +stood a long, tall, thin man, as mad as a hornet, while on the other +side, stolidly, stupidly silent, stood a squat Irishman, holding an +ice-man's tongs in one hand and his shock of red hair in the other. The +long, flail-like arms of the tall man were in wild motion. In righteous +wrath he was trying to make the bog-trotter understand that the ice was +for the hotel, whose storage door was but a few feet to his right, when +he saw me making chamois-like jumps over the blocks of ice trying to +reach the door. With black-browed courtesy he told me to use the second +door, that morning, to reach the box-office.</p> + +<p>I had, all unconsciously, formed an idea of Mr. Daly, and I was looking +for a small, dark, very dark, nervously irritable man, and was therefore +frankly amused at the wrath of the long, thin man, whose vest and whose +trousers could not agree as to the exact location of the waist-line, and +laughed openly at the ice-scene, winning in return as black a scowl as +any stage-villain could well wear. Then I cheerfully remarked: "I'm +looking for Mr. Daly; can you tell me where I am likely to find him?"</p> + +<p>"You want Mr. Daly?" he repeated. "Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell Mr. Daly that, please," I answered.</p> + +<p>He smiled and said: "Well, then, tell <i>me</i>—I'm Mr. Daly—are you——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered, "I'm the girl come out of the West, to be inspected. +I'm Clara Morris."</p> + +<p>He frowned quickly, though he held out his hand and shook mine heartily +enough, and asked me to come into his office.</p> + +<p>It was a cranny in the wall. It held a very small desk and one chair, +behind which was a folding stool. As he entered, I laughingly said: "I +think I'll lean here, I'm not used to sitting on the floor," but to my +surprise, as he brought forth the stool, he curtly replied: "I was not +going to ask you to sit on the floor," which so amused me that I could +not resist asking: "Are you from Scotland, by chance, Mr. Daly?" and he +had frowningly said "No!" before the old, old joke about Scotch density +came to him.</p> + +<p>Then he said, with severity: "Miss Morris, I'm afraid your bump of +reverence is not well developed."</p> + +<p>And I laughed and said: "There's a hole there, Mr. Daly, and no bump at +all," and though the words were jestingly spoken, there was truth and to +spare in them, and there, too, was the cause of all the jolts and jars +and friction between us in our early days together. Mr. Daly was as a god +in his wee theatre, and was always taken seriously. I knew not gods and +took nothing under heaven seriously. No wonder we jarred. Every word I +spoke that morning rubbed Mr. Daly's fur the wrong way. I offended him +again and again. He wished to show me the theatre, and, striking a match, +lit a wax taper and held it up in the auditorium, at which I exclaimed: +"Oh, the pretty little match-box! Why, it's just a little toy +play-house—is it not?"</p> + +<p>Which vexed him so I was quite crushed for a minute or two. One thing +only pleased him: I could not tear myself away from the pictures, and I +praised, rapturously, a beautiful velvety-shadowed old engraving. We grew +quite friendly over that, but when we came to business he informed me I +was a comedy woman, root and branch.</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "ask Mr. Edwin Booth, or Mr. Davenport, or Mr. Adams!"</p> + +<p>He waved me down. "I won't ask anyone," he cried; "I never made a mistake +in my life. You couldn't speak a line of sentiment to save your soul!"</p> + +<p>"Why, sentiment is my line of business—I play sentiment every week of my +life," I protested.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know what I mean," he said, "you can <i>speak</i> and <i>repeat</i> the +lines, but you couldn't give a line of sentiment naturally to save your +life—your forte is comedy, pure and simple."</p> + +<p>It all ended in his offer to engage me, but without a stated line of +business. I must trust to his honor not to degrade me by casting me for +parts unworthy me. He would give me $35 a week (knowing there were two to +live on it), <i>if I made a favorable impression he would double that +salary</i>.</p> + +<p>A poor offer—a risky undertaking. I had no one to consult with. I had in +my pocket the signed contract for $100 in gold and two benefits. I must +decide now, at once. Mr. Daly was filling up a blank contract. +Thirty-five dollars against $100! "<i>But if you make a favorable +impression</i> you'll get $70," I thought. And why should I not make a +favorable impression? Yet, if I fail now in New York, I can go West or +South, not much harmed. If I wait till I am older, and fail, it will ruin +my life.</p> + +<p>I slipped my hand in my pocket and gave a little farewell tap to the +contract for $100. I took the pen; I looked hard at him. "There's a heap +of trusting being asked for in this contract," I remarked. "You won't +forget your promise about doubling the salary?"</p> + +<p>"I won't forget anything," he answered.</p> + +<p>I looked at the pen, it was a stub, the first I ever saw; then I said: +"That's what makes your writing look so villainous. I can't sign with +that thing—I'd be ashamed to own my signature in court, when we come to +the fight we're very likely to have before we are through with each +other."</p> + +<p>He groaned at my levity, but got another pen. I wrote Clara Morris twice, +shook hands, and went out and back to my home—a Western actress with an +engagement in a New York theatre for the coming season.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-FIRST"></a>THIRTY-FIRST</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15"> John Cockerill and our Eccentric Engagement—I Play a Summer Season at +Halifax—Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at Last.</p></div> + + + + +<p>Mr. Worthington passed out of my life after he had done me the service he +set out to do. It had been an odd notion to step down from his carriage, +as it were, and point out to a girl, struggling along a rough and dusty +path, a short cut to the fair broad highway of prosperity; but I thank +him heartily, for without his urging voice, his steadily pointing hand, I +should have continued plodding along in the dust—heaven knows how long.</p> + +<p>One of the few people I came to know well in Cincinnati was John A. +Cockerill. At that time he was the city editor on the <i>Enquirer</i>, and my +devoted friend. We were both young, poor, energetic, ambitious. We +exchanged confidences, plans, hopes, and dreams, and were as happy as +possible so long as we were just plain friends, but as soon as sentiment +pushed in and an engagement was acknowledged between us, we, as the +farmer says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"Quarrel'd and fit—and scratched and bit—" +</span></div> + +<p>For John was jealous of my profession, which made my temper hot, and we +were a queer engaged pair. I used to say to him: "It's just a question +which one of us suicides first!"</p> + +<p>Yet on some days we would forget we were engaged and be quite cheerful +and happy; and when I came back from New York, I cried: "Congratulate me, +John, I've got an engagement, so we can't nag each other to death for a +year at least!" and though that gave a lovely opening for a quarrel he +passed it by, congratulating me very gently instead, but very sadly, +adding: "You are getting so far ahead of me, dear—and you will learn to +despise a man who comes toiling always behind you!"</p> + +<p>A statement that came so dangerously near the truth that it threw me into +a passion, and we had a battle royal then and there. However, we parted +in a gale of laughter, for as John suddenly discovered he was overstaying +his intended short visit, he sprang up and grabbed his hat and exclaimed: +"Well, good-by, Clara, we haven't indulged in much sentiment to-day, +but," drawing a long, satisfied breath, "we've enjoyed a good lusty old +row all the same!"</p> + +<p>No wonder we laughed. We were a rare engaged couple. Lovers? why Cupid +had never even pointed an arrow at us for fun! We were chums—good +fellows in sunny weather; loyal, active friends in time of trouble, and, +after I came to New York, and found quarreling at length, with pen and +ink, too fatiguing, I broke the engagement, and we were happy ever +after—our friendship always standing firm through the years; and when, +in the <i>Herald's</i> interests, he started on that last long journey to +report upon the Japanese-Chinese War, he said to me: "I never understood +the meaning of the word friendship until that day when you flung all your +natural caution—your calm good sense aside, and rushed through the first +cheering message that reached me after that awful St. Louis shooting: +'You acted in self-defence, I <i>know</i>—command any service from your +faithful friend,' that's what you said, over your full name, while as yet +you knew absolutely nothing. And when I realized that, guilty or +innocent, you meant to stand by me, I—well, you and my blessed mother +live in a little corner of my heart, just by your two loyal selves."</p> + +<p>And when he left me he carried on either cheek as affectionate a kiss as +I knew how to put there, and again, and for the last time, we parted in a +gale of laughter, as he cried: "You would have seen me in the bottomless +pit before you would have done that in Cincinnati!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," I replied, "we both preferred quarreling to kissing in those +days!"</p> + +<p>"Speak for yourself!" he laughed, and so we parted for all time.</p> + +<p>I had returned to my work in Cincinnati; had thanked the Washington and +San Francisco managers for their offers of engagements, and was putting +in some spare moments in worrying about the summer, when (without meaning +to be irreverent) God opened a door right before me. Never, since I had +closed a small geography at school, had I heard of "Halifax," save as a +substitute for another place beginning with H, but here, all suddenly, I +was invited to Halifax—not sent there in anger, for, oh, incredible! for +a four, perhaps six, weeks' summer engagement. Was I not happy? Was I not +grateful? One silver half-dollar did I recklessly give away to the Irish +washerwoman, who had said: "God niver shuts one dure without openin' +anither!" I could not help it, and she, being in trouble at the time, +declared, with hope rising in her tired old eyes, that she would "at onct +burn a waxen candle before the blissed Virgin!" Poor soul! I hope her +loving offering found favor in the eyes of the gentle Saint she honored!</p> + +<p>I had a benefit in Cincinnati before the season closed, and so it came +about that I was able to get my mother a spring gown and bonnet that she +might go home in proper state to Cleveland for a visit; while I turned my +face toward Halifax, the picturesque, to play a summer engagement, and +then to make my way to New York and find a resting-place for my foot in +some hotel, while I searched for rooms to which my mother might be +summoned, for I had determined I could board no longer.</p> + +<p>If we had rooms we could make a little home in them. If we had still to +go hungry, we could at least hunger after our own fashion, and endure our +privations in decent privacy. So, with plans all made, I landed at +Halifax and felt a shock of surprise, followed by a pang of +homesickness, at the first sight of the scarlet splendor of the British +flag waving against the pale blue sky, when instinctively my eyes had +looked for the radiant beauty of Old Glory. The next thing that impressed +me was the astonishing number of people who were in mourning. Men in +shops, in offices, on the streets, were wearing crêpe bands about their +left arms, and women, like moving pillars of crêpe, dotted the walks +thickly, darkened the shops, and gloomed in private carriages. What does +it mean? I asked. I never before saw so many people in black. And one +made answer: "Ah, your question shows you are a stranger, or you would +know that there are few well-to-do homes and <i>no</i> business house in +Halifax that does not mourn for at least one victim of that great mystery +of the sea, the unexplained loss of the City of Boston—that monster +steamer, crowded with youth and beauty, wealth, power, and brains!"</p> + +<p>I recalled then how, at the most fashionable wedding of the year in +Cincinnati, the bride and groom had been dragged from the just-beginning +wedding-breakfast, and rushed off at break-neck speed that they might be +in time for the sailing of the City of Boston, and after her sailing no +word ever came of her. What had been her fate no man knew—no man knows +to-day. The ocean gave no sign, no clew, as it often has done in other +disasters. It sent back no scrap of wood, of oar, of boat, of mast, of +life-preserver—nothing, nothing! No fire had been sighted by other +ships. Had she been in collision with an iceberg, been caught in the +centre of a tornado, had she run upon a derelict, been stricken by +lightning, been blown up by explosion? No answer had ever come from the +mighty bosom of the deep, that will keep its grim secret until the awful +day when, trembling at God's own command, it will give up its dead! +Meantime thousands of tender ties were broken. The awful mystery +shrouding the fate of the floating city turned more than one brain, and +sent mourners to mad-houses to end their ruined lives. Halifax was a very +sad city that summer.</p> + +<p>I met in the company there Mr. Leslie Allen (the father of Miss Viola +Allen), Mr. Dan Maginnis (the Boston comedian), and Mr. John W. Norton. +The future St. Louis manager was then leading man, and the friendship we +formed while working together through those summer weeks was never +broken, never clouded, but lasted fair and strong up to that very day +when, sitting in the train on his way to New York, John Norton had, in +that flashing moment of time, put off mortality.</p> + +<p>He had changed greatly from the John Norton of those early days. He had +known cruel physical suffering, and while he had won friends and money, +shame and bitter sorrow had been brought upon him by another. No wonder +the laughing brightness had gone out of him. It was said that he believed +in but two people on earth—Mary Anderson and Clara Morris, and he said +of them: "One is a Catholic, the other an Episcopalian; they are +next-door neighbors in religion; they are both honest, God-fearing women, +and the only ones I bow my head to." Oh, poor man! to have grown so +bitter! But in the Halifax days he loved his kind, and was as full of fun +as a boy of ten, as full of kindness as would be the gentlest woman.</p> + +<p>Mr. Maginnis had his sister-in-law with him, a helpless invalid. She knew +her days were numbered, yet she always faced us smilingly and with +pleasant words. She was passionately fond of driving, but dreaded lonely +outings; so clubbing together, that no one might feel a sense of +obligation, we four, Dan and his sister, John Norton and I, used evenly +to divide the expense of a big, comfortable carriage, and go on long, +delightful drives about the outskirts of the gray old hilly city.</p> + +<p>The stolid publicity of Tommy Atkins's love-making had at first covered +us with confusion, but we soon grew used to the sight of the scarlet +sleeve about the willing waist in the most public places, while a loving +smack, coming from the direction of a park bench, simply became a sound +quite apropos to the situation.</p> + +<p>One yellow-haired, plaided and kilted young Highlander, whom I came upon +in a public garden, just as he lifted his head from an explosive kiss on +his sweetheart's lips, startled at my presence, flushing red, lifted his +hand in a half-salute, and at the same moment, in laughing apologetic +confusion, he—winked at me! And his flushing young face was so bonnie, +that had I known how I believe in my heart I'd have winked back, just +from sheer good-fellowship and understanding.</p> + +<p>In that short season I had one experience, the memory of which makes me +pull a wry face to this day. I played <i>Juliet</i> to a "woman-<i>Romeo</i>"—a so +plump <i>Romeo</i>, who seemed all French heels, tights, and wig, with <i>Romeo</i> +marked "absent." I little dreamed I was bidding a personal farewell to +Shakespeare and the old classic drama, as I really was doing.</p> + +<p>One other memory of that summer engagement that sticks is of that +performance of Boucicault's "Jessie Brown, or the Siege of Lucknow," in +which real soldiers acted as supernumeraries, and having been too well +treated beforehand and being moved by the play, they became so hot that +they attacked the <i>mutineers</i> not only with oaths but with clubbed +muskets; and while blood was flowing and heads being cracked in sickening +earnest on one side of the stage, a sudden wall-rending howl of derisive +laughter rose from that part of the theatre favored by soldiers. I saw +women holding programmes close, close to their eyes, and knew by that +that something was awfully wrong.</p> + +<p>The Scotch laddies were pouring over the wall, coming to the rescue of +the starving besieged. I looked behind me. The wall, a stage wall, was +cleated down the middle to keep the join there firm, and no less than +three of the soldiers had had portions of their clothing caught by the +cleats as they scaled the wall. The cloth would not tear, the men were +too mad to be able to see, and there they hung, kicking like fiends +and—well, the words of a ginny old woman, who sold apples and oranges in +front of the house, will explain the situation. She cried out, at the top +of her voice: "Yah! yah! why do ye no pull down yer kilties, instead o' +kickin' there? yah! yer no decent—do you ken?" and the curtain had to +come whirling down before the proper time to save the lives of the men +being pounded to death, and the feelings of the women who were being +shamed to death.</p> + +<p>A surgeon had to attend to two heads before their owners could leave the +theatre, and after that an officer was kind enough to come and take +charge of the men loaned to the manager.</p> + +<p>Then I bade the people, whom I had found so pleasant, good-by—Mr. Louis +Aldrich arriving as I was about leaving, keen, clever, active, full of +visions, of plans, just as he is to-day. I and my little dog-companion +made our way to New York. A lady and gentleman, traveling acquaintances, +advised me to go to the St. Nicholas, and as all hotels looked alike to +me I went there. My worst dread was the dining-room. I could not afford +to take meals privately, yet how could I face that great roomful of +people alone! At last I resolved on a plan of action. I went up to the +head waiter—from his manner an invisible crown pressed his brow; his +eyes gazed coldly above my humble head, his "Eh?—beg pardon!" was +haughty and curt, yet, believe it or not, when I told him I was quite +alone, and asked could he place me at some quiet retired table, he became +human, he looked straightly and kindly at me. He himself escorted me, not +to a seat in line with the kitchen smells or the pantry quarrels, as I +had expected, but to a very retired, very pleasant table by an open +window, and assured me the seat should be reserved for me every day of my +stay, and only ladies seated there. I was grateful from my heart, and I +mention it now simply to show the general willingness there is in America +to aid, to oblige the unprotected woman traveler.</p> + +<p>Naturally anxious to find, as quickly as possible, a less expensive +dwelling-place, I showed my utter ignorance of the city by the blunder I +made in joyfully engaging rooms in a quiet old-fashioned brick house +because it was on Twenty-first Street and the theatre was on +Twenty-fourth, and the walk would be such a short one. All good New +Yorkers will know just how "short" that walk was when I add that to reach +the neat little brick house I had first to cross to Second Avenue, and, +alas! for me on stormy nights, there was no cross-town car, then.</p> + +<p>However, the rooms were sunny and neatly furnished; the rent barely +within my reach, but the entire Kiersted family were so unaffectedly kind +and treated me so like a rather overweighted young sister that I could +not have been driven away from the house with a stick. I telegraphed to +mother to come. She came.</p> + +<p>To the waiter who feeling the crown upon his brow yet treated me with +almost fatherly kindness, I gave a small parting offering and my thanks; +and to the chambermaid also—she with the pure complexion, bred from +buttermilk and potatoes, and the brogue rich and thick enough to cut with +a knife—who had "discoursed" to me at great length on religion, on her +own chances of matrimony, on the general plan of the city, describing the +"lay" of the diagonal avenues, their crossing streets and occasional +junctures, in such confusing terms that a listening city-father would +have sent out and borrowed a blind man's dog to help him find his home. +Still she had talked miles a day with the best intentions, and I made my +small offering to her in acknowledgment, and leaving her very red with +pleasure, I departed from the hotel. That blessed evening found my mother +and me house-keeping at last—<i>at last</i>! And as we sat over our tea, +little Bertie, on the piano-stool at my side, ate buttered toast; then, +feeling license in the air, slipped down, crept under the table, and +putting beseeching small paws on mother's knee, ate more buttered +toast—came back to me and the piano-stool, and bringing forth all her +blandishments pleaded for a lump of sugar. She knew it was wrong, she +knew <i>I</i> knew it was wrong, but, good heavens! it was our +house-warming—Bertie got the sugar. So we were settled and happily ready +to begin the new life in the great strange city.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-SECOND"></a>THIRTY-SECOND</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">I Recall Mr. John E. Owens, and How He "Settled my Hash."</p></div> + + + + +<p>Just previous to my coming East I met, for the first time, Mr. John E. +Owens. He was considered a wealthy man, and was at the height of his +popularity as a comedian. He was odd, even his marriage seemed an +expression of eccentricity, and one felt as if one had received a dash of +cold water in the face when the hot-tempered, peppery, and decidedly +worldly Mr. Owens presented the little orthodox Quakeress, with a +countenance of gentle severity, as his wife.</p> + +<p>She wore the costume of her people, too, and watched him above her +knitting-needles with folded lips and condemning eye as he strutted and +fumed and convulsed his audience. She was said to be a most tender and +gentle nurse and, indeed, a devoted wife, but she certainly seemed to +look down upon theatrical life and people.</p> + +<p>Mr. Owens was telling me she was a clever business woman, with a quick +eye for a good investment, when I jestingly answered: "That seems to be a +peculiarity of the sect—thee will recall the fact that William Penn +showed that same quality of eye in his beautiful and touching relations +with the shrewd and knowing Indians," and in the middle of his laugh, his +mouth shut suddenly, his eyes rolled: "Oh, Lord!" he said, "you've done +for yourself—she heard you, your fate's fixed!"</p> + +<p>"But," I exclaimed, "I was just joking."</p> + +<p>"No go!" he answered, mournfully, "the eye that can see the main chance +so clearly is blind to a joke. She has you down now on her list of the +ungodly. No use trying to explain—I gave that up years ago. Fact of the +matter is, when that Quakeress-wife of mine puts her foot down—I—well, +I take mine up, but hers stays right there."</p> + +<p>Mr. Owens was of medium height and very brisk in all his movements, +walking with a short and quick little step. He had a wide mouth, good +teeth, and a funny pair of eyes. The eyeballs were very large and round, +and he showed an astonishing amount of their whites, which were of an +unusual brilliancy and lustre; this, added to his power of rolling them +wildly about in their sockets, made them very funny; indeed, they +reminded many people of a pair of large peeled onions.</p> + +<p>I think his most marked peculiarity was his almost frantic desire to +provoke laughter in the actors about him. He would willingly throw away +an entire scene—that is, destroy the illusion of the audience—in order +to secure a hearty laugh from some actor or actress whom he knew not to +be easily moved to laughter; and what was more astonishing still, if an +actress in playing a scene with him fell from tittering into helpless +laughter and failed to speak her lines, he made no angry protest, but +regarded the situation with dancing eyes and delighted smiles, seeming to +accept the breakdown as proof positive that he was irresistible as a +fun-maker.</p> + +<p>For some reason I never could laugh at "Solon Shingle." Mr. Owens had +opened in that part, and as I stood in the entrance watching the +performance, my face was as grave as that of the proverbial judge. He +noticed it at once, and paused a moment to stare at me. Next morning, +just as he entered and crossed to the prompt-table at rehearsal, I, in +listening to a funny story, broke out in my biggest laugh. Open flew the +star's eyes, up slid his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Ha! ha!" said he, "ha! ha! there's a laugh for you—by Jove, that's a +laugh as is a laugh!"</p> + +<p>I turned about and faced him. He recognized me instantly. "Well, blast my +cats!" he exclaimed, "say, you young hyena, you're the girl that wouldn't +laugh at me last night. I thought you couldn't, and just listen to your +roars now over some tomfoolery. What was the matter with me, if you +please, mum?"</p> + +<p>I stood in helpless, awkward embarrassment, then, drawing in his lip and +bulging out his eyes until they threatened to leap from their places, he +advanced upon me, exclaiming: "Spare me these protestations and +explanations, I beg!" then tapped me on the chest with his forefinger +and, added, in a different tone: "My young friend, I'll make you laugh or +I'll cut my throat!" next turned on his heel, and called: "Everybody +ready for the first act? Come on, come on, let's get at it!"</p> + +<p>Rehearsal began and Mr. Owens did not have to cut his throat.</p> + +<p>Funny in many things, it was the old farce of "Forty Winks" that utterly +undid me, and not only sat me violently and flatly down upon the entrance +floor, but set me shrieking with such misguided force that next day all +the muscles across and near my diaphragm were too lame and sore for me to +catch a breath in comfort. Perhaps that's not the right word, and I may +not be locating the lamed muscles properly, but if you will go to see +some comedian who will make you laugh until you cry, and cry until you +scream, and laugh and cry and scream until you only breathe in gasps and +sobs, you will next morning know exactly which muscles I have been +referring to—even if you haven't got a diaphragm about you.</p> + +<p>But really the mad absurdities Mr. Owens indulged in that night might +have made the very Sphinx smile stonily. As a miserly old man, eating his +bread-and-cheese supper in his cheap little bedroom, and retiring for the +night only to be aroused by officers who are in pursuit of a flying man, +and think they have now found him. Not much to go upon, that, but, oh, if +you could have seen his ravening hunger; have seen his dog-like snaps at +falling crumbs; his slanting of the plate against the light to see if any +streak of butter was being left; his scooping up of bread-crumbs from +his red-handkerchief lap, and eager licking up of the same; have seen him +sorting out his money and laying aside the thin, worn pennies to give the +waiter; breaking off the hardened grease that in melting had run down the +candle's side, putting it away in his valise, "to grease his boots next +winter" (a line he introduced for my especial benefit).</p> + +<p>Having gone up-stage and taken off his shoes, he suddenly bethought him +that there might be a few crumbs on the floor, and taking his candle, +down he came to look, and turning his back to the audience, they screamed +with sudden laughter, for two shining bare heels were plainly showing +through his ragged black woollen socks. He paid no heed, but sought +diligently, and when he found a crumb he put his finger to his lip to +moisten it, and pouncing upon the particle, conveyed it to his mouth, and +mumbled so luxuriously one almost envied him. Then, remarking that it was +too cold to undress, he undressed, and as his coat came off he started +toward a chair, saying, querulously: "He couldn't abide a man that wasn't +neat and careful about his clothes," and down he pitched the coat in a +heap upon the floor in front of the chair. His vest he dumped beside +another seat, as he dolorously declared: "He had neat habits ever since +his mother had taught him to put his clothes carefully on the chair at +night."</p> + +<p>And so he went up and down and about, until that stage was one litter of +old clothes. Blowing out his candle he got into bed, and, shivering with +cold, tried frantically to pull the clothes over his poor shoulders—but +all in vain. At last a tremendous jerk brought the quilt and sheet about +his shoulders, only to leave his ancient black feet facing the audience, +all uncovered. And so went on the struggle between feet and shoulders +until, worn out, the old man finally "spooned" himself with knees in +chest, and so was covered and fell asleep, only to be aroused by +officers, and turned into driveling idiocy by a demand "for the girl."</p> + +<p>It was at the point when, sitting up in bed, trying, with agonizing +modesty, to keep covered up, his eyes whitely and widely rolling, he +pleadingly asked: "N-n-now I, leave it to you—do I look like a seducer?" +that my knees abandoned me to my fate, and sat me down with a vicious +thud that nearly shook the life out of me. And John Owens sat in bed and +saw my fall and rejoiced with a great joy, and said: "Blast my cats—look +at the girl! there, now, that's something like laughing. I'd take off my +hair and run around bald-headed for her!"</p> + +<p>I was called upon to play blind <i>Bertha</i> to Mr. Owens's <i>Caleb Plummer</i> +in the "Cricket on the Hearth," and I was in a great state of mind, as I +had only seen one or two blind persons, and had never seen a blind part +acted. I was driven at last by anxiety to ask Mr. Owens if he could make +any suggestions as to business, or as to the walk or manner of the blind +girl. But he was no E. L. Davenport, he had no desire to teach others to +act, and he snappishly answered: "No—no! I can't suggest anything for +you to do—but I can suggest something for you not to do! For God's sake +don't go about playing the piano all evening—that's what the rest of 'em +do!"</p> + +<p>"The piano?" I repeated, stupidly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "the piano! D——d if they don't make me sick! Here they +go—all the '<i>Berthas</i>'!"</p> + +<p>He closed his eyes, screwed up his face dismally, and advancing, his +hands before him, began moving them from left to right and back, as +though they were on a keyboard. It was very ridiculous.</p> + +<p>"And that's what they call blindness—playing the piano and tramping +about as securely as anybody!"</p> + +<p>Ah, ah! Mr. Owens, you did make a suggestion after all, though you did +not mean to do it, but I found one all the same in that last contemptuous +sentence, "<i>tramping about as securely as anybody</i>." It quickened my +memory—I recalled the piteous uncertainty of movement in the blind; the +dread hesitancy of the advancing foot, unless the afflicted one was on +very familiar ground. I tried walking in the dark, tried walking with +closed eyes. It was surprising how quickly my fears gathered about my +feet. Instinctively I put out one hand now and then, but the fear of +bumping into something was as nothing to the fear of stepping off or +down, or falling through the darkness—oh!</p> + +<p>Then I resolved to play <i>Bertha</i> with open eyes. It was much the more +difficult way, but I was well used to taking infinite pains over small +matters, and believing that the open, unseeing eye was far more pathetic +than the closed eye, I proceeded to work out my idea of how to produce +the unseeing look. By careful experiment I found that if the eyes were +very calm in expression, very slow in movement, and at all times were +raised slightly above the proper point of vision, the effect was really +that of blindness.</p> + +<p>It was unspeakably fatiguing to keep looking just above people's heads, +instead of into their faces, as was my habit, but where is the true actor +or actress who stops to count the cost in pain or in inconvenience when +striving to build up a character that the public may recognize? Says the +ancient cook-book: "First catch your hare, and then—"; so with the +actor, first catch your idea, your desired effect, and <i>then</i> reproduce +it (if you can). But in the case of blind <i>Bertha</i> I must have reproduced +with some success the effect I had been studying, for an old newspaper +clipping beside me says that: "The doubting, hesitating advance of her +foot, the timid uncertainty of her occasional investigating hand spelled +blindness as clearly as did her patient unseeing eyes," and for my reward +that wretched man amused himself by pulling faces at me and trying to +break me down in my singing of "Auld Robin Grey," until I was obliged to +sing with my eyes tight shut to save myself from laughter; and when the +curtain had fallen he said to me: "I'll settle your hash for you some +night, young woman, you see if I don't—you just wait now!" And the next +season, in Cincinnati, in very truth, he did "settle my hash" for me, to +his great delight and my vexation.</p> + +<p>He was so very, very funny as <i>Major Wellington de Boots</i> in "Everybody's +Friend"; his immense self-satisfaction, his stiff little strut, his +martial ardor, his wild-eyed cowardice were trying enough, but when he +deliberately acted <i>at</i> you—oh, dear! He would look me straight in the +eye and make faces at me, until I sobbed at every breath. Then he had a +wretched little trick of rising slowly on his toes and sinking back to +his heels again, while he cocked his head to one side so like a knowing +old dicky-bird that he simply convulsed me with laughter.</p> + +<p>I was his <i>Mrs. Swansdown</i>, and I had kept steady and never lost a line, +until we came to the scene where, as my landlord and would-be husband, he +brought some samples of wall-paper for me to choose from. Where, in +heaven's name, he ever found those rolls of paper I can't imagine. They +were not merely hideous but grotesque as well, and were received with +shouts of laughter by the house.</p> + +<p>With true shopman's touch, he would send each piece unrolling toward the +footlights, while holding up its breadth of ugliness for <i>Mrs. +Swansdown's</i> inspection and approval, and every piece that he thus +displayed he greeted at first sight with words of hearty admiration for +its beauty and perfect suitability, until, catching disapproval on the +widow's face, he in the same breath, with lightning swift hypocrisy, +turned his sentence into contemptuous disparagement, and fairly shook his +audience with laughter at the quickness of his change of opinion.</p> + +<p>At last he unfurled a piece of paper whose barbarity of design and +criminality of color I remember yet. The dead-white ground was widely and +alternately striped with a dark Dutch blue and a dingy chocolate brown, +and about the blue stripes there twined a large pumpkin-colored +morning-glory, while from end to end the brown stripes were solemnly +pecked at by small magenta birds. The thing was as ludicrous as it was +ugly—an Indian clay-idol might have cracked into smiles of derision over +its artistic qualities.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Owens, bursting into encomiums over its desirability as a +hanging for the drawing-room walls of a modest little retreat, caught my +frown, and continued: "Er—er, or perhaps you'd prefer it as trousering?" +then, delightedly: "Yes—yes, you're quite right, it <i>is</i> a neat +thing—cut full at the knee, eh? Close at the foot, yes, yes, I see, +regular peg-tops—great idea! I'll send you a pair at once. Oh, good +Lord! what have I done! I—I—mean, I'll have a pair myself, <i>Mrs. +Swansdown</i>, cut from this very piece of your sweet selection!"</p> + +<p>Ah, well! that ended the scene so far as my help went. The shrieking +audience drowned my noise for a time, but, alas, <i>it</i> recovered directly, +having no hysterics to battle with, while I buried my head deep in the +sofa-pillows and rolled and screamed and wept and bit my lips, clinched +my hands, and vainly fought for my self-control; while all the time I saw +a pair of trousers cut from that awful wall-paper, and Mr. Owens just +bulged his white shiny eyes at me and pranced about and rejoiced at my +downfall, while the audience, seeing what the trouble was, laughed all +over again, and—and—well, "my hash" was very thoroughly "settled," even +to the entire satisfaction of Mr. Owens's self.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-THIRD"></a>THIRTY-THIRD</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">From the "Wild West" I Enter the Eastern "Parlor of + Home Comedy"—I Make my First Appearance in "Man and Wife."</p></div> + + + + +<p>The original Fifth Avenue Theatre was a tiny affair, with but small +accommodation for the public and none at all for the actor, unless he +burrowed for it beneath the building; and indeed the deep, long basement +was wonderfully like a rabbit-warren, with all its net-work of narrow +passageways, teeming with life and action. The atmosphere down there was +dreadful—I usually prefer using a small word instead of a large one, but +it would be nonsense to speak of the "air" in that green-room, because +there was none. Atmosphere was there stagnant, heavy, dead, with not even +an electric fan to stir it up occasionally, and the whole place was +filled with the musty, mouldy odor that always arises from carpets spread +in sunless, airless rooms. Gas, too, burned in every tiny room, in every +narrow slip of passageway, and though it was all immaculately clean, it +was still wonderful how human beings endured so many hours imprisonment +there.</p> + +<p>It was on a very hot September morning that the company was called +together in the green-room of the Fifth Avenue Theatre. This first "call" +of the season is generally given over to greetings after the vacation, to +chattings, to introductions, to welcomes, and a final distribution of +parts in the first play, and a notification to be on hand promptly next +morning for work. With a heavily throbbing heart I prepared for the +dreaded first meeting with all these strange people, and when I grew +fairly choky, I would say to myself, "What nonsense, Mr. Daly or the +prompter will be there, and in the general introductions you will, of +course, be included, and after that you will be all right—a smile, a +bow, or a kind word will cost no more in a New York theatre than in any +other one," which goes to prove what a very ignorant young person I was +then. In looking back to that time, I often drop into the habit of +considering myself as another person, and sometimes I am sorry for the +girl of that day, and say: "You poor thing, if you had only known!" or +again, "What wasted trust—what needless sorrow, too!" But I was then +like the romping, trusting, all-loving puppy-dog who believes every +living being his friend, until a kick or a blow convinces him to the +contrary.</p> + +<p>I had two dresses, neither one really fit for the occasion, but I put on +the best one, braided my mass of hair into the then proper <i>chatelaine</i> +braids, and found comfort in them, and encouragement in a fresh, +well-fitting pair of gloves. At half-past ten o'clock I entered the +underground green-room. Two young men were there before me. I slightly +bent my head, and one responded doubtfully, but the other, with the +blindness of stone in his eyes, bowed not at all. I sat down in a +corner—the stranger always seeks a corner; can that be an instinct, a +survival from the time when a tribe fell upon the stranger, and with the +aid of clubs informed him of their strength and power? Anyway, as I said, +I sat in a corner. There was the carpet, the great mirror, the cushioned +bench running clear around the room, and that was all—oh, no! on the +wall, of course, there hung that shallow, glass-covered frame or cabinet +called, variously, "the call-board," the "call-case," or even the +"call-box." It is the official voice of the manager—when the "call-case" +commands, all obey. There, in writing, one finds the orders for next +day's rehearsal; there one finds the cast of characters in the plays; +there, too, the requests for the company's aid, on such a day, for such a +charity benefit appears. Ah, a great institution is the "call-case," +being the manager's voice, but not his ears, which is both a comfort and +an advantage at times to all concerned.</p> + +<p>That day I glanced at it; it was empty. The first call and cast of the +season would be put up presently. I wondered how many disappointments it +would hold for me. Then there was a rustle of skirts, a tapping of heels, +a young woman gayly dressed rushed in, a smile all ready for—oh! she +nodded briefly to the young men, then she saw me—she looked full at me. +The puppy-dog trust arose in me, I was a stranger, she was going to bow, +perhaps smile! Oh, how thankful I am that I was stopped in time, before I +had betrayed that belief to her. Her face hardened, her eyes leisurely +scorched up and down my poor linen gown, then she turned frowningly to +the glass, patted her bustle into shape, and flounced out again. I felt +as though I had received a blow. Then voices, loudly laughing male +voices, approached, and three men came in, holding their hats and mopping +their faces. They "bah-Joved" a good deal, and one, big and noisy, with a +young face topped with perfect baldness, bowed to me courteously, the +others did not see me.</p> + +<p>Where, I thought, was the manager all this time? Then more laughter, and +back came my flouncy young woman and two of her kind with her; pretty, +finely dressed, badly bred women, followed by one whom I knew instantly. +One I had heard much of, one to whom I had a letter of introduction—I +have it still, by the way. She was gray even then, plain of feature, but +sweet of voice and very gentle of manner. I lifted my head higher. Of +course she would not know me from sole-leather, but she would see I was a +stranger and forlornly alone, and besides, being already secure in her +position in the company—she was its oldest member—and therefore, in a +certain measure, a hostess, and as my mere presence in the green-room +showed I was a professional of some sort or quality, both authority and +kindness would prompt her to a bow, a smile, perhaps a pleasant word. I +looked hungrily at her, her bright, small eyes met mine, swept swiftly +over me, and then she slowly turned her black silk back upon me, the +stranger in her gate; and as I swallowed hard at the lump Mrs. Gilbert's +gentle indifference had brought to my throat, my old sense of fun came +uppermost, and I said to myself: "No morning is lost in which one learns +something, and I have discovered that covering a club neatly in velvet +improves its appearance, without in the least detracting from the force +of its blow."</p> + +<p>And then the passage resounded with laughter and heel-taps, the small +room filled full; there was a surging of silken gowns, a mingling of +perfumes and of voices, high and excited, and, I must add, affected; much +handshaking, many explosive kisses, and then, down the other passageway, +came more gentlemen. They were a goodly crowd—well groomed, well +dressed, manly fellows, and all in high good-humor, except Mr. Davidge, +but, in mercy's name! who ever saw, who would have wished to see "rare +old Bill" in a good humor?</p> + +<p>Such gay greetings as were exchanged around about and even over me, since +my hat was twice knocked over my eyes by too emphatic embracings in such +crowded quarters—and still no manager, no prompter. When they quieted +down a bit, everyone took stock of me. It would have been a trying +position even had I been properly gowned, but as it was the +ill-suppressed titters of two extravagantly gowned nonentities and the +swift, appraising glances of the others kept me in agony.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a quick step was heard approaching. I nearly laughed aloud in +all my misery at their lightning-quick change of manner. Silence, as of +the grave, came upon them. They all faced toward the coming +steps—anxious-eyed, but with smiles just ready to tremble on to their +lips at an instant's notice. Never had I seen anything so like +trick-poodles. They were ready to do "dead dog," or jump over a chair, or +walk on two legs—ready, too, for either the bone or the blow. I knew +from their strained attitude of attention who was coming, and next +moment, tall and thin and dour, Mr. Daly stood in the doorway. He neither +bowed nor smiled, but crossly asked: "Is Miss Morris here?"</p> + +<p>Everyone looked reproachfully at everyone else for not being the desired +person. Then as the managerial frown deepened, from my corner I lifted a +rather faint voice in acknowledgment of my presence, saying: "Yes, sir, I +am here," and he gave that peculiar "huh!" of his, which seemed to be a +combination of groan and snort, and instantly disappeared again.</p> + +<p>Oh, dear! oh, dear! I had felt myself uncomfortable before, but now? It +was as if I had sprung up and shouted: "Say! I'm Miss Morris!" Everyone +gazed at me openly now, as if I were a conundrum and they were trying to +guess me. I honestly believe I should have broken down under the strain +in a moment more, but fortunately a slender little man made his silent +appearance at one of the doors and took off his immaculate silk hat, +revealing the thin, blond hair, the big, pale blue pop-eyes of James +Lewis. Twenty minutes ago my heart would have jumped at sight of him, but +I had had a lesson. I expected no greeting now, even from a former +friend. I sat quite still, simply grateful that his coming had taken the +general gaze from my miserable face. He shook hands all round, glanced at +me and passed by, then looked back, came back, held out his hand, saying: +"You stuck-up little brute, I knew you in aprons and pig-tails, and now +you ain't going to speak to me; how are you, Clara?"</p> + +<p>While I was huskily answering him, a big woman appeared at the door. Her +garments were aggressively rich, and lockets (it was a great year for +lockets) dangled from both wrists, from her watch-chain, and from her +neck-chain. She glittered with diamonds—in a street-dress which might +also have answered for a dinner-dress. I laughed to myself as I thought +what a prize she would be for pirates. Then I looked at her handsome face +and, as our eyes met, we recognized each other perfectly, but my lesson +being learned I made no sign, I had no wish to presume, and she—looked +over my head.</p> + +<p>M. Bènot, the Frenchman who died in harness early in the season, poor +little gentleman! came in then with the MSS. and the parts of the play, +"Man and Wife." Silence came upon the company. As M. Bènot called Mr. or +Miss So-and-so, he or she advanced and received the part assigned to +them. "Miss Clara Morris!" I rose stiffly—I had sat so long in my +corner—and received rather a bulky part. I bowed silently and resumed my +seat, but the place was for a moment only a black, windy void; I had seen +the name on my part—I was cast for <i>Blanche</i>, a comedy part!</p> + +<p>As I came back to my real surroundings, M. Bènot was saying: "Eleven +o'clock sharp to-morrow, ladies and gentlemen, for rehearsal."</p> + +<p>People began hurrying out. I waited a little, till nearly all were gone, +whispering "Miss Ethel for <i>Anne</i>, Miss Ethel for <i>Anne</i>" when the +handsome "Argosy of wealth" sailed up to me, and, in a voice of sweet +uncertainty, said: "I wonder if you can possibly recognize me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," I answered, smiling broadly, "we recognized each other at the +moment you entered, Miss Newton."</p> + +<p>She reddened and stammered something about "not being quite sure—and out +West, and now here," and as she was even prettier than when I had last +seen her, I told her so, and—we were happy ever after.</p> + +<p>Then I slipped out of the theatre and crossed to Twenty-first Street +safely, but could control my grief and pain, my mortification and my +disappointment, no longer. Tears would have their way, and I held my +sunshade low before my tear-washed, grieving face. Those little +ill-suppressed smiles at my clothes, those slightly lifted eyebrows, and +there was not even a single introduction to shelter me to-morrow, and as +to <i>Blanche</i>, oh, I thought "let her wait till I get home!"</p> + +<p>At last mother opened the door for me. I flung the hat from my aching +head, and as she silently tied a wet handkerchief about my throbbing +temples, I blurted out three words: "<i>A comedy part!</i>" and fell face +downward on the bed, and cried until there was not a tear left in me, and +considering my record as a shedder of tears, that's saying a good deal. +Afterward I knelt down and hid my shamed face in the pillow and asked +forgiveness from the ever-pitiful and patient One above, and prayed for a +clear understanding of the part entrusted to me. Oh, don't be shocked. I +have prayed over my work all my life long, and I can't think the Father +despises any labor that is done to His honor. And I humbly gave over my +further thought of <i>Anne</i>, and praying pardon for the folly of "kicking +against the pricks" and wasting my scant strength in useless passion, I +retired, at peace with myself, the world, and even <i>Blanche</i>.</p> + +<p>Next morning a curious thing happened. I heard, or thought I heard, the +words: "The first shall be last and the last shall be first," and I +called from my bed: "Did you speak to me, mother?" and she answered, +"No."</p> + +<p>As I sat over my coffee and rolls, I said, absently: "The first shall be +last, and the <i>last</i> shall be first."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" mother asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," I said. "The words were in my ears when I awoke, and they keep +coming back to me."</p> + +<p>I rose and dressed for rehearsal. As I drew on my gloves I heard a +hurried voice asking for me in the hall. I recognized it as M. Bènot's. +My heart sank like lead—was even the comedy part to be taken from me? I +opened the door. Out of breath, the little man gasped: "I so come quite +quick for Monsieur Da-<i>lay</i>. He make me to ask you right away, very +quick, can you play that part of <i>Anne</i>?"</p> + +<p>My breath came in gasps, I might have been the runner! I answered, +briefly: "Yes!"</p> + +<p>"Then," said he, "here give you to me that other part, <i>Blanche</i>."</p> + +<p>I gave it joyously.</p> + +<p>"Take you now this of <i>Anne</i> and make of the great haste to Monsieur +Da-<i>lay's</i> office, before—<i>comprenez-vous</i>—before that you go on the +stage, or see anyone else, he want you to make some lies, I tink, so you +best hurry!"</p> + +<p>"Mother, mother!" I cried. As she ran, I held out to her the part, <i>Anne +Sylvester</i>, written large on it. She looked, and said: "The last shall be +first!" and kissing me, pushed me toward the stairs.</p> + +<p>I almost ran in my anxiety to obey orders; my mind was in a state of +happy confusion—what could it all mean? The announcement had been +distinctly made only yesterday that Miss Agnes Ethel would play <i>Anne</i>. +Was she ill? Had she met with an accident? And why should Mr. Daly wish +to see me privately? Could he be going to ask me to read the part over to +him? Oh, dear, heaven forbid! for I could much more successfully fly up +into the blue sky.</p> + +<p>The stairs that led down from the sidewalk to the stage-door passed +across the one, the only, window of the entire basement, which let a +modicum of light into a tiny den, intended originally for the janitor's +use, but taken by Mr. Daly for his private office. Here the great guiding +intelligence of the entire establishment was located. Here he dreamed +dreams and spun webs, watching over the incomings, the outgoings, the +sayings and the doings of every soul in the company. He would have even +regulated their thoughts, if he could. I once said to him, after a +rehearsal: "If you could, sir, while in the theatre at least, you would +force us all to think only 'Hail, Daly!'"</p> + +<p>He laughed a little, and then rather grimly remarked: "That speech made +to anyone else would have cost you five dollars, Miss Morris. But if you +have absolutely <i>no</i> reverence, neither have you fear, so let it pass," +and I never said "Thank you" more sincerely in my life, for I could ill +afford jests at five dollars apiece.</p> + +<p>But that morning of the first rehearsal, as I hurried down the stairs, +the shade was drawn up high, and through the window I saw Mr. Daly +sitting, swinging about, in his desk-chair. Before I could tap, he called +for me to enter. He was very pale, very rumpled, very tired-looking. He +wasted no time over greetings or formalities, but curtly asked: "Can you +play <i>Anne Sylvester</i>?"</p> + +<p>And, almost as curtly, I answered: "Yes, sir!"</p> + +<p>The calm certainty of my tone seemed to comfort him; he relaxed his +seemingly strained muscles, and sank back into his chair. He passed his +long, thin fingers wearily across his closed eyes several times, then, as +he opened them, he asked, sharply: "Can you obey orders?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered, "I've been obeying orders all my life long."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "can you keep quiet—that's the thing. Can you keep +quiet about this part?"</p> + +<p>I stared silently at him.</p> + +<p>"This thing is between ourselves. Now, are you going to tell the people +all about when you received it?"</p> + +<p>I smiled a little bitterly as I replied: "I am hardly likely to tell my +business affairs to people who do not speak to me."</p> + +<p>He looked up quickly, for I stood all the time, and asked: "What's that, +don't speak to you? Were you not welcomed——"</p> + +<p>I broke his speech with laughter, but he would not smile: "Were you not +properly treated? Who was lacking in courtesy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, please," I hurried, "don't blame anyone. You see there were no +introductions made, and of course I should have remembered that the +hospitality of the East is more—er—well, cautious than that of the +West, and besides I must look very woolly and wild to your people."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he broke in, "then in a measure the fault is mine, since worry and +trouble kept me away from the green-room. But Bènot should have made +introductions in my place—and—well, I'm ashamed of the women! cats! +cats!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" I laughed, "not yet, surely not yet!"</p> + +<p>Suddenly he returned to the part: "You will tell the people that you were +to play <i>Anne</i> in the first place."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Daly," I cried, "the whole company saw me receive the part of +<i>Blanche</i>."</p> + +<p>He gnawed at the end of his mustache in frowning thought. "One woman to +whom it belongs refuses the part," he said; "another woman, who can't +play it, demands it from me, and I want to stop her mouth by making her +believe the part was given to you before I knew her desire for it—do you +see?"</p> + +<p>Yes, with round-eyed astonishment, I saw that this almost tyrannically +high-handed ruler had someone to placate—someone to deceive.</p> + +<p>"You will therefore tell the people you received <i>Anne</i> last night."</p> + +<p>I was silent, hot, miserable.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear?" he asked, angrily. "Good God! everything goes wrong. The +idiot that was to dramatize the story of "Man and Wife" for me has failed +in his work; the play is announced, and I have been up all night writing +and arranging a last act for it myself. If Miss Davenport thinks she has +been refused <i>Anne</i>, she will take her revenge by refusing to play +<i>Blanche</i>, and the cast is so full it will require all my people—you +<i>must</i> say you received the part last night!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Daly," I said, "won't you please trust to my discretion. I don't +like lying, even for my daily bread, but if silence is golden, a discreet +silence is away above rubies."</p> + +<p>He struck his hand angrily on the desk before him: "Miss Morris, when I +give an order——"</p> + +<p>Up went my head: "Mr. Daly, I have nothing to do with your private +affairs; any business order——"</p> + +<p>Heaven knows where we would have brought up had not a sudden darkness +come into the little room—a woman quickly passed the window. Mr. Daly +sprang to his feet, caught my fingers in a frantic squeeze, and pushing +me from the door rapidly, said: "Yes—yes—well, do your best with it. +I'm very glad Bènot found you last night!" Then turning to the new-comer, +who had not been present the day before, he cheerfully exclaimed: "Well, +you didn't lose to-day's train, I see! I have a charming comedy part for +you—come in!"</p> + +<p>She went in, and the storm broke, for as I felt my way through the +passage leading to the stage-stairs, I heard its rolling and rumbling, +and two dimly-seen men in front of me laughed, while one, pointing over +his shoulder, toward the office, sneered, meaningly: "Ethel stock is +going down, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>And almost I wished I was back in a family theatre.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-FOURTH"></a>THIRTY-FOURTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Rehearse Endlessly—I Grow Sick with +Dread—I Meet with Success in <i>Anne Sylvester</i>.</p></div> + + + +<p>Up-stairs I found a bare stage, as is often the case for a first mere +reading of parts, and most of the company sitting on camp-stools, +chatting and laughing. Already M. Bènot had announced the change in the +cast, and people looked at me in perfect stupefaction: "Good heavens! +what a risk he is taking! Who on earth is she, anyway?" and I cleared my +throat in mercy to the speaker, who didn't know I stood behind her.</p> + +<p>That morning I was introduced to a number of the ladies and gentlemen, +but it was a mere baptism of water, not of the spirit. I was not one of +them. Understand, no one was openly rude to me, everyone bowed a +"good-morning," but, well, you can bow a good-morning over a large iron +fence with a fast-locked gate in it. That my dresses of gray linen or of +white linen struck them as being funny in September is not to be wondered +at, yet they must have known that necessity forced me to wear them, and +that their smiles were not always effaced quickly enough to spare me a +cruel pang. And my amazement grew day by day at their own extravagance of +dress. Some of the ladies wore a different costume each day during the +entire rehearsal of the play. How, I wondered, could they do it? Two of +them, Miss Kate Claxton and Miss Newton, had husbands to pay their bills, +I found, and Miss Linda Dietz—the gentlest, most sweetly-courteous +creature imaginable—had parents and a home; but the magnificence of the +others remained an unsolvable mystery.</p> + +<p>Another thing against me was, I could not act even the least bit at +rehearsal. Foreign actors will act in cold blood at a daylight rehearsal, +but few Americans can do it. I read my lines with intelligence, but gave +no sign of what I intended to do at night. Of course that made Mr. Daly +suffer great anxiety, but he said nothing, only looked at me with such +troubled, anxious eyes that I felt sorry for him. One gentleman, however, +decided that I was—not to put too fine a point upon it—"a lunk-head." +He treated me with supercilious condescension, varied occasionally with +overbearing tyranny. Just one person in the theatre knew that I was +really a good actress, of considerable experience, and that was James +Lewis; and from a tricksy spirit of mischief he kept the silence of a +graven image, and when Mr. Dan Harkins took me aside to teach me to act, +Lewis would retire to a quiet spot and writhe with suppressed laughter.</p> + +<p>One day he said to me: "Say, you ain't cooking up a huge joke on these +gas-balloons, are you, Clara? And upon my soul you are doing it well—you +act as green as a cucumber."</p> + +<p>And never did I succeed in convincing him that I had not engineered a +great joke on the company by deceptive rehearsing. One tiny incident +seemed to give Mr. Daly a touch of confidence in me. In the "Inn scene" a +violent storm was raging, and at a critical moment the candle was +supposed to be blown out by a gust of wind from the left door, as one of +the characters entered. They were using a mechanical device for +extinguishing the candle, and it was tried several times one morning, and +always, to my surprise, from the <i>right</i> side of the stage. No one seemed +to notice anything odd, though the flame streamed out good and long in +the wrong direction before going out. At last I ventured, as I was the +principal in the scene: "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but is it not the +wind from the open door that blows that light out?"</p> + +<p>Then, quick and sharp, mine enemy was upon me: "This is <i>our</i> affair, +Miss Morris."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered, "but the house will laugh if the candle goes out +<i>against</i> the storm," and Mr. Daly sprang up, and, smiling his first +kindly smile at me, said: "What the deuce have we all been thinking +of—you're right, the candle must be extinguished from the <i>left</i>," and +as I glanced across the stage I saw Lewis doing some neat little dancing +steps all by himself.</p> + +<p>The rehearsals were exhausting in the extreme, the heat was unnatural, +the walk far too long, and, well, to be frank, I had not nearly enough to +eat. My anxiety was growing hourly, my strength began to fail, and at the +last rehearsals, white as wax from weakness, I had to be carried up the +stairs to the stage. Having such a quick study, requiring but few +rehearsals, I was from the fourth day ready at any moment to go on and +play my part. Fancy, then, what a waste of strength there was in forcing +me, day after day, to go over long, important scenes—three, five, even +seven times of a morning for the benefit of one amateur actress, who +simply could not remember to-day what she had been told yesterday. It was +foolish, it was risking a breakdown, when they had no one to put in my +place. Mr. William Davidge was the next greatest sufferer, and as an +experienced old actor he hotly resented being called back to go over a +scene, again and again, "that a 'walking vanity' might be taught her +business at his expense!"</p> + +<p>And though I liked and admired the "walking vanity" (who did not in the +least deserve the name), I did think the manner of her training was +costly and unjust, and one morning, just before the production of the +play, I—luckily as it would seem—lost my self-control for a moment, and +created a small sensation. In my individual case, fainting is always +preceded by a moment of total darkness, and that again by a sound in my +ears as of a rushing wind. That morning, as I finished the sixth +repetition of <i>Anne's</i> big scene with <i>Lady Glenarm</i>, the warning whir +was already in my ears, when the order came to go over it again, "that +<i>Mrs. Glenarm</i> might be quite easy." It was too much—a sudden rage +seized upon me: "<i>Mrs. Glenarm</i> will only be quite easy when the rest of +us are dead!" I remarked as I took my place again, and when I received my +cue I whirled upon her with the speech: "Take care, <i>Mrs. Glenarm</i>, I am +not naturally a patient woman, trouble has done much to tame my temper, +but endurance has its limits!"</p> + +<p>It was given with such savage passion that Miss Dietz burst into +frightened tears and forgot utterly her lines, while a silence that +thrilled, absolute, dead, came upon the company for a moment. Hastily I +controlled myself, but there were whispers and amazed looks everywhere. +Mr. George Brown, who played the pugilist, said aloud to a group: "She's +done the whole crowd—she's an actress to the core!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly sat leaning forward at the prompt-table, white as he could well +be. His eyes were wide and bright, and, to my surprise, he spoke quite +gently to me as he said: "Spare yourself—just murmur your lines, Miss +Morris." And Miss Dietz said: "Oh, Mr. Daly, I am so glad I am prepared; +I should have fallen in my tracks if she had done that to me at night, +without warning."</p> + +<p>When I left the stage, one of the ladies swept her dress aside, and said: +"Sit here by me; how tired you must be!" It was the first friendly +advance made to me. Before rehearsal ended I overheard the young man with +the bald head saying: "She has sold us all, and I bet she will completely +change the map of the Fifth Avenue Theatre."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, she won't," answered Lewis, shortly, "she's not that type of +woman!"</p> + +<p>"Well, at all events, on the strength of that outburst, I ain't afraid to +bet twenty good dollars that she makes pie out of Ethel's vogue!" Then, +seeing me, he removed his hat hurriedly, offering his shoulder for me to +lean upon as I descended the winding-stairs, and I said to myself: +"Yesterday this would have been a kindly service; to-day—to-day it is +not far from an humiliation."</p> + +<p>Hitherto I had known neither clique nor cabal in a theatre; now I found +myself in a network of them. The <i>favorite</i>—who, I had supposed, lived +only in the historic novel—I now met in real life, and found her as +charming, as treacherous, and as troublesome in the theatre as she could +ever have been in a royal court. There was no one to explain to me the +nature or progress of the game that was being played when I came upon the +scene; but I soon discovered there were two factions in the theatre, Miss +Agnes Ethel heading one, Miss Fanny Davenport the other. Each had a +following, but Miss Ethel, who had been all-powerful, had overestimated +her strength when she refused, point-blank, to play <i>Anne Sylvester</i>, +giving as her reason "the immorality of <i>Anne</i>." This from the lady who +had been acting all season in "Fernande" and "Frou-Frou"—as a gambler's +decoy and an adulterous wife abandoning child and home—satisfactorily +proved the utter absence of a sense of humor from her charming make-up.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly, like every other man, could be managed with a little patient +<i>finesse</i>, but he would not be bullied in business affairs by any living +creature, as he proved when, rather than change the play to please the +actress he then regarded as his strongest card, he trusted a great part +to the hands of an unknown, untried girl, and gave out to the newspapers +that Miss Ethel had sprained her ankle, and, though in perfect health, +could not walk well enough to act. And, after my momentary outburst, the +anti-Ethelites suddenly placed me on one of the sixty-four squares of +their chess-board; but I knew not whether I was castle, knight, bishop, +or pawn, I only knew that I had become a piece of value in their game, +and they hoped to move me against Ethel.</p> + +<p>It was all very bewildering, but I had other things to think about, and +more important. My money had run so low I was desperately afraid I could +not get dresses for the play, and for the white mousseline necessary for +the croquet-party of the first act I was forced to go to a very cheap +department store, a fact the dress nightly proclaimed aloud from every +inch of its surface. Shawl dresses were the novelty of that season, and +at Stewart's I found a modestly priced dark-gray shawl overskirt and +jacket that I could wear over a black alpaca skirt for two acts. The +other two dresses I luckily had in my wardrobe, and when my new shoes, a +long gray veil, and two pairs of gray gloves were laid into the +dressing-room basket, I had in the whole world $2.38, on which we had to +live until my first week's salary came to me. But, oh, that last awful +day before the opening night. I was suffering bodily as well as mentally. +I had had an alarming attack of pleurisy. My mother had rung the bell and +left a message at the first house that carried a doctor's sign. He came; +he was far gone in liquor; he was obstinate, almost abusive—to be brief, +he blistered me shockingly; another doctor had to be called to dress and +treat the hideous blisters the first had produced; and the tight closing +of dress-waists about me was an agony not yet forgotten. But what was +that to the nervous terror, the icy chill, the burning fever, the deadly +nausea! I could not swallow food—I <i>could</i> not! My mother stood over me +while, with tear-filled eyes, I disposed of a raw, beaten egg, and then +she was guilty of the dreadful extravagance of buying two chops, of which +she made a cup of broth, and fearing a breakdown if I attempted without +food five such acts as awaited me, she almost forced me to swallow it to +the last drop after my hat was on and I was ready to start. I always kiss +my mother good-by, and that night my lips were so cold and stiff with +fright that they would not move. I dropped my head for a moment upon her +shoulder, she patted me silently with one hand and opened the door with +the other. My little dog, escaping from the room, rushed to me, leaping +against my knees. I caught her up, and she covered my troubled, veiled +face with frantic kisses. I passed her to mother and crept painfully down +the steps. I glanced back—mother waved her hand and innocently called: +"Good luck! God bless you!"</p> + +<p>The astonishing conjunction of superstition and orthodox faith touched my +sense of the ridiculous. I laughed aloud, Bertie barked excitedly, I +faced about and went forward almost gayly to meet—what? As I reached +Broadway, I remember quite distinctly that I said aloud, to myself: +"Well, God's good to the Irish, and at all events I was born on St. +Patrick's day—so Garryowen forever!"</p> + +<p>The pendulum was swinging to the other extreme, I was in high spirits; +nor need you be surprised, for such is the acting temperament.</p> + +<p>I had not on that first night even the comfort of a dressing-room to +myself, but shared one of the tiniest closets with Mrs. Roberta Norwood, +in whose chic blonde person I failed utterly to see a future friend. The +terrible heat, the crowding, the strange companion, all brought back the +memory of that far-away first night of all in Cleveland; but now there +was no Mrs. Bradshaw to go to for advice or commendation. The sense of +utter loneliness came upon me suddenly, and I bent my head low over the +buckling of my shoe that my rising tears might not be noticed.</p> + +<p>We were directly beneath the auditorium parquet, and every seat flung +down by the ushers seemed to strike a blow upon our heads, while applause +shook dust into our eyes and hair. Forced occupation is the best cure for +nervousness, and in the hurried making-up and dressing I for the time +forgot my fright. Two or three persons had come to the door to speak to +Mrs. Norwood, and it seemed to me they were all made up unusually pale. I +looked at myself in the glass, I hesitated, at last I turned and asked if +I wore too much color—if I was too red, and the answer I received was: +"That's a matter of taste."</p> + +<p>Now it was not a matter of taste, but a matter of business. She was +familiar with the size and the lighting of the theatre, and I was not, +yet either from extreme self-occupation or utter indifference she allowed +me to go upon that tiny stage painted like an Indian about to take the +war-path. Truly I was climbing up a thorny stem to reach the flower of +success.</p> + +<p>The overture was at its closing bars, all were rushing to the stairs for +the first act. I stopped behind the dressing-room door and bent my head +for one dumbly pleading moment, then muttering "Amen—amen," I, too, +hurried up the stairs to face the awful first appearance before a New +York audience.</p> + +<p>I had always been rehearsed to enter with the crowd of guests. The cue +came, and as I stepped forward, a strong hand caught my arm. Mr. Daly had +suddenly changed his mind, he held me fast till all were on, then let me +go, whispering, "Now—now," and I went on alone.</p> + +<p>I had to retire to the back of the stage and wait a few moments till +spoken to. Never shall I forget the sort of horror the closeness of the +audience caused me, I felt I should step upon the upturned faces; I +wanted to put out my hands and push the people back, and their use of +opera-glasses filled my eyes with angry tears. Suddenly I understood the +meaning of the lightly painted faces. I raised my handkerchief and wiped +some of the red from my cheeks, while somewhat bitterly, I am afraid, I +thought that "love ye one another" and "thy neighbor as thyself" had been +relegated to the garret with "God bless our home."</p> + +<p>Then the astonishing beauty of the women on the stage struck me with +dismay; their exquisite lacy dresses, their jewel-loaded fingers. Oh! I +thought, how can I ever hope to stand with them. I grew sick and cold. +Then there dully reached my ears the words of <i>Lady Lundy</i>: "I +choose—Anne Sylvester." It was my cue. I came slowly down; no one knew +me, no one greeted me. I opened my lips, but no sound came. I saw a +frightened look on Miss Newton's face; I tried again, and in a husky +whisper, answered: "Thank you; I'd rather not play."</p> + +<p>Out in front one actor friend, John W. Norton, watched and prayed for a +success for me; when he heard the hoarse murmur, he dropped his head and +groaned: "A failure—total and complete!" But I also had noted that +hoarse croak, and it had acted like a mighty spur. I was made desperate +by it. I threw up my head, and answered my next cue with: "No, Lady +Lundy, nothing is the matter; I am not very well, but I will play if you +wish it."</p> + +<p>I gave the words so bell-clear and with so much insolent humility that a +round of applause of lightning quickness followed them. It was the first +bit of genuine hearty kindness I had received in the city of New York. In +my pleasure I forgot the character of <i>Anne</i> completely, and turned to +the audience a face every feature of which, from wide, surprised eyes to +more widely-smiling lips, radiated such satisfaction and good-fellowship +that they first laughed aloud and then a second time applauded.</p> + +<p>At last! I was starting fair, we had shaken hands, my audience and I; my +nerves were steady, my heart strong, the "part" good. I would try hard, I +would do my best. I made my whispered appointment to meet <i>Geoffrey</i>, and +when I returned and stood a moment, silently watching him, there came +upon the house the silence that my soul loves—the silence that might +thrill a graven image into acting, and I was not stone.</p> + +<p>Our scene began. <i>Anne</i>, striving desperately to restrain her feelings, +said: "You are rich, a scholar, and a gentleman; are you something else +besides all these—<i>are you a coward and a villain, sir?</i>"</p> + +<p>Clear and distinct from the right box, in suppressed tones, came the +words: "Larmes de la voix! larmes de la voix!" Many glanced at the box, a +few hissed impatiently at the new mayor, Oakey Hall, who had spoken. Our +interview was interrupted by <i>Lady Lundy</i> (Miss Newton) and <i>Sir Patrick +Lundy</i> (Mr. Lewis). I was dismissed by the first and left the stage. +Applause broke forth—continued. Mr. Lewis and Miss Newton began to +speak—the applause redoubled. I turned angrily. "What bad manners!" I +said. Mr. Daly ran up to me, waving his hands: "Go on! go on! It's you, +you fool!"</p> + +<p>"I know it," I replied, "but I'm not going to insult any actor by taking +a call in the middle of his scene."</p> + +<p>"Confound you!" he said, "will you do as I tell you?" He caught me, +whirled me about and, putting his hand between my shoulders, literally +pitched me on to the stage, where I stood ashamed and mortified by what I +honestly felt to be a slight to those two waiting to proceed.</p> + +<p>After that the evening's triumph, like the rolling snowball, grew as it +advanced. At the end of the quarrel act with <i>Mrs. Glenarm</i> the curtain +was raised on the stage picture—once, twice, three times. Then M. Bènot +said to Mr. Daly: "They want her," and Mr. Daly answered, sharply: "I +know what they want, and I know what I don't want—ring up again!"</p> + +<p>He did so; no use, the applause went on. Then Mr. Daly said to me: "Take +<i>Mrs. Glenarm</i> on with you, and acknowledge this call."</p> + +<p>We went on together; retired; more applause. Again we went on together; +no use, the applause <i>would</i> not stop. "Oh, well, ring up once more," +said Mr. Daly, "and here, you, take it yourself."</p> + +<p>I went on alone, and the audience rose as one individual. I saw them, +all blurred through happy tears. I held my hands out to them, with a very +passion of love. The house blossomed with white waving handkerchiefs in +answer. The curtain fell and, before I moved, rose once more, and then, +as I live by bread! I saw pass between me and those applauding people a +little crying child carrying a single potato in her hand. Of course that +was nerves; but I saw her, I tell you I saw her! and surely I should know +myself!</p> + +<p>In the fourth act, which was a triumph for all concerned in it—and that +meant nearly everyone in the cast—I received a compliment that I prize +still. There is a certain tone which should be reserved for short +important speeches only in strong and exciting scenes, where, by force of +contrast, it has a great effect; so, in tones low, level, clear and cold +as ice, <i>Anne</i> had scarcely taken her solemn oath: "I swear it, on my +honor as a Christian woman, sir!" when from end to end of their railed-in +semicircle the musicians broke into swift applause. Catching the effect, +their foreign impetuosity made them respond more quickly than could the +Americans who seconded their action, while mere recognition from these +play-worn, <i>blasé</i> men was to me veritable incense. In the last act, Mrs. +Gilbert, as <i>Hester Detheridge</i>, the supposed dumb woman, proved herself +an artist to the fingertips. Later I saw many <i>Hesters</i>, but never one to +equal hers.</p> + +<p>At last, and late, far too late, the play ended in a blaze of glory. The +curtain was raised for final compliments. All the actors in the play had +been summoned—we all stood in line, a bowing, smiling, happy +line—facing a shouting, hat, handkerchief, or cane-waving crowd of +pleased, excited people. As I saw how many eyes were turned my way, with +a leap of the heart I repeated: "If you make a favorable impression I +will—yes, I will double that salary."</p> + +<p>Surely, I thought, no one can doubt that I have made a favorable +impression, and, oh, mother, we will be so happy! Just then I caught the +eye of a young girl—I could have touched her outstretched hand, she was +so close—she gave me a lovely smile, and taking from her bosom a bunch +of scarlet carnations she threw them herself. They fell on the stage. One +of the actors picked them up and, turning, handed them to <i>Blanche</i>. I +heard the disappointed "Oh!" and caught her eye again, when, regardless +of all the rules and regulations forbidding communication with the +audience, I smiled and kissed my hand to her. As the curtain fell, in an +instant everyone was talking with everyone else. I had begun alone—well, +I must end alone. I slipped down the staircase least used, and at its +foot met Mr. George Brown, who was waiting for me. He took my hands in +his and gave me both commendation and congratulation, though they were +stayed and braced with unconscious profanity; and I squeezed his hands +hard and said: "You are so good, oh! you are so good! but please take +care, I'm afraid you'll get forfeited." When he cried: "D——n the forfeit, +it's worth a few dollars to speak as you feel sometimes, so good-night!"</p> + +<p>I scrambled into my street-clothes, caught up the inevitable bag, and +fairly rushed from the theatre, and as I came up from that place of +mouldy smell and burnt-out air, and lifted my face to the stupendous +beauty of the heavens, sniffing delightedly at the cool, pure night air, +suddenly I thought how delicious must have been the first long breath +young Lazarus drew when, obeying the Divine command, he "came forth" from +the tomb.</p> + +<p>Tired, excited, I hurried to carry the news to the two who awaited me—my +mother and my dog. At the corner of Twenty-third Street and Broadway I +had to pass around a party of ladies and gentlemen who stood talking +there, and a lady said as I passed: "No, no! it's Morris, I tell you; +see, here it is—Clara Morris." She held up a folded programme, pointing +out the name to a gentleman beside her. I laughed happily. Odd bits of +the evening's happenings kept appearing before me like pictures. +Sometimes I saw the unknown young girl's smiling face—and the scarlet +flowers I failed to receive. Sometimes 'twas Mr. Daly's angry one as he +pitched me on to the stage to acknowledge a compliment I did not want, +great as it was. Most often I saw the faces of the lovely women of the +company. What a galaxy of beauty they made! The stately Newton, the +already full-blown, buxom Davenport, the tall, slender, deer-eyed Dietz, +the oriental Volmer, the auburn-haired Claxton, the blond Norwood! There +were just two women in that company who were not beauties—Mrs. Gilbert +and Miss Morris; even they were wholesome, pleasant women, who did not +frighten horses by any means, but still if you speak of beauty—why, +next! please!</p> + +<p>At last I saw the lighted windows that told me home was near. Then up the +stairs, where there bounded upon my breast the little black-and-tan +bundle of love and devotion, called Bertie the loyal, whose fervid +greetings made the removal of my hat so difficult a job that it was +through the tangle of hat, veil, and wriggling dog I cried at last: "It's +all right, Mumsey—a success! Lots and lots of 'calls,' dear! and, oh! is +there anything to eat—<i>I am so hungry!</i>"</p> + +<p>So, while the new actress's name was floating over many a dainty +restaurant supper, its owner sat beneath one gas-jet, between mother and +pet, eating a large piece of bread and a small piece of cheese; and, +thankful for both, she talked to her small circle of admirers, telling +them all about it, and winding up supper and talk with the declaration: +"Mother, I believe the hearts are just the same, whether they beat +against Western ribs or Eastern ribs!"</p> + +<p>Then, supper over, I stumbled through my old-time "Now I lay me," and +adding some blurred words of gratitude (God must be so well used to sleep +thanks, but very wide-awake entreaties!) I fell asleep, knowing that +through God's mercy and my own hard work I was the first Western actress +who had ever been accepted by a New York audience, and as I drowsed off, +I murmured to myself: "And I'll leave the door open, now that I have +opened it—I'll leave it open for all others."</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-FIFTH"></a>THIRTY-FIFTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Am Accepted by the Company—I am Warned against +Mr. Fisk—I Have an Odd Encounter with Mr. Gould.</p></div> + + + +<p>The following morning we were called to the theatre at eleven o'clock to +have the play cut "judiciously," as old actors used to say. It was very +loosely constructed, and, besides cutting, the entire drama required a +tightening-up, as it were.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly was the first to greet me and offer hearty and genial +congratulations. Everyone followed his example, and that morning I was +admitted into the family circle and came into my just inheritance of +equality and fraternity.</p> + +<p>A little surprised, but very happy, I gave back smile for smile, +hand-pressure for hand-pressure; for being held off at arm's length by +them all had hurt worse I'm sure than they knew, therefore when they +offered me kindly greeting I did not stop to study out the <i>cause</i> of +this <i>effect</i>, but shut my eyes and opened my mouth, and took what luck +had sent me, and thankfully became so much one of them that I never had a +clashing word with a member of the company—never saw the faintest cloud +darken our good-fellowship.</p> + +<p>That morning, as the cutting was going on, I advanced and offered my +part, but Mr. Daly waved me away. "No," he said, "there's plenty of +useless matter to take out, but the public won't want <i>Anne</i> cut, they +have none too much of her now."</p> + +<p>He gave but few compliments, even to those he liked, and he did not like +me yet, therefore that gracious speech created a sensation among the +other hearers and was carefully treasured up by me.</p> + +<p>Another of his sayings of that morning I recall. In conversation with one +of the ladies, I remarked: "As a Western woman, I suppose I have various +expressions to unlearn?" when Mr. Daly turned quickly from the +prompt-table, saying, sharply: "Miss Morris, don't say that again. You +are a New York woman now—please remember that. You ceased to be a +Westerner last night when you received the New York stamp."</p> + +<p>I thought him jesting, and was about to make some flippant reply, when +one of the ladies squeezed my arm and said: "Don't, he will be angry; he +is in earnest."</p> + +<p>And he was, just as he was in earnest later on when we had become good +friends, and I heard him for the first time swear like a trooper because +I had been born in Canada. And when I laughed at his anger, he was not +far from boxing my ears.</p> + +<p>"It's a damn shame!" he declared; "in the first place you are an American +to the very marrow of your bones. In the next place you are the only +woman I know who has a living, pulsing love of country and flag! Oh, the +devil! I won't believe it—you born in a tu'penny ha'penny little +Canadian town under that infernal British flag! See here, if you ever +tell anyone that—I'll—I'll never forgive you! Have you been telling +that to people?"</p> + +<p>I answered him: "I have not—but I have permitted the assertion that I +was born in Cleveland to go uncorrected," and, with the sweet frankness +of friendship, he answered that I had more sense than he had given me +credit for. But, small matter that it was, it annoyed him greatly, and I +still have notes of his, sent on my birthdays, in which he petulantly +refers to my unfortunate birth-place, and warns me to keep silent about +it.</p> + +<p>Like many other great men—and Mr. Daly was a great man—he often made +mountains out of mole-hills, devoting to some trifle an amount of +consideration out of all proportion to the thing considered.</p> + +<p>On the first night of the season Mr. Daly had said to me: "One word, +Miss Morris, that I had forgotten before—Mr. James Fisk, unfortunately, +as landlord, has the right of entrance into the green-room. He doesn't +often appear there, but should he come in, if you are present I desire +you should instantly withdraw. I do not wish you to be introduced to him +under any circumstances."</p> + +<p>I felt my face flushing red as I answered: "I have no desire to meet +either Mr. Fisk or any other gentleman in the green-room!" But Mr. Daly +said, hurriedly: "Don't misunderstand me, there's no time for +explanations now, only do as I ask you. You will recognize him when I +tell you he is very blond and very like his pictures," and away flew Mr. +Daly to attend to things enough to drive most men crazy.</p> + +<p>Now, that speech did not mean that Mr. Fisk was a monster of ill-breeding +or of immorality, but it did mean that that was Mr. Daly's "tat" to Mr. +Fisk's "tit" in a very pretty little "tit-for-tat" quarrel between them.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly very seldom tasted defeat—very, very seldom came out second +best in an encounter; but there had been a struggle anent the renting of +the theatre: Mr. Fisk, as landlord, refusing to renounce his right of +entrance by the stage-door to any theatre he owned—nothing could move +him, no argument, no entreaty, no threat; not even an offer of more rent +than he himself asked. To Mr. Daly the right of entrance of an outsider +back of the stage was almost unbearable, even though the privilege was +seldom used and never abused. He declared he would not sign any agreement +holding such a clause. He gave up the theatre rather than yield, and +then, with a large company already engaged, he sought in vain for a house +to shelter it. Now, the city is broken out all over, close and fine, with +theatres, like a case of well-developed measles; but then 'twas +different. Mr. Daly could find no other theatre, and he was compelled to +accept the Fifth Avenue with the hated clause compromised thus: Mr. Fisk +was to have the right of entrance to the green-room, but was never to go +upon the stage or behind the scenes; an ending to the struggle that +pleased the company mightily, for they were all very fond of Jimmy Fisk, +or "The Prince," as he was called.</p> + +<p>He never forgot them on benefit nights; whether the beneficiary was man +or woman there was always a gift ready from the "Railroad Prince."</p> + +<p>He looked like a man well acquainted with his tub. His yellow hair +crisped itself into small waves right from its very roots. His blue eyes +danced with fun, for he was one of nature's comedians. His manner was +what he himself would describe as "chipper." No one could talk five +minutes with him without being moved to laughter.</p> + +<p>His own box was the right upper one, and as I first had him pointed out +to me, yellow-haired, laughing, flashing now and then a splendid ring, I +wondered if he really was the stalking-horse of the dark little man with +the piercing eyes who sat for one act well back of the redundant and +diffuse Mr. James Fisk. Wishing to make sure of the dark man's identity, +I asked who he was. "Oh," was the answer, "he's gone now, but I suppose +it was Gould, rooting out the 'Prince' to talk shop to him!" then, +thrusting out a contemptuous under-lip, my informant added: "He's no +good—he has nothing to do with the theatre! Scarcely ever comes to a +performance, and doesn't see anything when he does. He couldn't tell any +one of us apart from the others if he tried—and he's not likely to try. +You want to keep your eye on Jimmie. If he likes you, you're in for +flowers and a present, too, on your benefit!"</p> + +<p>Imagine, then, my amazement on the third night of the season when this +occurred: In one act I made my exit before the curtain fell—all the +other characters being still upon the stage. Having a change of dress +there, I always hurried down-stairs as quickly as possible, and passing +in one door and out of the other, crossed the green-room to reach my +dressing-room. That evening as I ran in I saw a gentleman standing near +the opposite door. I turned instantly to retreat, when a voice called: +"If you please." I paused, I turned. The gentleman removed his hat, and +coming to the centre of the room held out his hand, saying: "Miss +Morris—you <i>are</i> Miss Morris?"</p> + +<p>I smiled assent and gave him my hand. His small, smooth fingers closed +upon mine firmly. We stood and looked at each other. He was small, and +dark of hair and of beard, and his piercing eyes seemed to be reading me +through and through. He spoke presently, in a voice low and +gentle—almost to sadness.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to speak to you," he said; "I'm not going to waste time telling +you you are a wonderful actress, because the papers have already done +that, and all New York <i>will</i> do it, but I see you are an honest girl and +alone here——"</p> + +<p>"No—oh, no!" I broke in, "my mother, too, is here!"</p> + +<p>A faint smile seemed to creep about his bearded lips, there was a +distinct touch of amusement in his voice as he said: "I-n-d-e-e-d! a +valiant pair, no doubt—a truly valiant pair! but," his small fingers +closed with surprising strength about mine in emphasis of his words, +"but, oh, my honest little woman, you are going to see trouble here!" He +glanced down at the hateful cheap dress I wore, he touched it with the +brim of his hat: "Yes, you will have sore trouble on this score, to say +nothing of other things; but don't let them beat you! When your back is +to the wall, don't give up! but at a last pinch turn to me, Clara Morris, +and if I don't know how to help you out, I know somebody who will! +She——"</p> + +<p>Steps, running steps, were coming down the passageway, then tall, +dead-white with anger, Mr. Daly stood in the doorway. He almost gasped +the words: "What does this mean, sir?" then angrily to me: "Leave the +room at once!"</p> + +<p>Flushing at the tone, I bent my head and moved toward the door, when, +calm and clear, came the words: "Good-night, Miss Morris, please +remember!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly seemed beside himself with anger. "Mr. Gould," he cried (my +heart gave a jump at the name; to save my life I could not help glancing +back at them), "how dare you pass the stage-door? You have no more right +here than has any other stranger! Your conduct, sir——"</p> + +<p>The gray, blazing eyes of the speaker were met by Mr. Gould's, calm, +cold, hard as steel, and his voice, low and level, was saying: "We will +not discuss my conduct here, if you please—your office perhaps," as I +fled down the entry to my own room.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly sent for me at the end of the play to demand my story of the +unexpected meeting. Had I received any note, any message beforehand? Had +we any common acquaintance? What had he said to me—word for word, what +had he said?</p> + +<p>I thought of the gentle voice, the piercing eyes that had grown so kind, +the friendly promise, and somehow I felt it would be scoffed at—I +rebelled. I would only generalize. He had called me an honest girl, had +said the city praised me; but when I got home I told my mother all, who +was greatly surprised, since she had had only the newspaper Gould in her +mind—a sort of human spider, who wove webs—strong webs—that caught and +held his fellow-men.</p> + +<p>His words came true. I saw trouble of many kinds and colors. More than +once I thought of his promise, but I had learned much ill of human nature +in a limited time, and I was afraid of everyone. Knowing much of poor +human nature now, and looking back to that evening, recalling every tone, +every shade of expression, I am forced to believe Mr. Jay Gould was +perfectly honest and sincere in his offer of assistance.</p> + +<p>If this incident seems utterly incredible at first, it is because you are +thinking of Mr. Gould wholly in his character of "The Wizard of Wall +Street;" but turn to the domestic side of the man, think of his undying +love for, his unbroken loyalty and devotion to, the wife of his choice, +who, as mother of his little flock, never ceased to be his sweetheart.</p> + +<p>Is it so improbable, then, that his heart, made tender by love for one +dear woman, sheltered and protected, might feel a throb of pity for +another woman, unsheltered and alone, whose poverty he saw would be a +cruel stumbling-block in her narrow path? I think not.</p> + +<p>Who that "she" was whose aid he would have asked in my behalf I do not +know, can never know; but it always gives me an almost childish pleasure +to imagine it was the sweet, strong woman who was his wife. At all +events, Mr. Gould that night furnished me with a pleasant memory, and +that is a thing to be thankful for.</p> + +<p>The first time I saw Mr. Fisk in the green-room he was surrounded by a +smiling, animated party, and as he advanced a step, expectantly, I +disappeared. I have been told that he laughed at his own disappointment +and the suddenness of some claim upon my attention. The second time, I +was in the room when he entered, and at my swift departure he reddened +visibly, and, after a moment, said: "If you were not all such good +friends of mine, I should think someone had been making a bugaboo of me +to scare that young woman."</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed one of the men, "she's from the West and is a bit wild +yet."</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied, "it doesn't matter where she's from, New York's got +her now and means to keep her. I'd like to offer her a word of welcome +and congratulation, but she won't give a chap any margin," and he resumed +his conversation.</p> + +<p>The third time, he was alone in the room, and as I backed hastily out he +followed me. I ran—so did he—but as that was too ridiculous I stopped +at his call and, turning, faced him. He removed his hat and hurriedly +said: "I beg your pardon for forcing myself upon your attention, Miss +Morris, but any man with a grain of self-respect would demand an +explanation of such treatment as I have received from you. Come now, you +are a brave girl, an honest girl—tell me, please, why you avoid me as if +I were the plague. Why, good Lord! your eyes are all but jumping out of +your head! Are you afraid even to be seen listening to me?" Suddenly he +stopped, his own words had given him an idea. His eyes snapped angrily. +"Well, I'll be blessed!" he exclaimed; then he came closer. He took my +hand and asked: "Miss Morris, have you been putting these slights on me +by order?"</p> + +<p>I was confused, I was frightened; I remembered the anger Mr. Gould's +presence had aroused, and this was an actual breech of orders. I +stammered: "I—oh, I just happened to be busy, you know."</p> + +<p>I glanced anxiously about me; he replied: "Yes, you were very busy +to-night, sitting in the green-room doing nothing—yet you ran as if I +were a leper. Tell me, little woman—don't be afraid—have you been +obeying an order?"</p> + +<p>"If you please—if you please!" was all I could say.</p> + +<p>He looked steadily at me, lifted my hand to his lips, and said, with a +compassionate sigh: "Bread and butter comes high in New York, doesn't it, +child? There, I won't worry you any longer, but Brother Daly and I will +hold a little love-feast over this matter." And with a laugh he returned +to the green-room, where I could hear him singing "Lucy Long" to himself.</p> + +<p>A fortnight later, finding him again surrounded by the company, he +laughingly called out to me: "Don't run away, the embargo is raised. It +won't cost you a cent to shake hands and be friendly!" And as I seated +myself in the place he made beside him, he added, low: "And no advantage +taken of it outside the theatre."</p> + +<p>He used so many queer, old-fashioned words, such as "chipper," +"tuckered," "I swan!" "mean tyke," etc., that I once said to him: "I'm +afraid you have washed your face in a pail by the pump ere this, Mr. +Fisk?"</p> + +<p>He laughed, and responded: "I'm afraid I used to be sent back to do it +better, when I had first to break the ice to get to the water in the +pail, Miss Guesswell!"</p> + +<p>And then he gave a funny imitation of a boy washing his face in icy +water, by wetting his fingers and drawing a circle about each eye and his +mouth. He called his wife Lucy. Heaven knows whether it really was her +name, but he always referred to her as Lucy. He was very fond of her, in +spite of appearances, and proud of her, too. He said to me once: "She is +no hair-lifting beauty, my Lucy, just a plump, wholesome, big-hearted, +commonplace woman, such as a man meets once in a lifetime, say, and then +gathers her into the first church he comes to, and seals her to himself. +For you see these commonplace women, like common-sense, are apt to become +valuable as time goes on!"</p> + +<p>When anyone praised some wife, he would look up and say: "Wife—whose +wife? What wife? Bring your wives along, I ain't afraid to measure my +Lucy with 'em. For, look here, you mustn't judge Lucy by her James!"</p> + +<p>A divorce case was before the courts, and it was much discussed +everywhere. The wife had been jealous and suspicious, and blond hairs +(she was very dark herself) and strange hair-pins held a ludicrous +prominence in the evidence. "Ah!" said Fisk, "that's not the kind of a +wife I have! Never, <i>never</i> does Lucy surprise me with a visit, God bless +her! No, she always telegraphs me when she's coming, and I—I clear up +and have a warm welcome for her, and then she's pleased, and that pleases +me, and we both enjoy our visit. Hang'd if we don't! And just to show you +what a hero—yes, a <i>hero</i>—she is, and, talking of hair-pins, let me +tell you now. You know those confounded crooked ones, with three infernal +crinkles in the middle to keep them from falling out of the hair? Those +English chorus-girls wear them, I'm told. Well, one day Lucy comes to see +me. Oh, she had sent word as usual, and everything was cleared up (I +supposed) as usual, and George, my man, was laying out some clothes for +me, when Lucy, smoothing her hand over the sofa-cushion, picks up and +holds to the light an infernal crinkled hair-pin. George turned white and +looked pleadingly at me. I saw myself in court fighting a divorce like +the devil; and then, after an awful, perspiring silence, my Lucy +says—she that has worn straight pins all her life: 'James, that is a +lazy and careless woman that cares for your rooms. It's three weeks +to-day since I left for home, and here is one of my hair-pins lying on +the sofa ever since!'</p> + +<p>"If she had put it in her hair I should have thought her really deceived +in the matter, but when she dropped it in the fire, I knew she was just a +plain hero! I walked over and knelt down and said: 'Thank you, Lucy,' +while I pretended to tie her shoe. George was so upset that he dropped +the studs twice over he was trying to put into a shirt-front. Oh, I tell +you my Lucy can't be beat!"</p> + +<p>The time he won the name of "Jubilee Jim," when the whole country was +laughing over his triumphant visit to Boston with his regiment, he made +this unsmiling explanation of the matter:</p> + +<p>"You see, the Ninth and I were both tickled over the invitation to visit +Boston, and as there were so many of us I paid the expenses myself. Being +proud of the regiment and anxious it should be acquainted with all real +American institutions, I arranged for it to stay over Sunday, for there +were dozens of the boys who had never even seen a slice of real Boston +brown-bread or a crock-baked bean—and a Boston Sunday breakfast was to +be the educational feature of the visit. Everything was lovely, until the +Ninth suddenly felt a desire to pray, as well as to eat, and I'll be +switched on to a side-track if the minister of that big church didn't +begin to kick like a steer, and finally refuse to let us pray in his +shop. Now, if there's anything that will make a man hot as blazes in a +minute, it's choking him off when he wants to pray. Some sharply pointed +and peppery words were exchanged on the subject. I suppose our numbers +rather muddled up his schedule, but if he'd said so quietly I could have +straightened out his heavenly time-table so that there would have been no +collision between trains of prayer. But no, instead of that, he slams the +doors of his church in our visiting faces, and, in act at least, tells us +to go to—what's that polite word now that means h—? What—what do you +call it <i>sheol</i>? Shucks! that word won't become popular—hasn't got any +snap to it! Well, the boys were mighty blue, they thought the visit was +off. But I got 'em into the armory, and I said, what amounted to this, I +says: 'This visit ain't off; Boston is right as a trivet, and wants us! +We ain't bucking against the city, but against that sanctified stingyike +who don't want anyone in heaven but his own gang; but you see here, when +the Ninth Regiment wants to pray, I'm d——d if it don't do it. Who cares +for that church, anyway, where you'd be crowded like sardines and have +your corns crushed to agony! We'll go to Boston, boys, and we'll praise +the Lord on the Common, if they'll let us, and if they won't, we'll march +out to the suburbs and have a perfect jubilee of prayer!' And what do you +think," he cried, grinning like a mischievous boy, as he twisted the +long, waxed ends of his mustache to needle-like points, "what do you +think—we prayed out of doors, with all female Boston and her attendants +looking on and saying <i>amen</i>; and, oh, by George! I sent a man to see, +and 'stingyike's' church was nearly empty! Ha! ha! I tell you what it is, +when a New York soldier wants to pray, he prays, or something gives!" +After that he was Jubilee Jim.</p> + +<p>His growing stoutness annoyed him greatly, yet he was the first to poke +fun at what he called his "unmilitary figure." One evening I said: "Mr. +Fisk, I'm afraid you have cast too much bread upon the waters; it's said +to be very fattening food when it returns?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I swan!" he answered, "I'll never give another widow a pass over +any road of mine—whether she's black, mixed, or grass, for that's about +all the breadcasting I do."</p> + +<p>This was not true, for he was very kind-hearted and generous, especially +to working people who were in trouble. His "black widow" was one in full +mourning, his "mixed widow" was the poor soul who had only a cheap black +bonnet or a scanty veil topping her ordinary colored clothing to express +her widowed state, while the "grasses" were, in his own words: "All those +women who were not married—but ought to be."</p> + +<p>Whenever he gave a diamond or an India shawl to a French opera-bouffe +singer the world heard of it, and the value grew and grew daily, and that +publicity gratified his strange distorted vanity, but the lines of +widows, sometimes with hungry little flocks hanging at their skirts, that +he passed over roads, the discharged men he "sneaked" (his own word) back +into positions again, because of their suffering brood, he kept silent +about.</p> + +<p>He never got angry at the papers, no matter what absurdity they printed +about him. At the time of the riot some paper declared he had left his +men and had climbed a high board fence in order to escape from danger. In +referring to the article at the theatre one evening, he said, in +reproachful tones: "Now wasn't that a truly stupid lie?" He rose, and +placing his hands where his waist should have been, he went on +mournfully: "Look at me! I look like a sprinter, don't I? If you just +could see me getting into that uniform—no offence, ladies, I don't mean +no harm. Oh, Lord, who has a small grammar about them? Well, when I'm in +the clothes, it takes two men's best efforts, while I hold my breath, to +clasp my belt—and they say I climbed that high fence! Say, I'd give five +thousand dollars down on the nail if I had the waist to do that act +with!"</p> + +<p>He was not only a natural comedian, but he had an instinct for the +dramatic in real life, and he was quick to grasp his opportunity at the +burning of Chicago. <i>His</i> relief train must be rushed through first—<i>he</i> +must beg personally; and then—and then, oh, happy thought! all the city +knew the value he placed upon the beautiful jet black stallion he rode +in the Park. Out, then, he and his stall-mate came—splendid, fiery, +satin-coated aristocrats! And taking their places before a great express +wagon, went prancing and curvetting their way from door to door, Mr. Fisk +stopping wherever a beckoning hand appeared at a window. And bundles of +clothing, boxes of provisions, anything, everything that people would +give, he gathered up with wild haste, and brief, warm thanks, and rushed +to the express offices for proper sorting and packing. Of course that +personal service was not really necessary. A modest man would not have +done it, but he was spectacular. His act pleased the people, too, and +really many were moved to give by it. Their fancy was caught by the +picture of the be-diamonded Jubilee Jim placing himself and his valuable +horses at the service of the terror-stricken, homeless Chicagoans.</p> + +<p>Though he was himself the butt of most of his jokes, he often expressed +his opinions in terms as conclusive and quite as funny as those of his +world-famous reply to the sanctimonious fence-committee, who, claiming +that the laying of his railroad had destroyed the greater part of the old +fence about a country graveyard, demanded that he should replace it with +a new one. Scarcely were the words out of their lips than, swift as a +flash, came the characteristic answer: "What under heaven do you want a +fence round a graveyard for? The poor chaps that are in there can't get +out, and, I'll take my Bible oath, those that are out don't want to get +in! Fence around a graveyard! I guess not; I know a dozen better ways of +spending money than that!"</p> + +<p>I heard much of his generosity on benefit nights, but personally I never +tested it. Before my benefit night arrived, Mr. Edward Stokes had caught +Mr. Fisk on a walled-in staircase, as in a trap, and had shot him down, +and then, in that time of terror and excitement, Jubilee Jim proved that +whatever else he had been called—man of sin, fraud, trickster, clown—he +was <i>not</i> a coward! With wonderful self-control he asked, as the +clothing was being cut from his stricken body: "Is this the end of me; am +I going to die, doctor?"</p> + +<p>And when the man addressed made an evasive and soothing answer, that his +hopeless eyes contradicted, James Fisk testily continued: "I want to know +the truth!" Then, more gently: "I'm not afraid to die, doctor, but <i>I am</i> +afraid of leaving things all at sixes and sevens! This is the end of me, +isn't it? Well, do what you can, and, George, send for —— and +for —— [his lawyers], and I will do what I can. When can Lucy get here?"</p> + +<p>And so he quickly and calmly made all possible use of his ebbing +strength—of the flying moments—disproving at least one charge, that of +cowardice. He was dying, and crowds were waiting about the hotel where he +lay, hungry for any morsel of news from the victim's bedside. That was +the situation as I went to the theatre. I dressed and went through one +act, then, as I came upon the stage in the second act, I faced Mr. Fisk's +private box. I glanced casually at it, and stopped stock-still, the words +dying on my lips. A shiver ran over me—someone had entered the box since +the first act and had lowered the heavy red curtains and drawn them close +together.</p> + +<p>No one could fail to understand. The flood of light, the waves of music +reached to the edge of the box only—within were silence, darkness! The +laughing owner would enter there no more, forever!</p> + +<p>With swelling throat I stood looking up. Another actor entered, saw the +direction of my eyes, followed it, and next moment tears were on his +cheeks. Then people in the house, noticing our distress, glanced in that +same direction, and here and there a man rose and slipped out. Here and +there a handkerchief was pressed to a face, for without a word being +spoken all knew, by the blank, closed box, that Mr. Fisk was dead.</p> + +<p>I never knew a more trying evening for actors, for all knew him +well—liked him and grieved for him. I was the only mere acquaintance, +yet I was deeply moved and found it hard to act as usual before that +mute, blank box—hard as though the body of its one-time owner lay +within.</p> + +<p>So he made his exit—dramatic to the last. A strange character—shrewd, +sharp, vain, ostentatious, loving his diamonds, velvet coats, white +gloves. The monumental silver water-pitchers in his private boxes were +too foul to drink from generally, but then the public could see the mass +of silver. A bit of a mountebank, beyond a question, but with a temper so +sunny and a heart so generous that in spite of all his faults Jubilee Jim +had a host of friends.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-SIXTH"></a>THIRTY-SIXTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">A Search for Tears—I Am Punished in "Saratoga" for the Success of +"Man and Wife"—I Win Mr. Daly's Confidence—We Become Friends.</p></div> + + + +<p>The people who have known happiness without the alloying <i>if</i> or <i>but</i> +are few and far between. "Yes, of course we are happy—but," "I should be +perfectly and completely happy—<i>if</i>," you hear people saying every day; +and so in my case, having been admitted into fellowship with the men and +women of the company, who were a gracious and charming crowd, and +receiving hearty approval each night from the great Public, by whose +favor I and mine existed, I was grateful and would have been quite +happy—<i>but</i> for a brand-new difficulty that suddenly loomed up, large, +and wide, and solid before me.</p> + +<p>Never in my life had I been in a play of a longer run than one week. +Imagine, then, my misery when I found this play, that was already old to +me at the end of the first week, was likely to go on for a long time to +come. It was not mere <i>ennui</i> over the repetition of the same lines, +night after night, that troubled me, it was something far more serious. I +had made my hit with the public by moving the people's feelings to the +point of tears; but to do that I had first to move my own heart, for, try +as I would, no amount of careful acting had the desired effect. <i>I</i> had +to shed tears or <i>they</i> would not. Now that is not an easy thing to do to +order, in cold blood. While the play is new one's nerves are strained +almost to the breaking point—one is over-sensitive and the feelings are +easily moved; then the pathetic words I am speaking touch my heart, tears +rush to my eyes, tears are heard in my voice, and other hearts respond +swiftly; <i>but</i> when you have calmed down, when you have repeated the +lines so often that they no longer mean anything to you, what are you to +do then?</p> + +<p>Really and truly there were days when I was nearly out of my mind with +terror lest I should not be able to cry that night; for those tears of +mine had a commercial value as well as an artistic, and Mr. Daly was +swift to reproach me if the handkerchief display in front was not as +great as usual. This sounds absurd perhaps to a reader, but heaven knows +it was tragic enough to me. I used to agonize all day over the question +of tears for the night, and I have seen the time when even my own +imaginary tomb failed to move me.</p> + +<p>One night, when my eyes were dry as bones, and my voice as hard as stone, +and Mr. Daly was glaring whitely at me from the entrance, I had suddenly +a sort of vision of that dethroned actress whom, back in Cleveland, I had +seen uncrowned. I saw her quivering face, her stricken eyes, and a sudden +rush of tears blinded me. Later, Mr. Daly said: "What a tricky little +wretch you are. I thought you were going to throw that scene away, +without a single tear to-night. I suppose you were doing it to aggravate +me, though?"</p> + +<p>Goodness knows I was grateful enough myself for the tears when they did +come, and I got an idea from that experience that has served me all the +years since. Everything else—love, hate, dignity, passion, vulgarity, +delicacy, duplicity, all, everything can be assumed to order; but, for +myself, tears are not mechanical, they will not come at will. The heart +must be moved, and if the part has lost its power then I must turn to +some outside incident that <i>has</i> power. It may be from a book, it may be +from real life—no matter, if only its recalling starts tears to weary +eyes.</p> + +<p>Thus in "Alixe" it was not for my lost lover I oftenest wept such racing +tears, but for poor old <i>Tennessee's partner</i> as he buried his worthless +dead, with his honest old heart breaking before your eyes. While in +"Camille" many and many a night her tears fell fast over the memory of a +certain mother's face as she told me of the moment when, returning from +the burial of her only child, the first snowflakes began to whirl through +the still, cold air, and she went mad with the anguish of leaving the +little tender body there in the cold and dark, and flung herself from the +moving carriage and ran, screaming, back to the small rough pile of earth +to shelter it with her own living body.</p> + +<p>So there is my receipt for sudden tears. I being—thank heaven—a +cheerful body, and given to frequent laughter, may laugh in peace up to +the last moment, if I have only stowed away some heart-breaking incident +that I can recall at the proper moment. It seems like taking a mean +advantage of a tender heart, I know—what Bret Harte would call "playing +it low down" on it; but what else could I do? I leave it to you. What +could <i>you</i> do to make yourself cry seven times a week, for nine or ten +months a year?</p> + +<p>Then there was another great change in the new life. I was used to +rehearsing every day, and, lo! when once a play was on here, there +followed weeks, perhaps months, when there were no rehearsals. Mercy! I +could never afford to waste all that time; but what could I do? "One +<i>and</i> two <i>and</i> three <i>and</i>," I could not afford; but, oh, <i>if</i> I could +take some French lessons, <i>what</i> a help they would be to me in the proper +pronunciation of names upon the stage. But I did not want lessons from +some ignorant person, or someone who had a strange dialect. I have all my +life had such a horror of <i>unlearning</i> things. I knew a real French +teacher would charge me a real "for-true" price, and my heart was +doubtful—but see how fate was good to me. There was in Tenth Street a +little daughter of a well-known French professor—he taught in a certain +college. The daughter was eager to teach. The father said: "Who will +trust so young a girl to instruct them? If you only had a first and +second pupil, you would be self-supporting. French teachers are in great +demand, but where shall you find that first pupil—tell me that, <i>ma +fille</i>. No matter how small your charge, the question will be, where have +you taught? No one will wish to be the first pupil."</p> + +<p>But, fine old French gentleman as he was, he was mistaken nevertheless, +for I was willing, nay, eager, to be that first pupil, and she found my +name of so much value to her in obtaining a full class that she became +absolutely savage in her fell determination to make me speak her beloved +language correctly. In spite of her eighteen years she looked full +fourteen, and her dignity was a fearful thing to contemplate, until she +had a chocolate-cream in one cheek and a dimple in the other, then +somehow the dignity broke in the middle and the lesson progressed through +much laughter.</p> + +<p>She was not beautiful, but pretty and charming to such an extent that, +within the year, she became Madame, carried her own chocolates, and was +absolutely vicious over irregular verbs. Dear little woman—I remember +her gratefully, and also remember that, later on, I paid just six times +as much per lesson to an elaborate person, well-rouged, who taught me +nothing, lest she might offend me in the act. I know this to be true, +because one day I deliberately mispronounced and let tenses run wild, to +see if she would have the honesty or courage to correct me; but she +looked a trifle surprised, rearranged her bangles, and let it all pass. I +then resigned my position as pupil, that she might give her very +questionable assistance as teacher to some other scholar, shorter of +temper, and more sensitive to rebuke or correction than I was.</p> + +<p>At the theatre I think everyone liked me well enough, save Mr. Daly. He +disliked me because I simply could not learn to treat him with reverence. +I had the greatest admiration for him, I showed him respect by obeying +him implicitly, but if he was funny I laughed, if he gave me an +opportunity to twist his words absurdly I accepted it as gleefully as if +he had been the gas-man.</p> + +<p>But two things happened, and lo! my manager's attitude toward me changed +completely. Mr. Daly was convinced that no man or woman could bear +decently a sudden success. He was positive that no head could stand it. +When I made no demand for my promised increase of salary, but went +pinching along as best I could, he only said to himself: "She will be all +the worse when her head does begin to turn."</p> + +<p>One day a certain newspaper man looked in at his office, and said: "Oh, I +have something here about the play, and I've given a few pretty good +lines to your <i>find</i> (Clara Morris): do you want to look at them?"</p> + +<p>"I want them cut out!" sharply ordered Mr. Daly.</p> + +<p>"Cut out?" repeated the surprised man. "Why, she's the play—or mighty +near it. I thought you'd want her spoken of most particularly?"</p> + +<p>And then Mr. Daly made his famous speech: "I don't want individual +successes, sir, in my theatre! I want my company kept at a level. I put +them all in a line, and then I watch, and if one head begins to bob up +above the others, I give it a crack and send it down again!"</p> + +<p>I had heard that story in several forms, when one day I spoke of it to +Mr. Daly, and he calmly acknowledged the speech, as I have given it +above, adding the words: "And next week I'm going to give Mr. Crisp's +head a crack, he's bobbing up, I see!"</p> + +<p>The play of "Saratoga," by Mr. Bronson Howard, had been read to the +company, and, after the custom of actors the world over, they began to +cast the characters themselves—such a part for Lewis, such a one for +Miss Davenport. The splendid Irish part for Amy Ames (of course, with her +wonderful brogue), etc.; almost everyone remarking that there was nothing +for me. Lewis said: "Well, Clara, you're out of this play, sure. Will you +study Greek or the Rogue's Vocabulary? for I'll wager a hat to a hair-pin +you'll be turning a good head of hair gray over some nonsense of the +kind—good Lord!"</p> + +<p>For M. Bènot was holding toward me a thin little part, saying: "For you, +Miss Morris."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly stood at the far end of the room; he was watching me. The part +was a walking lady of second quality. It was an indignity to give it to +me. Like lightning I recalled the terms of my contract—I realized my +helplessness.</p> + +<p>I rolled up the small part, calmly rose, and smiling a comprehending +smile into Mr. Daly's disappointed eyes, for which he could have choked +me, I sauntered out of the room. At home I wept bitterly. It was +undeserved! I had borne so much from gratitude, and here I was being +treated just as a fractious, brain-turned, presuming person might have +been treated for a punishment. However, my tears were only seen at home. +At the theatre I rehearsed faithfully and good-temperedly, and writhed +smilingly at the expressions of surprise over the cast, and for one +hundred nights I was thus made to do penance for having made a success in +"Man and Wife." Truly I had got a good "crack" for bobbing up; still my +patient, uncomplaining acceptance of the part had made an impression on +Mr. Daly, and he often expressed his regret, later on, for the error he +made as to the possible turning of my head.</p> + +<p>Then came the second happening. To Mr. Daly a confidant was an absolute +necessity of existence. If they had tastes in common, so much the happier +for Mr. Daly, but such tastes were not imperatively demanded, neither was +sex of importance—male or female would answer; but the one great, +indispensable, and essential quality was the ability to respect a +confidence, the power to hold a tongue.</p> + +<p>In the early weeks of the season he had been drifting into a friendship +with a man in the company, and had told him, in strictest confidence, of +a certain plan he was forming, and twenty-four hours later he heard that +plan being discussed in one of the dressing-rooms. It had traveled by way +of husband to wife, wife to friend, friend to her husband, and husband +No. 2 was busy in explaining it to all and sundry.</p> + +<p>That ended the career of one gentleman as friend and confidant to Mr. +Daly. One day after rehearsal I was detained on the stage to discuss a +fashion-plate he was tearing from a magazine. A short poem caught his +eye. He glanced at it carelessly, then looked more closely at the lines, +and began to mumble the words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0"> +"She of the silver foot—fair goddess—" +</span></div> + +<p>His brows were knit, his eyes looked away, dreamily. Again he repeated +the words, adding, impatiently: "I can't place that silver foot—the bow, +the lyre, yes; but the foot? Oh, probably it's a mere figure of speech," +and he turned to the plate again, when I said: "Perhaps it means +<i>Thetis</i>, you know, silver-footed queen—daughter of old sea-god."</p> + +<p>His whole face lit up with pleasure. "That's it," he said, "that's whom +it means; but are you sure the word 'queen' belongs right there?"</p> + +<p>"No," I laughed, "I have grave doubts about my 'queen,' but I'm solid as +a rock on the rest of the line."</p> + +<p>Then he repeated, with lingering enjoyment: "'Thetis, silver-footed, +<i>silver-footed</i>, daughter of old sea-god.' Do you know I often wonder why +someone does not make a play of mythological characters—a play after the +modern method I mean."</p> + +<p>"Oh," I broke in, "then I shall have a rest, for I am not beautiful +enough for even a walking-lady divinity."</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said, kindly, "you are not going to do any more walking +ladies—divine or human. I have already in my possession a play with a +great part for you. Boucicault wrote it, and——"</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly, all the brightness went out of his face. He played +nervously with his watch-guard. He started out with: "Miss Morris, I +wish—" stopped, frowned; then impatiently took up the picture-plate, +pointed out which dress he wanted me to wear, and curtly dismissed me.</p> + +<p>I understood him perfectly. In a genial moment he had unintentionally +given me some information which he now regretted, though he would not +stoop to ask my silence; and he felt sure that I would at once boast of +the great part that was to be mine; and I went home, one broad smile of +malicious satisfaction, for in spite of my seemingly-careless speech, I +had, by long and careful training, acquired the fine art of holding my +tongue about other people's affairs, even though I ascended to the roof +to babble to the city of my own; and Mr. Daly would be again +disappointed, as he had been the day I accepted, without protest, the +walking-lady part.</p> + +<p>That night he barely nodded in silent recognition of my "Good-evening, +sir." Next morning he kept his eyes averted from me when he gave me any +stage directions; but whenever or wherever we women formed a little group +to chat, there Mr. Daly, like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly sprang into +evidence. It was very funny—he was simply waiting for me to repeat my +interesting information.</p> + +<p>Two, three days passed, then a certain kindness began to show in his +manner toward me. Quite suddenly, and of course unasked, he gave me a +dressing-room to myself. I was delighted! Hesitatingly, I tapped at the +door of his office. I had never stood there before, save by order. I +said: "I will not come in, Mr. Daly, I only wished to thank you for the +room you have given me. It will be a great comfort, for we are terribly +crowded in the other one."</p> + +<p>But he rose, took my hand, and said: "You deserve anything and everything +this theatre can provide for you." Drawing me to a chair, he placed me in +it, while still speaking: "And I am proud of you. You are a girl in ten +thousand! For you can respect a confidence."</p> + +<p>I was very much embarrassed by such unexpected warmth, and laughing +nervously I said: "Even when the confidence was unintentional and deeply +regretted?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he answered, "you saw that, did you? Well, I've been listening and +waiting to hear about the 'new play' ever since, but not a word have you +dropped, and I did not ask for silence either. You are a woman worth +talking to, and I shall never be afraid to tell you things I am going to +do, and——"</p> + +<p>And straightway he told me all about the new play—its good points, its +bad ones, and where he feared for it; and to show you how true was his +judgment, the play, which later on gave me a great personal success, was +itself a failure from the very causes he then indicated.</p> + +<p>And so it came about that Mr. Daly, putting aside his dislike for +me—coming to enjoy my sense of the ridiculous, instead of resenting +it—confided many, many plans and dreams, likes and dislikes, hates and +loves to me. We quarreled spitefully over politics, fought furiously over +religion, wickedly bowed down and worshipped before odds and ends of +lovely carvings or precious <i>cloisonné</i>, to whose beauty I first +introduced him, and hung in mutual rapture over rare old engravings.</p> + +<p>Thus I came to know him fairly well. A man with unbounded ambition, a man +of fine and delicate tastes, with a passionate love of beauty—in form, +color, sound. I have known him to turn a sentence, exquisitely, word by +word, slowly repeating the line, as though he were tasting its beauty, as +well as hearing it. Interested in the occult and the inscrutable—a man +of many tastes, but of one <i>single purpose</i>—every power and acquirement +were brought to the service of the stage.</p> + +<p>In love he was mutability personified. In friendship, always exigent. Now +sullenly silent, now rapidly talkative, whimsical, changeable, he was +ever lavishly generous and warm-hearted. And it is a comfort to know that +in one respect at least I proved satisfactory during the friendship that +lasted as long as I remained in the theatre, since I never, even by +chance, betrayed his confidence.</p> + +<p>When we had finally parted, a man one day mentioned me to Mr. Daly, +expecting to bring forth some disparaging remark. There was a pause while +my former manager gazed out at the heavily falling rain, then he said, +quietly: "When you drop a thing in a well, it can go no further. Clara +Morris is a sort of human well, what you confide to her goes no further. +Some people call that 'discretion,' I call it loyalty. I—I guess you'll +get a wetting on the way home." And acting on that hint the surprised +gentleman withdrew. He told me himself of the occurrence, and I confess +that Mr. Daly's words gave me a thrill of pleasure.</p> + +<p>After those two occurrences I found my theatrical life pleasanter, for I +love my kind and wish to live at peace with them—and Mr. Daly's dislike +had disturbed and distressed me; therefore, when that had been conquered, +great was my contentment. A sympathetic word, a comprehending glance, a +friendly smile, proving ample indemnification for former injuries.</p> + +<p>Nor could I be made to accept at full value the cruel gibes, the bitter +sarcasms reported to me as coming from Miss Agnes Ethel. For some reason +there was a distinct effort made to arouse in me an enmity against that +lady. Unpleasant stories had been repeated to me during the run of "Man +and Wife"; some of them had wounded me, but I had only listened silently. +Then one night I met her—a slender, auburn-haired, appealing creature, +with clinging fingers, sympathetic voice, and honest eyes—a woman whose +charming and cordial manner not only won my admiration, but convinced me +she was incapable of the brutalities charged to her.</p> + +<p>So when "Jezebel" was announced, and it was known that Mr. Daly desired +Miss Ethel and me both to appear in it, great interest was aroused, only +to be crushed by Miss Ethel's refusal to play the part allotted to her. I +think she was in error, for the two parts were perfectly balanced. Mine +was the wicked, even murderous adventuress; hers the gentle, sweet, and +triumphant wife. I had the first act; she was not in that, but Mr. +Daly's idea was that her victory in the last act—where I was simply +pulverized for my sins—evened things up. But Miss Ethel listened to the +advice of outside friends. Her relations with Mr. Daly were already +strained, and her second refusal of a part was the beginning of the end.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly himself informed me that she said her part was secondary, but +that the real difficulty sprang from an earlier wrangle between them, +with which I had nothing to do. Yet there were persons who, with great +indignation, informed me that Miss Ethel had positively "refused to +appear upon the stage in any play with me—a mere vulgar outsider!"</p> + +<p>But "vulgar outsider" was just a touch too strong; "malice had o'erleaped +self" and fallen on the other side. The silly story even reached some of +the papers, but that did not increase my belief in its truth.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly and Miss Ethel parted company before, or at, the end of the +season, and while I never worked with her, later on I privately received +such gracious courtesies from her kindly hands that the name of Agnes +Ethel must ever ring pleasantly in my ears.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-SEVENTH"></a>THIRTY-SEVENTH</span></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">A Study of Stage-Management—I Am Tricked into Signing a New Contract.</p></div> + + + + +<p>Before I came under the management of Mr. Daly, I may say I never really +knew what stage-management meant. He was a young man then; he had had, I +believe, his own theatre but one season before I joined his forces, yet +his judgment was as ripe, his decisions were as swift and sure, his eye +for effect was as true, his dramatic instinct as keen as well could be.</p> + +<p>We never exchanged so much as a frown, let alone a hasty word, over work. +I realized that he had the entire play before his "mind's eye," and when +he told me to do a thing, I should have done it, even had I not +understood why he wished it done. But he always gave a reason for things, +and that made it easy to work under him.</p> + +<p>His attention to tiny details amazed me. One morning, after Mr. Crisp had +joined the company, he had to play a love-scene with me, and the +"business" of the scene required him to hold me some time in his embrace. +But Mr. Crisp's embrace did not suit Mr. Daly—no more did mine. Out he +went, in front, and looked at us.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he cried, "confound it! Miss Morris, relax—relax! lean on him—he +won't break! That's better—but lean more! lean as if you needed support! +What? Yes, I know you don't need it—but you're in love, don't you see? +and you're not a lady by a mile or two! For God's sake, Crisp, don't be +so stiff and inflexible! Here, let me show you!"</p> + +<p>Up Mr. Daly rushed on to the stage, and taking Crisp's place, convulsed +the company with his effort at acting the lover. Then back again to the +front, ordering us to try that embrace again.</p> + +<p>"That's better!" he cried; "but hold her hand closer, tighter! not quite +so high—oh, that's too low! Don't poke your arm out, you're not going to +waltz. What in —— are you scratching her back for?"</p> + +<p>It was too much; in spite of the awe in which Mr. Daly was held, +everyone, Crisp included, screamed with laughter, while Mr. Daly fumed +and fretted over the time that was being wasted.</p> + +<p>One of my early experiences of his way of directing a rehearsal made a +deep impression upon me. In the play of "Jezebel" I had the title part. +There were a number of characters on in the scene, and Mr. Daly wanted to +get me across the stage, so that I should be out of hearing distance of +two of the gentlemen. Now, in the old days, the stage-director would +simply have said: "Cross to the Right," and you would have crossed +because he told you to; but in Mr. Daly's day you had to have a <i>reason</i> +for crossing the drawing-room, and so getting out of the two gentlemen's +way—and a reason could not be found.</p> + +<p>Here are a few of the many rejected ideas: There was no guest for me to +cross to in welcoming pantomime; no piano on that side of the room for me +to cross to and play on softly; ah, the fireplace! and the pretty warming +of one foot? But no, it was summer-time, that would not do. The ancient +fancy-work, perhaps? No, she was a human panther, utterly incapable of so +domestic an occupation. The fan forgotten on the mantel-piece? Ah, yes, +that was it! you cross the room for that—and then suddenly I reminded +Mr. Daly that he had, but a moment before, made a point of having me +strike a gentleman sharply on the cheek with my fan.</p> + +<p>"Oh, confound it, yes!" he answered, "and that's got to stand—that blow +is good!"</p> + +<p>The old, old device of attendance upon the lamp was suggested; but the +hour of the day was plainly given by one of the characters as three +o'clock in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>These six are but few of the many rejected reasons for that one cross of +the stage; still Mr. Daly would not permit a motiveless action, and we +came to a momentary standstill. Very doubtfully, I remarked: "I suppose a +smelling-bottle would not be important enough to cross the room for?"</p> + +<p>He brightened quickly—clouded over even more quickly: "Y-e-e-s! N-o-o! +at least, not if it had never appeared before. But let me see—Miss +Morris, you must carry that smelling-bottle in the preceding scene, +and—and, yes, I'll just put in a line in your part, making you ask some +one to hand it to you—that will nail attention to it, you see! Then in +this scene, when you leave these people and cross the room to get your +smelling-bottle from the mantel, it will be a perfectly natural action on +your part, and will give the men their chance of explanation and +warning." And at last we were free to move on to other things.</p> + +<p>Above all was he eager to have his stage present a home-like interior. +Never shall I forget my amazement when I first saw a piece of furniture +occupying the very centre of the stage, while I with others were reduced +to acting in any scrap of room we could "scrooge" into, as children say.</p> + +<p>Long trains were fashionable then, and it was no uncommon sight to see +the lover standing with both feet firmly planted upon his lady's train +while he implored her to fly with him—the poor man had to stand +somewhere! Miss Davenport, in one of her comedy scenes, having to move +about a good deal on the crowded stage, finally wound her trailing skirts +so completely about a chair that, at her exit, the chair went with her, +causing a great laugh.</p> + +<p>One night a male character, having to say boastfully to me: "I have my +hand upon a fortune!" I added in an undertone: "And both feet upon my +white satin dress!" at which he lost his grip (as the boys say) and +laughed aloud—said laugh costing him a forfeit of fifty cents, which +really should have been paid by me, as I was the guilty cause of that +disastrous effect. But the gentleman was not only gallant but well used +to being forfeited, and unconcernedly paid the penalty exacted.</p> + +<p>But really it was very distressing trying to make your way between pieces +of furniture—stopping to release your skirts from first one thing and +then another, and often destroying all the effect of your words by such +action. One evening I petulantly observed to Mr. Daly: "I see now why one +is only <i>woolly</i> in the West—in the East one gets the wool all rubbed +off on unnecessary pedestals and centre-divans."</p> + +<p>He laughed first, then pulled up sharply, saying: "Perhaps you did not +notice that your comment contained a criticism of my judgment, Miss +Morris? If I think the furniture necessary, that is sufficient," and I +gave him a military salute and ran down-stairs. At the foot Mr. George +Brown and one of the pretty young women stood. She was saying: "Now if +any of <i>us</i> had said there was too much crowding from that rubbishy old +furniture, he would have made us pay a nice forfeit for it, but Miss +Morris gets off scot-free!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," said Mr. Brown, "but then she amused him first with the +idea of rubbing the Western wool off here, and you can't very well laugh +and then turn around and forfeit the person who made you do it."</p> + +<p>And so I learned that if no detail was too small for Mr. Daly to consider +carefully in his preparation of a play, so no detail of daily life in his +theatre was too small for notice, consideration, and comment, and I +resolved to try hard to curb my careless speech, lest it get me into +trouble.</p> + +<p>Early during that first week my friend, John Norton, said to me: "Have +you spoken to Mr. Daly about your salary yet?"</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, no!" I answered.</p> + +<p>"Well, but you should," he persisted; "that is only business. You have +made a great hit; he promised you to double thirty-five dollars if you +made a favorable impression."</p> + +<p>"Well," I cried, "wait till salary-day, and very likely I'll get it; he +will keep his word, only, for mercy's sake, give him a chance! It would +insult him were I to remind him, now, of his promise."</p> + +<p>I was content to wait, but Mr. Norton was anxious. Monday came and, +tremblingly, I opened my envelope to find thirty-five dollars—no more, +no less. I knew what anyone else would do, I knew I was valuable to Mr. +Daly, but, oh, those years and years of repression—for so long a time +<i>to be seen—not heard</i>, had been the law of my weary life, and now the +old thrall was upon me, I simply could not demand my right.</p> + +<p>The tears fell fast as I went home, with that miserable wage in my hand. +We were in such dreadful straits for clothing. Other needs we could hide, +but not the need of outer garments. I was quite sick with disappointment +and anxiety, yet I would not permit Mr. Norton to go and speak for me, as +that would mean gossip as to his right to interfere.</p> + +<p>I used to plan out exactly what I was going to say, and start a little +earlier to the theatre, that I might have time to see Mr. Daly and remind +him of his promise, and then, when I got there, unconquerable shame +overcame me—I <i>could</i> not!</p> + +<p>Then one night Mr. Daly asked me to sign a contract for five years, with +a certain rise in salary each year. I utterly refused. I knew that would +mean absolute bondage. He said he would raise my salary now, if I would +sign; and I did actually whisper, that he had not kept his promise about +this year's salary.</p> + +<p>He curtly answered: "Never mind this year—sign for five, and this season +will then take care of itself!"</p> + +<p>"No," I said, and yet again "No!" "Mr. Daly," I cried, "I shall be +grateful to you all the days of my life for giving me this chance in New +York—you are treating me badly, but I am grateful enough not to rebel. I +will play for you every season of my life, if you want me; I will never +consider an offer without first telling you of it, but you must engage me +but for one season at a time."</p> + +<p>"Then you can go!" he said. "All my people are engaged from three to five +years—I will not break my rule for anyone; so now you can choose!"</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," I answered, huskily, "you chose for me when you told me to +go!" I bowed to him and went out, sore at heart and deeply wounded, for I +was keeping silent as to his broken promise out of sheer gratitude for +the opening he had given me.</p> + +<p>The letter-box for the company hung near his private office. One night, +as he unlocked his door, he saw old man Keating (the stage-door man) +sorting out letters for the various boxes. One caught Mr. Daly's eye, +bearing the name of Wallack. He took it from Keating's hand; it was +addressed to Clara Morris. No one ever called Mr. Daly a dull man, and +when he put two and two together, even in a hurry, he knew quite well +that the result would be four; and when he put the words, "Wallack's +Theatre," and the address, "Clara Morris," together he knew equally well +the result would be an offered engagement. Then Mr. Daly put back the +letter and said sharply to the reverent Keating: "Whatever you do, don't +let Miss Morris pass you when she comes in. Stop her before she takes her +key. Remember, whether early or late, stop her anyway, and send her to my +room. Tell her it is urgent—you understand? Before she gets her key (by +the letter-box) I <i>must</i> see her!"</p> + +<p>Yes, he understood, for when I came in I was switched away from the +key-board in a jiffy and rushed by the elbow to the governor's office, +and even held there until the summons to enter answered the knock of the +determined and obedient Keating.</p> + +<p>Inside, Mr. Daly, smiling benignly, greeted me as one greets a naughty, +spoiled child, and pulling me by my fingers toward his desk, showed me a +contract outspread: "A contract for <i>one</i> season," he said, giving me a +light tap on my ear. "Though you must promise silence on the subject, for +there would be an outcry of favoritism if it were known that I broke a +rule for you! Salary? oh, the salary is only fifty-five dollars, but we +will balance that by my assistance in the matter of wardrobe. Whenever +you have five dresses to buy I will provide three, which will belong to +me afterward, of course—and—and just sign now, for I'm in a great +haste, child, as I have an appointment to keep! Oh, you don't want any +time to think over an engagement of just one season! You obstinate little +block! and, by the way, I'll add five dollars a week to your present +salary for the rest of the season, if you sign this—yes, that's the +right place!"</p> + +<p>So pinched, so tormented were we for money that I signed instantly to +secure that immediate poor little five dollars a week rise! Signed and +went out to find, awaiting me in the letter-box, a better offer from Mr. +Lester Wallack.</p> + +<p>And let me say right here that about the middle of the season I found +that some young actresses, who handed me cards on the stage, and in laced +caps and aprons appeared as maids in my service, were receiving for their +arduous duties a higher salary than I received as leading woman and their +play-mistress. "It's a strange world, my masters, a very strange world!"</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-EIGHTH"></a>THIRTY-EIGHTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Go to the Sea-shore—The Search for a +"Scar"—I Make a Study of Insanity, and Meet with Success in "L'Article 47."</p></div> + + + + +<p>I had got safely through my first dreaded vacation. I had had two +wonderful weeks at the seaside, where, with Mr. and Mrs. James Lewis and +George Parkes, I had boarded with Mrs. By Baker, whom we left firmly +convinced of our general insanity—harmless, but quite hopeless cases she +thought us. Awed into reverent silence I had taken my first long look at +the ocean; that mighty monster, object of my day-dreams all the years, +lay that day outstretched, smiling, dimpling, blinking like the babe of +giants, basking in the sun.</p> + +<p>I had inhaled with delight the briny coolness of its breath, and with my +friends had engaged in wild romps in its waves, all of us arrayed +meanwhile in bathing dresses of hideous aspect, made from gray flannel of +penitential color and scratchiness, and most malignant modesty of cut; +which were yet the eminently proper thing at that time.</p> + +<p>I almost wonder, looking at the bathing dresses of to-day, that old +Ocean, who is a lover of beauty, did not dash the breath out of us, and +then fling us high and dry on the beach, where the sands might quickly +drift over our ugly shells and hide them from view.</p> + +<p>All this happened, and much more, before I came to the play "L'Article +47," famous for its great French court scene, and for the madness of its +heroine. I am so utterly lacking in self-confidence that it was little +short of cruelty for Mr. Daly to tell me, as he did, that the fate of the +play hung upon that single scene; that the production would be expensive +and troublesome, and its success or failure lay absolutely in my hands.</p> + +<p>I turned white as chalk, with sheer fright, and could scarcely force +myself to speak audibly, when asked if I could do the part.</p> + +<p>I answered, slowly, that I thought it unfair for Mr. Daly first to reduce +me to a state of imbecility, through fear, and then ask me to make a +close study of violent madness—since the two conditions were generally +reversed.</p> + +<p>The people laughed, but there was no responsive smile on my lips, as I +entered upon a period of mental misery that only ended with the +triumphant first night.</p> + +<p>I did all I could do to get at <i>Cora's</i> character and standing before the +dread catastrophe—feeling that her madness must to some extent be tinged +by past habits and personal peculiarities. I got a copy of the French +novel—that was not an affectation, but a necessity, as it had not then +been translated, and I was greatly impressed with the minute description +of the destruction done by the bullet <i>George</i> had fired into her face. +Portions of the jaw-bone had been shot away; the eye, much injured, had +barely been saved, but it was drawn and distorted.</p> + +<p>As the woman's beauty had been her letter of introduction to the gilded +world, indeed had been her sole capital, that "scar" became of tremendous +value in the make-up of the part, since it would explain, and in some +scant measure excuse, her revengeful actions.</p> + +<p>Still, as the play was done in Paris, the "scar" was almost ignored by +that brilliant actress, Madame Rousseil. I had her photograph in the part +of <i>Cora</i>, and while she had a drapery passed low beneath her jaws to +indicate some injury to her neck or breast, her face was absolutely +unblemished.</p> + +<p>To my mind that weakened <i>Cora's</i> case greatly—she had so much less to +resent, to brood over.</p> + +<p>I took my trouble to Mr. Daly, after I had been out to the mad-house at +Blackwell's Island, and had gained some useful information from that +awful aggregation of human woe. He listened to Bèlot's description of +<i>Cora's</i> beauty and its wrecking "scar"; he looked condemningly at the +Rousseil picture, and then asked me what I wanted to do.</p> + +<p>I told him I wanted a dreadful scar—then I wanted to veil it always; and +he broke in with, "Then why have the scar, if it is to be veiled?"</p> + +<p>But I hurried on: "My constant care to keep it covered will make people +imagine it a hundred times worse than it really is. Then when the veil is +torn off by main force, and they catch a glimpse of the horror, they will +not wonder that her already-tottering brain should give way under such a +blow to her vanity."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly studied over the matter silently for a few moments, then he +said: "Yes, you are right. That scar is a great factor in the play; go +ahead, and make as much of it as you can."</p> + +<p>But right there I came up against an obstacle. I was not good at even an +eccentric make-up. I did not know how to proceed to represent such a +scar, as I had in my mind.</p> + +<p>"Try," said Mr. Daly. I tried, and with tear-reddened eyes announced my +failure, but I said: "I shall ask Mr. Lemoyne to help me—he is the +cleverest and most artistic maker-up of faces I ever saw."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Daly, "get him to try it after rehearsal; you have no +time to lose now!"</p> + +<p>Only too well I knew that; so at once I approached Mr. Lemoyne, and made +my wants known. I had not the slightest hesitation in doing so, because, +in spite of his sinful delight in playing jokes on me, he was the +kindest, most warm-hearted of comrades; and true to that character he at +once placed his services at my disposal, though he shook his head very +doubtfully over the undertaking.</p> + +<p>"You know I never saw a scar of such a nature in my life," he said, as he +lighted up his dressing-room.</p> + +<p>"Oh," I said, "you, who can change your nose or your mouth or your eyes +at will, can make an ugly scar, easily enough," and off went hat and +veil, and Mr. Lemoyne, using my countenance for his canvas, began work.</p> + +<p>He grew more and more glum as he wiped off and repainted. One scar was +too small—oh, much too small. Then the shattered jaw-bone was described. +Again he tried. "Clara," he said, "I can't do it, because I don't know +what I am aiming at!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, go on!" I pleaded, "make a hideous scar, then I'll learn how from +you, and do it myself."</p> + +<p>He was patience and kindness personified, but when at last he said he +could do no more, I looked in the glass, and—well, we both laughed +aloud, in spite of our chagrin. He said: "It looks as though some +street-boy had given you a swat in the eye with a chunk of mud."</p> + +<p>I mournfully washed it off and begged him to try just once +more—to-morrow; and he promised with a doleful air.</p> + +<p>I had tears in my eyes as I left the theatre, I was so horribly cast +down, for if Mr. Lemoyne could not make up that scar no one could. But he +used too much black—that was a grave mistake, and—oh, dear! <i>now</i> what? +Men were peeling up the stone walk. I could not go home by the Sixth +Avenue car as usual, without a lot of bother and muddy shoes. I was just +tired enough from rehearsal and disappointed enough to be irritated by +the tiniest <i>contretemps</i>, and I almost whimpered, as I turned the other +way and took a Broadway car. I dropped into a corner. Three men were on +my side of the car. I glanced casually at them, and, "Goodness mercy!" +said I to myself, "what are they gazing at—they look fairly frightened?"</p> + +<p>I followed the direction of their eyes, and, I gasped! I felt goose-flesh +creeping up my arms! On the opposite side sat a large and handsome +mulatto woman, a small basket of white linen was on her knees, her face +was turned toward the driver, and oh, good God! not so long ago, her +throat had been cut almost from ear to ear!</p> + +<p>The scar was hideous—sickening, it made one feel faint and frightened, +but I held my quivering nerves with an iron hand—here was my scar for +<i>Cora</i>! I must study it while I could. It had not been well cared for, I +imagine, for the edges of the awful gash were puckered, as though a +gathering thread held them. There was a queer, cord-like welt that looked +white, while the flesh either side was red and threatening; and then, as +if she felt my eyes, the woman turned and faced me. A dull color rose +slowly over her mutilated throat and handsome face, and she felt hastily +for a kerchief, which was pinned at the back of her dress-collar, and +drew the ends forward and tied them.</p> + +<p>I kept my eyes averted after that, but when I left the car weariness was +forgotten. I stopped at a druggist's shop, bought sticking-plaster, +gold-beaters' skin, and absorbent cotton, and with springy steps reached +home, materials in hand, model in memory—I was content, I had found my +scar at last!</p> + +<p>If you are about to accuse me of hardness of heart in using, to my own +advantage, this poor woman's misfortune, don't, or at least wait a moment +first.</p> + +<p>When I had gone through the asylum's wards and the doctor had called my +attention to this or that exceptional case and had tried to make clear +<i>cause</i> and <i>effect</i>; when I had noted ophidian's stealth in one and +tigerish ferocity in another, I suddenly realized that to single one of +these unfortunates out, then to go before an indifferent crowd of people +and present to them a close copy of the helpless afflicted one, would be +an act of atrocious cruelty. I could not do it! I would instead seize +upon some of the general symptoms, common to all mad people, and build up +a mad-scene with their aid, thus avoiding a cruel imitation of one of +God's afflicted.</p> + +<p>So in this scar I was not going exactly to copy that riven throat, but, +with slender rolls of cotton, covered and held by gold-beaters' skin, I +was going to create dull white welts with angry red spaces painted +between—with strong sticking-plaster attached to my eyelid, I was going +to draw it from its natural position. Oh, I should have a rare scar! yet +that poor woman might herself see it without suspecting she had given me +the idea.</p> + +<p>Oh, what a time of misery it was, the preparation of that play! Poor Mr. +Daly—and poor, poor Miss Morris!</p> + +<p>You see everything hung upon the mad-scene. Yet, when we came to that, I +simply stood still and spoke the broken, disjointed words.</p> + +<p>"But what are you going to do at night?" Mr. Daly cried. "Act your scene, +Miss Morris."</p> + +<p>Act it, in cold blood, there, in the gray, lifeless daylight? with a +circle of grinning, sardonic faces, ready to be vastly amused over my +efforts? He might better have asked me to deliver a polished address in +beautiful, pellucid Greek, to compose at command a charming little +<i>rondeau</i> in sparkling French, or a prayer in sonorous Latin—they would +have been easier for me to do, than to gibber, to laugh, to screech, to +whisper, whimper, rave, to crouch, crawl, stride, fall to order in +street-clothes, and always with those fiendish "guyers" ready to assist +in my undoing. Yet, poor Mr. Daly, too! I was sorry for him, he had so +much at stake. It <i>was</i> asking a good deal of him to trust his fate +entirely, blindly to me.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I said, "I would if I could—do please believe me! I want to do as +you wish me to, but, dear Mr. Daly, I can't, my blood is cold in +daylight, I am ashamed, constrained! I cannot act then!"</p> + +<p>"Well, give me some <i>faint</i> idea of what you are going to do," he cried, +impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Dear goodness!" I groaned, "I am going to try to do all sorts of +things—loud and quiet, fast and slow, close-eyed cunning, wide-eyed +terror! There, that's all I can tell about it!" and I burst into harassed +tears.</p> + +<p>He said never another word, but I used to feel dreadfully when, at +rehearsals, he would rise and leave the stage as soon as we reached the +mad-scene.</p> + +<p>Then it happened we could not produce the play on Monday. An old comedy +was put on for that one night. I was not in it, and Mr. Daly, seeing how +near I was to the breaking-point with hard work and terror, tried to give +me a bit of pleasure. He got tickets for my mother and me, and sent us to +the opera to hear Parepa and Wachtel. I was radiant with delight; but, +alas, when did I ever have such high spirits without a swift dampening +down. Elaborately dressed as to hair, all the rest of my little best was +singularly plain for the opera. Still I was happy enough and greatly +excited over our promised treat.</p> + +<p>Mother and I set out to go to Miss Linda Dietz's home, where we were to +pick her up, and, under escort of her brother, go over to the Academy of +Music. We could not afford a carriage, so we had to take one of the +'busses then in existence. Mr. Daly had sent me, with my box tickets, a +pair of white gloves, and with extreme carefulness I placed them in my +pocket, drawing on an old pair to wear down to Fifteenth Street, where I +would don the new ones at Miss Dietz's house. How I blessed my +fore-thought later on!</p> + +<p>Long skirts were worn, so were bustles. A man in the omnibus was in +liquor; he sat opposite me, right by the door. I signaled to stop. Mother +passed out before me—I descended. The man's feet were on my dress-skirt. +I tried to pull it free—he stupidly pulled in the door. The 'bus +started—I was flung to the pavement!</p> + +<p>I threw my head back violently to save my face from the cobbles, my hands +and one knee were beating the cruel stones. Mother screamed to the +driver, a gentleman sprang to the horses, stopped them, picked me up, and +even then had to thrust the drunken man's feet from my torn flounce. I +had faintly whispered: "My glass—my fan!" and the gentleman, placing me +in mother's arms, went out into the street and found them for me. I sat +on a bench in the Park: I was shaken and bruised and torn and muddy, but +I would not go home—not I, I was going to hear Parepa and Wachtel!</p> + +<p>The gentleman simply would not leave us; he gave me his arm to Miss +Dietz's house, and I needed its aid, for each moment proved I was worse +hurt than I had at first thought. There, however, when with my heartiest +thanks we parted from our good Samaritan, the Dietz family, with dismayed +faces, received us. They were kindness personified. I was sponged and +arnicaed and plastered and sewed and brushed, and at last my ankle's hurt +being acknowledged, it was tightly bound. The new white gloves safely +came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set +forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the +crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight +over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome +fan—applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten—saw me close my eyes. +She thought it was the pain of my ankle, but it was a sudden memory of +<i>Cora</i> and the mad-scene. As the whirlwind of applause roared about me, I +sickened with a mortal terror of the ordeal awaiting me. I hope I may +always thrust Satan behind me with the whole-hearted force I used in +thrusting "L'Article 47" behind me on that occasion. I returned to "Il +Trovatore." I enjoyed each liquid jewel of a note, helped to raise the +roof, afterward declined supper, hastened home, romped my dog, and put +her to bed. Got into a dressing-gown, locked myself in my room, and had +it out with <i>Cora</i>, from A to Z. Tried this walk and that crouch; read +this way and that way. Found the exact moment when her mind began to +cloud, to waver, to recover, to break finally and irretrievably. +Determined positively just where I should be at certain times; allowed a +margin for the impulse or inspiration of the moment, and at last, with +the character crystal-clear before me, I ended my work and my vigil.</p> + +<p>After turning out the gas I went to the window and looked at the sky. The +stars had gone in; low down in the east a faint, faint band of pink held +earth and sky together. I was calm and quite ready to rest. All my +uncertainty was at an end. What the public would do I could not know; +what I would do was clear and plain before me at last.</p> + +<p>Poor Mr. Daly! I sighed, for I knew <i>his</i> anxiety and uneasiness were not +allayed. Bertie, tired of waiting for me, had curled her loving little +body up in my pillow—a distinct breach of family discipline. A few +moments later, feeling her small tail beating a blissful tattoo on my +feet, I muttered, laughingly: "A little prayer, a little dog, and a +little rest," and so sank into the sound sleep I so desperately needed, +in preparation for the ever-to-be-dreaded first night of "L'Article 47" +of the French Penal Code.</p> + +<p>The house was packed. Well-known people were seen all through the +theatre. Act I. represented the French Court with a trial in full +swing—it played for one hour, lacking three minutes. I was on the stage +ten minutes only. I was told Mr. Daly shook his head violently at the +curtain's fall.</p> + +<p>The next act I was not in at all, but it dragged, and when that was over +Mr. Daly's peculiar test of public feeling showed the presence of +disappointment. Like many other managers, he often placed men here and +there to listen to the comments made by his patrons, but his quickest, +surest way of judging the effect a new play was making, was by watching +and listening at the very moment of the curtain's fall. If the people +instantly turned to one another in eager speech, and a bee-like hum of +conversation arose, he nodded his head with pleased satisfaction—he knew +they were saying, "How lovely!" "That was a fine effect!" "We've had +nothing better for a long time!" "It's just divine!" "It's great!" etc.</p> + +<p>When they spoke slowly and briefly, he shook his head; but when they sat +still and gazed steadily straight ahead of them, he called a new play for +rehearsal next morning.</p> + +<p>That second act had made him shake his head; the third came on with +<i>Cora's</i> rejected love, her strangling tears of self-pity, her whirlwind +of passion, ending with that frantic and incredible threat. The people +caught at it! I suppose the swiftness of its action, the heat and fury +following so close upon the two slow, dull acts, pleased and aroused +them. The curtain went up and down, up and down, call after call, and +when at last it was allowed to remain down, myriads of bees might have +been swarming in front, and Mr. Daly, nodding and smiling as I rushed +past on my way to change my gown, said: "Hear 'em—hear the bees +buzz—that's good! Now if only you——"</p> + +<p>I waited not for the rest—too well I knew how to complete the sentence: +"If only I could safely hive those swarming bees" for him. Could I? Oh, +could I? for the moment was at hand, the "mad-scene," so dreaded, so +feared!</p> + +<p>Three things I had counted upon to help my effects: the crouch, the +laugh, the scar. The crouch had just done splendid service at the end of +Act III. Would the other two be as effective?</p> + +<p>I went up to the stage; I was to be discovered lying on a lounge. Miss +Davenport, magnificently handsome in person and gown, beside me; the +others at the gambling-table. As she took my hand she gave a sharp little +cry: "Heavens!" she said, "you might be dead, you are like ice!" She +touched my forehead, asking, "Are you ill? Why, your head is burning, +hot! hot! hot! Mr. Daly, just touch her hands and head!"</p> + +<p>He looked down on me in silence; two pairs of frightened eyes met; he +gave a groan; threw out his hands helplessly; stepped off the stage, and +signaled the curtain up on what was to make or break the play—and he +knew no more what to expect than did one of the ushers out in front.</p> + +<p>Under cover of the music and the applause accompanying the curtain's +rise, I caught myself muttering, vaguely: "The power and the glory—the +power and the glory," and knew that involuntarily I was reaching out for +the old staff on which I had leaned so many times before.</p> + +<p>The scene was on—the laughing cynicism of the <i>Baroness</i>—the chatter of +the players—then, at last, <i>George</i> and <i>Cora</i> were alone!</p> + +<p>My terror had slipped from me like a garment, I was in the play once +more; save for just one awful moment! <i>George</i> had torn the veil from my +disfigured face, and, casting in my teeth the accusation: "You are mad!" +had left me there alone, standing, stunned by the word! That was the +moment of actual dethronement of reason, and, as I slowly, stupidly +turned my eyes, I saw Mr. Daly's white face thrust forward eagerly. His +gray eyes wide and glowing, his thin hand tightly grasping the lapel of +his coat, his whole being expressing the very anguish of anxiety!</p> + +<p>One moment I felt I was lost! I had been dragged out of the play at the +crucial moment! I clasped my hands across my eyes: "The kingdom and the +power!" I groaned—I faced the other way! The low, eerie music caught my +attention and awakened my imagination, in another second I was as mad as +a March hare. The first time the low, gibbering laugh swelled into the +wild, long-sustained shrieking <i>ha! ha!</i> a voice said, low and clear: +"Oh, dear God!"</p> + +<p>Yet I who had heard the genuine laugh at the mad-house knew this to be +but a poor, tame, soulless thing, compared to that Hecate-like +distillation—the very essence of madness, that ran through that real +gibber of laughter.</p> + +<p>Yet it was enough. At the end there came to me one of those moments God +grants now and then as a reward for long thirst, way-weariness, and +heart-sickness patiently borne! One of those foolishly divine moments you +stand with the gods and, like them, are young and fair and powerful! Your +very nerves thrill harmonious, like harp-strings attune—your blood +courses like quicksilver for swiftness, like wine for warmth, and on that +fair peak of Triumph, where one tarries but by moments, there is no +knowledge of sin or suffering, of death or hate; there is only sunshine, +the sunshine of success! love for all those creatures who turn smiling +faces on you, who hold their hands to you with joyous cries!</p> + +<p>There is no question of deserts, of qualifications! No analysis, no +criticism then—they follow later! That is just a moment of delicious +madness; and to distinguish it from other frenzies it is called—a +Dramatic Triumph!</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="THIRTY-NINTH"></a>THIRTY-NINTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">I Am too Dull to Understand a Premonition—By +Mr. Daly's Side I See the Destruction of the Fifth Avenue Theatre by Fire.</p></div> + + + +<p>How shall I call that strange influence that dumbly tries to warn, to +prepare?</p> + +<p>Many of us have had experience of this nameless something whose efforts +are but rarely heeded. The something that one morning suddenly fills the +mind with thoughts of some friend of the far past, who is almost entirely +forgotten—persistent thoughts not to be shaken off.</p> + +<p>You speak of the matter, and your family exclaim: "What on earth ever +brought him to your mind?" and that night you either hear of the old +friend's death or he sends you a letter from the other side of the world.</p> + +<p>I had an acquaintance who one day found herself compelled, as it were, to +talk of thefts, of remarkable robberies. She seemed unable to turn her +mind to any other subject. If she looked at a lock, she thought how easy +it would be to force it; at a window, how readily a man might enter it. +Her people laughed and told her she was hoodooed; but next day she was +robbed of every jewel she had in the world. What was it that was trying +dumbly to warn her?</p> + +<p>It was on the 1st of January that my mind became subject to one of those +outside seizures. The snow was banked high in the streets—had been so +for days. The unexpected sale of the house in Twenty-first Street had +forced me to new quarters; I was at that moment in Twenty-fourth Street. +As I raised my head from kissing my mother a Happy New Year, I remarked: +"The streets are in a terrible condition for a great fire—are they +not?"</p> + +<p>"Let us hope there won't be a great fire," replied mother, and began to +pour out the coffee.</p> + +<p>A little later the French lady coming in, to pass the compliments of the +day, I was immediately moved to ask her if our fire service here was not +superior to that of Paris? And I was greatly pleased at her joyous +acquiescence, until I discovered that her remarks had reference to our +larger fireplaces—there are always certain drawbacks accompanying a +foreign landlady.</p> + +<p>Then I went to the matinée—for, lo, the poor actress always does double +work on days of festivity for the rest of the world, and all occasions of +legalized feasting find her eating "a cold bite." We were doing a play +called "False Shame," known in England as "The White Feather," a very +light three-act play. The dresses and scenery were beautiful; Mr. Daly +provided me with one gown—a combination of sapphire-blue velvet and +Pompadour brocade that came within an ace of making me look handsome, +like the rest.</p> + +<p>He remarked upon its effect, and I told him I felt compelled to look +well, since I had nothing else to do; but the day had gone by when such +remarks could anger him. He laughed good-humoredly and said: "All the +same, Miss, that scene at the organ is mighty pretty and taking, too."</p> + +<p>For, look you, in the theatre "a little knowledge is not a dangerous +thing." Complete knowledge is, of course, preferable; but, ah, how far a +very little will go, and here was my poor tum-tumming, "one <i>and</i> two +<i>and</i> three <i>and</i>," filling Mr. Daly's very soul with joy, because +forsooth, in a lovely old English interior, all draped in Christmas +greens, filled with carved-wood furniture, big logs burning in an +enormous fireplace, wax candles in brass sconces, two girls are at the +organ in dinner dress, who, nervously anxious about a New Year carol, +with which they are going to surprise their guests at mid-night, seize +the moment before dinner to try said carol over.</p> + +<p>Miss Davenport, regal in satin, stood, music in hand, the fire-light on +her handsome face. I, seated at the organ in my precious blue and +brocade, played the accompaniment, and sang alto, and, though terror over +this simple bit of work brought me to the verge of nervous prostration, +the scene was, from the front, like a stolen peep into some beautiful +private home, and it brought an astonishing amount of applause. But if I +had not "<i>one</i> two threed" in Cincinnati on that grinning old piano, +where would the organ-scene have been? Ah, a little knowledge, if spread +ever so thin by a master hand like Mr. Daly's, will prove useful.</p> + +<p>So don't refuse to learn a little because you fear you cannot afford to +study thoroughly—if you are an actress.</p> + +<p>While I was sitting through a long wait that day I fell into a brown +study. The theatre dresser, who was very fond of me and gave me every +spare moment of her time, came into my room and twice addressed me before +I came out of my reverie.</p> + +<p>"What in the world are you thinking of, Miss Clara?" she asked, and I +answered with another question: "Mary, were you ever in a great fire?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said; "were you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered; "I have been twice burned out from shelter at dead of +night," and I told her of that hotel fire at 3 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, where there was but +one stairway to the street; of the mad brutality of the men; of the +terrible and the ludicrous scenes; of my own escape, quite alone, in bare +feet and one white garment; of my standing across a leaking hose, while a +strange man pulled my right arm, frantically crying, "You come with me! +my mother's got a blanket to wrap you up in!" and Mr. Ellsler, who had +just arrived, seized my left arm, dragging me his way and shouting, "Come +over to the house and get to bed quick, before you die of exposure!" +while I felt the water spraying my forlornly shivering shins, and was +more nearly torn asunder than was ever the Solomon baby.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my!" said Mary, "how dreadful!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, musingly, "and what a fire this place would make—all +these partitions of painted pine!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't!" protested Mary.</p> + +<p>"But," said I, "you know that's what theatres are built for—to burn is +their natural end!" and then I was called, and went up-stairs to saunter +through another act of the mild little play.</p> + +<p>I owned but little jewelry then, but what I had was noticeably good. My +rings, including the handsome pearl one Mr. Daly had given me as a +souvenir of "47," I had to remove from my fingers for the last act, and +when the curtain had fallen and I had rushed myself into street garments, +and was leaving the dressing-room in haste to join my waiting mother at +dinner, Mary called to me: "Miss Clara, you are leaving your diamond +rings—but never mind," she picked them up and dropped them, one by one, +into a little box: "I'll lock the door myself, you run along, the rings +will be safe enough—run!" and the answering words I heard swiftly +leaving my lips were absolutely involuntary and dictated by no thought of +mine. They were:</p> + +<p>"Yes, as far as theft is concerned, they are safe enough, but in case of +fire? Better give them to me, Mary. Oh!" for the girl had dropped one on +the floor. It was a bit of Oriental enamel set about with tiny sparks of +diamonds. I put the others on, but would not wait for her to pick up the +rolling truant, and away I went.</p> + +<p>At the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street I came to a +stand-still before two great snow-banks, and I thought again what they +might mean in case of a fire.</p> + +<p>I reached home at a brisk pace, ran up-stairs, threw off my cloak, and +had drawn my dress-waist half off, when, without a preliminary knock, the +door was flung open and my landlord, Mr. Bardin, white with the +excitement that had wiped out his knowledge of English, stood +gesticulating wildly and hurling French at me in seething masses. I +caught "<i>le feu!</i>" "<i>le feu!</i>" many times repeated; then "<i>le théâtre!</i>" +and with a cry I seized his arm and shook him.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" I cried, "do you mean fire?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, and again came the words: "<i>le théâtre!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Good heaven and earth! you don't mean <i>my</i> theatre, do you?" and then +two great horses, hurling a fire-engine around the corner into our street +made swift and terrifying answer. With a piercing cry I caught up my +cloak, and throwing off somebody's restraining hands I dashed down-stairs +and into the street, racing like mad, giving sobbing cries, and utterly +unconscious for over two blocks' space that my waist was unclosed and my +naked throat and chest were bare to the wintry wind.</p> + +<p>At the corner of the street at Sixth Avenue I wrung my hands in anguish, +crying, "Oh, dear God! I knew it! I knew it!" for there, stalled in the +snow, was the engine, so desperately needed a little further on! And as I +resumed my run I said to myself: "What is it that has tried so hard to +tell me—to warn me? Tried all the day—and I would not understand—and +now it's too late!"</p> + +<p>Why I ran I do not know—it was not curiosity. I felt, somehow, that if I +could get there in time I might do something—God knows what! As I neared +the theatre the crowd grew more dense, yet to my gasping: "Please, oh, +please!" an answer came in a quick moving aside to let pass the woman +with the white, tear-wet face. I broke through the cordon and was making +for the stage-door, when a rough hand caught me by the shoulder. There +was an oath, and I was fairly hurled back toward the safety line.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let me alone!" I cried, "I want to go to my room! It will take me +but a moment!"</p> + +<p>Again the rough hand reached out for me, when a strange man threw his arm +in front of me protectingly: "Take care what you're about!" he said. "Be +a little gentle—she has a right close to the line, she's one of the +company! Can't you see?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," grunted the policeman, "well, I didn't know, and I couldn't let her +kill herself!"</p> + +<p>"No," said the stranger, "but you had no call to pitch her about as you +did!" And just then a long, thin hand caught mine, and Mr. Daly's voice +said: "Come here, child!" and he led me across the street and up some +steps, and there, opposite the burning building, I could realize the +madness of my act in trying to enter. The front of the building stood +firm, but beyond it, within, all was seething flame. It was like some +magnificent spectacular production—some Satanic pantomime and ballet, +and every now and then a whirling flame, crowned with myriad sparks, +sprang madly up into the very sky like some devilish <i>première danseuse</i>; +while the lesser fiends joined hands and circled frenziedly below.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly never spoke a word. He had not released my fingers, and so we +stood, hand in hand, watching silently over the torment of his beloved +theatre—the destruction of his gathered treasures. I looked up at him. +His face gleamed white in the firelight; his eyes were wide and strained; +his fingers, icy cold, never lessened their clinching grasp on mine. Then +came the warning cry firemen are apt to give when they know the roof is +going. I had heard it often, and understood that and their retreating +movement. Mr. Daly did not, and when, with a crackling crash, the whole +roof fell into the roaring depths, his hand, his body, relaxed suddenly; +a sort of sobbing groan escaped his pale lips. But when the column of +glowing sparks flew high into the air he turned away with a shiver and +gave not one other look at the destroyed building.</p> + +<p>Not one word was spoken on the subject. Glancing down he noticed I had no +rubbers on and that streams of water were running in the street:</p> + +<p>"Go home, child!" he said, speaking quickly and most kindly. A crowd of +reporters came up to him: "Yes," he said, "in one moment, gentlemen," +then to me: "Hurry home, get something to eat—you could have had no +dinner!"</p> + +<p>He gave one heavy sigh, and added: "I'm glad you were with me, it would +have been worse alone." He pushed me gently from him. As I started down +the street he called: "I'll send you word some time to-night what we're +to do."</p> + +<p>I left him to the reporters; I had not spoken one word from the moment I +had begged to enter my dressing-room. I felt strangely sad and forlorn as +I dropped, draggled and tired, into a chair. I said to mother: "It's +gone! the only theatre in New York whose door was not barred against me, +and—I—I think that at this moment I know just how a dog feels who has +lost a loved master," and, dropping my face upon my hands, I wept long +over the destruction of my first dramatic home in New York, the little +Fifth Avenue Theatre.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="FORTIETH"></a>FORTIETH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New Theatre—Our +Astonishing Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a Great Triumph.</p></div> + + + +<p>My first thought on awaking the next morning was one of dismay, on +recalling the destruction of the little "P.H.C."—that being the actors +contraction of Mr. Daly's somewhat grandiloquent "Parlor Home of Comedy." +My grief over the burning of the pretty toy theatre was very real, and I +would have been an astonished young woman had anyone prophesied that for +me, personally, the disaster was to prove a piece of unqualified good +luck.</p> + +<p>And, by the way, that expression "good luck" reminds me of one of the +incidents of the fire. That morning, when the firemen went to the ruins +to examine into the state of the standing front wall, they looked upward, +and there, all alone, on the burned and blackened space, smiling down in +friendly fashion upon them, was the picture of Clara Morris—a bit +charred as to frame and smoky as to glass, but the photograph (one taken +by Kurtz), absolutely uninjured, being the one and only thing saved from +the ruins. The firemen very naturally wanted it for their engine-house, +and Mr. Daly said that for it many were claiming, pleading, demanding, +bartering—but all in vain. His superstition was aroused. Not for +anything in the world, he cried, would he part from his "luck," as he +ever after called the rescued picture. So there again appeared the malice +of inanimate things, for how else could one account for the plunging of +that line, the entire length of the staircase, of splendidly framed +pictures of loveliness, into the fiery depths, while the plain and +unimportant one kept its place in calm security?</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly had a very expensive company on his hands. He had amazed other +managers by his "corner" on leading men. With three already in his +company he had not hesitated to draw on Boston for Harry Crisp, and on +Philadelphia for Mr. Louis James; and when he added such names as George +Clark, Daniel Harkins, George DeVere, James Lewis, William Lemoyne, +William Davidge, A. Whiting, Owen Fawcett, George Parkes, F. Burnett, H. +Bascombe, J. Beekman, Charles Fisher, George Gilbert, etc., one can +readily understand that the salary of the men alone must have made quite +an item in the week's expenses, and added to the sharp necessity of +getting us to work as quickly as possible. And in actual truth the ruins +of the little theatre were not yet cold when Mr. Daly had, by wire, +secured a week for us, divided between Syracuse and Albany, and we were +scrambling dresses together and buying new toilet articles—rouge, +powders, and pomades, and transforming ourselves into "strolling +players"; though, sooth to say, there was precious little "strolling" +done after we started, for we were all rushing for rooms, for food, for +trains, through a blizzard that was giving us plenty of delaying +snow-drifts. And while the company was cheerfully "barn-storming," Mr. +Daly was doing his best to find shelter for us in New York, engaging the +little one-time church on Broadway. He had painters, paper-hangers, +scrub-women, upholsterers, climbing over one another in their frantic +efforts to do all he desired to have done in about one-half the +regulation time allowed for such work; and while they toiled day and +night with much noise and great demonstration of haste, he sat +statue-still in a far corner, mentally reviewing every manuscript in his +possession, searching eagerly for the one that most nearly answered to +the needs of the moment. Namely, a play that required a strong cast of +characters (he had plenty of men and women), little preparation, and +scanty scenery (since he was short of both time and money). And, finding +"Alixe," then known as "The Countess de Somerive," he stopped short. The +action of the play covered but one day—that was promising. There were +but three acts—good; but two scenes—better! A conventional château +garden-terrace for one act, and a simply elegant morning-room or stately +drawing-room, according to managerial taste, could stand for the other +two acts. A strong and dramatic work—requiring the painting of but two +scenes. The play was found! The company was ordered home to rehearse it.</p> + +<p>Now at that time, to my own great anxiety, I was by way of standing on +very dangerous ground. The public had favored me almost extravagantly +from the very first performance of <i>Anne Sylvester</i>, but the critics, at +least the most important two, seemed to praise my efforts with a certain +unwilling drag of the pen. Nearly all their kind words had the sweetness +squeezed out of them between "buts" and "ifs," and, most wounding of all, +my actual work was less often criticized than were my personal defects. +Occasionally an actress's work may be too good for her own welfare. You +doubt that? Yet I know an actress, still in harness, who in her lovely +prime made so great a hit, in the part of an adventuress, that she has +had nothing else to act since. Whenever a play was produced with such a +character in it, she was sent for. But if she was proposed for a loyal +wife, a gentle sweetheart, a modern heroine, the quick response +invariably was: "Oh, she can't play anything but the adventuress."</p> + +<p>There is nothing more fatal to the artistic value, to the future welfare +of a young player, than to be known as "a one-part actress"; yet that was +the very danger that was threatening me at the time of the burning of the +home theatre. Following other parts known as strong, <i>Jezebel</i>, the +half-breed East Indian, a velvet-footed treachery and twice would-be +murderess, and <i>Cora</i>, the quadroon mad-woman, were in a fair way to +injure me greatly. Already one paper had said: "Miss Morris has a +strange, intuitive comprehension of these creatures of mixed blood."</p> + +<p>But worse than that, the most powerful of the two critics I dreaded had +said one morning: "Miss Morris played with care and much feeling. The +audience wept <i>copiously</i>" (to anyone who has long read the great critic, +that word "copiously" is tantamount to his full signature, so +persistently does he use it), "but her performance was flecked with those +tigerish gleams that seem to be a part of her method. She will probably +find difficulty in equaling in any other line her success as <i>Cora</i>."</p> + +<p>No animal had ever a keener sense of approaching danger than I had, when +my professional welfare was threatened, and these small straws told me +plainly which way the wind was beginning to blow, and now, looking back, +I am convinced that just one more "tigerish part" at that time would have +meant artistic ruin to me, for, figuratively speaking, pens were already +dipped to write me down "a one-part actress."</p> + +<p>Then, one bitter cold day we returned to New York and Mr. Daly, sending +for me, said he must ask a favor of me. A form of speech that literally +made me "sit up straight"—yes, and gasp, too, with astonishment. With a +regretful sigh he went on: "I suppose you know you are a strong +attraction?"</p> + +<p>I smiled broadly at his evident disapproval of such knowledge on my part, +and he continued: "But in this play there is no part for you—yet I +greatly need all my strongest people in this first cast. Of course as far +as ability is concerned you could play the <i>Countess</i> and make a hit, but +she's too old—so you'll not play the mother to marriageable daughters +under my management, even in an emergency. Now I have Miss Morant, Miss +Davenport and Miss Dietz, but—but I must have your name, too."</p> + +<p>I nodded vigorously—I understood. And having seen the play in Paris, +where it was one of the three pieces offered for an evening's programme, +I mentally reviewed the cast and presently made answer, cheerfully and +honestly: "Oh, yes! I see—it's that—'er—<i>Aline?</i> <i>Justine?</i> No, no! +<i>Claudine?</i> that's the name of the maid. You want me to go on for that? +All right! anything to help!"</p> + +<p>He leaned forward, asking, eagerly: "Do you mean that?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do!" I answered.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he cried, "you don't guess well, Miss Morris, but you've the heart +of a good comrade, and now I'm sure you will do as I ask you, and play +<i>Alixe</i> for me?"</p> + +<p>I sprang to my feet with a bound. "<i>Alixe?</i>" I cried. "I to play that +child? oh, impossible! No—no! I should be absurd! I—I—I know too +much—oh, you understand what I mean! She is a little convent-bred bit of +innocence—a veritable baby of sixteen years! Dear Mr. Daly don't you +see, I should ruin the play?"</p> + +<p>He answered, rather coldly: "You are not given to ruining plays. The part +does not amount to much. Good heavens! I admit it does not suit you, but +think of my position; give me the benefit of your name as <i>Alixe</i> for one +single week, and on the second Monday night Miss Jewett shall take the +part off your hands."</p> + +<p>"But," I whimpered, "the critics will make me the butt of their ridicule, +for I can't make myself look like an <i>Alixe</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no they won't!" he answered, sharply. "Of course you won't expect a +success, but you need fear no gibes for trying to help me out of a +dramatic hole. Will you help me?" And of course there was nothing to do +but swallow hard and hold out my hand for the unwelcome part.</p> + +<p>Imagine my surprise when, on my way to rehearsal, I saw posters up, +announcing the production of the play of "Alixe." I met Mr. Daly at the +door and said: "Why this play was always called 'The Countess of +Somerive.'"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "I know—but 'Alixe' looks well, it's odd and +pretty—and well, it will lend a little importance to the part!"—which +shows how heavy were the scales upon our eyes while we were rehearsing +the new play.</p> + +<p>Everyone sympathized with me, but said a week would soon pass, and I +groaned and ordered heelless slippers, and flaxen hair parted simply and +waved back from the temples to fall loosely on the shoulders, to avoid +the height that heels and the fashionable chignon would give me, while a +thin, white nun's veiling gown, high-necked and long-sleeved, over a +low-cut white silk lining, buttoned at the back and finished with a pale +blue sash and little side pocket, completed the costume, I prepared for +the character. I was beginning to understand, as I studied her, and +shamefacedly—to love!</p> + +<p>Oh, yes, one often feels dislike or liking for the creature one is trying +to represent. Just at first I said to myself, here is a modern <i>Ophelia</i>, +but I was soon convinced that the innocence of <i>Alixe</i> was far more +perfect than had been that of Shakespeare's weakling, who, through the +training of court life, the warnings of a shrewd brother, and the +admonitions of a tricky father, had learned many things—was ductile in +stronger hands and could play a part; could lead a lover on to speech, +without giving slightest hint of the hateful watching eyes she knew were +upon him.</p> + +<p>Poor "Rose of May," whose sweetness comes to us across the ages! As the +garden-spider's air-spun silken thread is cast from bough to twig across +the path, so her fragile thread of life looped itself from father to +lover, to brother, to queen, and all the web was threaded thick with +maiden's tears, made opalescent by rosy love, green hope, and violet +despair. But each one she clung to raised a hand to brush the fragile +thing aside, and so destroyed it utterly. Yet that tangled wreck of +beauty, sweetness, and "a young maid's wits," remains one of the world's +dearest possessions—the fair <i>Ophelia</i>!</p> + +<p>But this modern maid was yet unspotted by the world. She found all earth +perfect, as though God had just completed it, and loved ardently and +without shame, as the innocent do love. For this pure flower of crime +was ignorant, to the point of bliss, of evil in the world about her. +While her adored mother was to her as the blessed Madonna herself.</p> + +<p>More and more convincing, as I carefully studied the part, became that +perfect innocence. Not cold or reserved, but alive with faith, quivering, +too, with girlish mirth, yet innocent. And as with roots deep in rankest, +blackest ooze and mud, the lily sends up into the sunlit air its +stainless, white-petaled blossom, to float in golden-hearted beauty upon +the surface of the stream, so all sweet and open-hearted <i>Alixe</i> floated +into view.</p> + +<p>And I was expected to act a part like that! I worried day and night over +it. Should I do this, should I do that? No—no! she was not +coy—detestable word. I recalled the best <i>Ophelia</i> I had ever seen—a +German actress. Would she do for a model? Perhaps—no! she was mystic, +strange, aloof!</p> + +<p>Oh, dear! and then, by merest accident, my mind wandered away to the +past, and I said to myself, it should not be so hard. Every woman has +been innocent. I was innocent enough when my first sweetheart paused at +my side to say to me the foolish old words that never lose sweetness and +novelty. I recalled with what open pleasure I had listened, with what +honest satisfaction I accepted his attention. With a laugh I exclaimed: +"I didn't even have sense enough to hide my gratification and pride, or +to <i>pretend the least bit</i>." I stopped suddenly—light seemed to come +into my mind. Innocence is alike the world over, I thought; it only +differs in degree. I sprang to my feet! I cried joyously: "I have caught +the cue, I do believe—<i>I won't act at all!</i> I'll just speak the lines +sincerely and simply and leave the effect to Providence."</p> + +<p>The scales loosened a trifle over Mr. Daly's eyes at the last rehearsal +but one. He was down in the orchestra speaking to the leader when I came +to the end of the act, and the words: "The mother whom I have insulted? +That young girl, then, is my sister—the sister whose happiness I have +stolen? whose future I have shattered? What—is—there—left—for—me to +live for?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly glanced up, and said, sharply: "What's that? 'er, Miss Morris, +what are you going to do there as the curtain falls? I—I haven't noticed +that speech before. Go back a bit, Mr. Fisher, Miss Morant, back to the +Count's entrance; let me hear that again."</p> + +<p>We went over the scene again: "H-e-m-m!" said Mr. Daly; "you've not +answered my question, Miss Morris. What do you do at the fall of the +curtain?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, sir," I answered, "just stare dazedly at space, I +think—swaying a little perhaps."</p> + +<p>"I want you to fall!" he declared.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I exclaimed, "please, don't you think that would be rather +melodramatic? If she could stand while receiving that awful shock about +her mother's shame she would hardly fall afterward, from mere horror of +her own thoughts?"</p> + +<p>"I know all that, but let me tell you there's always great effect in a +falling body. At any rate you can sink into a chair—and so get the +suggestion of collapse."</p> + +<p>"There is no chair," I answered, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied, testily, "there can be one, I suppose. Here, boy, +bring a large chair and place it behind Miss Morris."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Daly," I argued, "if I fall heavily, as I must, for effect, the +chair will jump, and that will be funny—see."</p> + +<p>I fell—it did start backward, but Mr. Daly was equal to the emergency. +"Take off the castors and place the chair hard against the end of the +piano; now try!"</p> + +<p>I did; the chair was firm as a rock. It was settled; I did as I was told, +and fell at the end of the act ever after. And Mr. Daly came and patted +me on the back, and said, kindly: "Don't fret; I honestly believe there's +something in the little part after all. That speech made me feel creepy."</p> + +<p>But the scales on my own eyes were still firm and tight, and all I could +see in the play was the strength, power, and passion of the scenes +between the <i>Count</i> and <i>Countess</i>, and the probable hit of Mr. Louis +James in his part of the <i>Duc de Mirandol</i>. The fate of this play rested +in other hands than mine, thank goodness, and I rejoiced in the freedom +from responsibility my small part gave me, and planned what I would do +when Miss Jewett took <i>Alixe</i>.</p> + +<p>The great night came. Another small auditorium awaited the coming of our +patrons. There was a smell of scarce dried paint in front of the curtain +and of scrubbing-soap behind it; but all was bright and fresh, and the +house was soon packed with a brilliant audience. As the play to be +produced had but a small cast, and as Mr. Daly was anxious that the +entire company should share in this house-warming, he had invited Mr. +John Brougham to write a sort of prologue, giving a few apt lines to +every member of the company, and then to proceed to the play. This was +done—but, alas! Mr. Brougham's work was utterly unworthy of him. There +was not one flash of his wonderful wit. He confined himself to comments +upon the fire, after this manner; I spoke, saying:</p> + +<p>"I can't remember half the things I lost, I fear——"</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Lewis</i> (breaking in). "One article you have not lost——"</p> + +<p><i>C. M.</i> "What?"</p> + +<p><i>Lewis.</i> "'L'Article 47,' my dear."</p> + +<p>Then Miss Jewett came forward to exclaim:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"My lovely 'peau de soie,'</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The sweetest thing in silk I ever saw!"</span></div> + +<p>It was only spoken one night. But the audience was so heartily kind to us +all that many of us had tears of sheer gratitude in our eyes. We were in +evening dress and were formed in a crescent-like line from box to box, as +the heavy red curtains parted revealing us, and Mr. Daly was very proud +of his family of manly-looking men and gracious women, and the audience +greeted the assembled company heartily. But that was nothing to the +welcome given as each favorite actor or actress stepped forward to +speak—and I was happy, happy, happy! when I found myself counted in as +one of them, with the welcome to the beautiful Davenport, Jewett, Dietz, +to the ever-favored Mrs. Gilbert, no longer, no heartier than my own! And +as I bowed low and gratefully, for just one moment I could not help +wishing that I had an important part to play, instead of the childish +thing awaiting me.</p> + +<p>The prologue being over, Mr. Daly, with a frowning, disappointed face, +told those of the play to make all possible haste in changing their +dresses, that they might get to work and rub out the bad impression +already made.</p> + +<p>Every important occasion seems to have its touch of the ridiculous, and +so had this one. The "bustle"—the big wire affair, extending to the +bottom of the skirt, had reached its hideous apogee of fashion at that +time, yet what possible relation could there be between that teetering +monstrosity and grace or sentiment or tragedy? Surely, I thought, this +girl-pupil, brought straight from convent-school to country-home, might +reasonably be bustleless—and I should look so much smaller—so much more +graceful! But—Mr. Daly? Never—never! would he consent to such a breach +of propriety! Fashion his soul loved! He pored over her plates! he bowed +to her mandates!</p> + +<p>My courage having failed me, when I hurried to my room I put on the +obnoxious structure; but one glimpse of that camel-like hump on the back +of <i>Alixe</i>, and the thought of the fall in the chair made me desperate. I +tore the mass of wire off, and decided to keep out of sight till the last +moment, and then make a rush for the stage.</p> + +<p>"Ready, Miss Morris?"</p> + +<p>"Ready!" I answered, as the question was asked from door to door.</p> + +<p>In a few moments the call-boy came back again: "Are you ready? Everyone +is out there but you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" I said, showing myself to him, but still not leaving the +shelter of my room; and I heard him saying: "Yes, sir, she's all ready, I +saw her."</p> + +<p>The curtain rose. Only a few lines were spoken before my entrance. I +dared wait no longer—heavens! no! for there was Mr. Daly coming for me. +I gathered up my skirts as bunchily as I could and ran out; but I could +not deceive Mr. Daly. In an instant he missed the necessary camel's hump. +"Good heaven and earth!" he shouted, "you've left your bustle!"</p> + +<p>I broke into a run. "Wait!" he cried, loudly. He dashed into my open +room, caught the big bustle up, and dragging it like a great cage behind +him, came plunging down the entrance to me, crying: "Wait—wait!" and +waving the other hand commandingly above his head.</p> + +<p>I heard my music; I sprang to the platform I had to enter from. "That's +me!" I cried. "Wait!" he ordered and reached out to catch me. I evaded +his grasp and skipped through the door, leaving but a fold of my skirt in +his hand. I was on the stage—and joy, oh, joy! I was without a bustle!</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly did not like being laughed at, but when he glanced down and saw +the thing he was dragging behind him, after the manner of a baby's tin +wagon, he had to laugh, and verily there were others who laughed with +him, while the scandalized dresser carried the rejected article back to a +decent seclusion.</p> + +<p>There is no manager, star, or agent alive whose experience will enable +him to foresee the fate of an untried play. A very curious thing is that +what is called an "actor's" play—one, that is, that actors praise and +enjoy in the rehearsing, is almost always a failure, while the managerial +judgment has been reversed so often by the public, that even the most +enthusiastic producer of new plays is apt "to hedge" a bit, with: "Unless +I deceive myself, this will prove to be the greatest play," etc.; while +the mistakes made by actors and managers both anent the value of certain +parts are illustrated sufficiently by E. H. Sothern, C. W. Couldock, +Joseph Jefferson—all three of whom made immense hits in parts they had +absolutely refused to accept, yielding only from necessity or +obligingness, and to their own astonishment finding fame in presenting +the unwelcome characters. And to the misjudged <i>Lord Dundreary</i>, <i>Asa +Trenchard</i>, etc., that night was added the name of <i>Alixe</i>.</p> + +<p>Refined, intensely modern, the play was nevertheless a dread tragedy, and +being French it almost naturally dealt with the breaking of a certain +great commandment. And now—see: we actors thought that the stress and +power of the play would be shown in the confession of the wife and in the +scene of wild recrimination between her and the <i>Comte de Somerive</i>, when +they met after eighteen years of separation. But see, how different was +the view the public took. In the very first place then, when I escaped +the bustle, and entered, straight, and slim, art had so reduced my usual +height and changed my coloring, that until I spoke I was not recognized. +The kindly welcome then given me calmed my fears, and I said to myself: +"I can't be looking ridiculous in the part, or they would not do that!" +And women, at least, can understand how my very soul was comforted by the +knowledge. And just then a curious sense of joy seemed to bubble up in my +heart. The sudden relief, the feeling of irresponsibility, the +first-night excitement. Perhaps one, perhaps all together caused it. I +don't know—I only know that meaning no disrespect, no irreverence, I +could have sung aloud from the Benedicite: "<i>Omnia opera Domini!</i>" "Bless +ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him forever!"</p> + +<p>And the audience accepted the joyous little maid almost from the first +girlish, love-betraying words she spoke, and yet—so sensitive is an +audience at times—while still laughing over her sweet ignorance, they +thrilled with a nameless dread of coming evil. They seemed to see the +blue sky darkening, the threatening clouds piling up silently behind the +white-robed child, whose perfect innocence left her so alone! Before the +first act ended we discovered that the tragedy was shifting from the +sinful mother and was settling down with crushing weight upon the +shoulders of the stainless child. Indeed, the whole play was like a +dramatization of the awful words: "The sins of the fathers shall be +visited upon the children!"</p> + +<p>As the play went on and the impetuous grief of the child changed into +proud self-restraint, while her agonizing jealousy of her adored mother +developed, Mr. Daly, with wide, bright eyes, exclaimed: "I must have been +blind—stone-blind! Why <i>Alixe</i> is the bone and marrow, the heart and +soul of this play!"</p> + +<p>Certainly the audience seemed to share his belief, for it called and +called and called again for that misunderstood young person, in addition +to the hearty approval bestowed upon the other more prominent characters. +It was a very fine cast, Miss Fanny Morant making a stately and powerful +<i>Comtesse de Somerive</i>, while Mr. Louis James gave a performance of the +<i>Duc de Mirandol</i> that I never saw even approached again. Every other +actor made of him either a fool or a brute, while James made of him a +delightful enigma—a sort of well-bred simpleton, rattle-brain, and +braggart, who at the last moment shows himself, beneath all disguise, a +brave and loyal gentleman.</p> + +<p>But the greatest triumph for <i>Alixe</i> followed in that act—the last—in +which she does not speak at all. She had been able to bear loss, sorrow, +renunciation, but as in olden times poison-tests were kept, crystal cups +of such rare purity they shattered under contact with an evil liquid—so +her pure heart broke at contact with her mother's shame. Poor, loving, +little base-born! Pathetic little marplot! Seeing herself as only a +stumbling-block to others, she sought self-effacement beneath the gentle +waters of the lily-pond. And early in that last act, as her drowned body, +carried in the arms of the two men who had loved her, was laid before the +starting eyes of the guilty mother, and the loving, forgiving, pleading +letter of the suicide was read above her, actual sobs rose from the front +of the house. It <i>was</i> a heart-breaking scene.</p> + +<p>But when the curtain fell, oh! what a very whirlwind broke loose in that +little theatre! The curtain shot up and down, up and down, and then, to +my amazement, Mr. Daly signaled for me to go before the curtain, and I +couldn't move. He stamped his foot and shouted: "Come over here and take +this call!" and I called back: "I can't! I am all pinned up, so I can't +walk!"</p> + +<p>For, that my skirts might not fall away from my ankles, when I was being +carried across the stage, I had stood upon a chair and had my garments +tightly wound about me and securely fastened, and unfortunately the pins +were behind—and I all trussed up, nice and tight and helpless.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly came tearing over to me, and down he went upon his knee to try +to free me, but a muttered "D——n!" told me that he could not find the +pins, and the applause, oh, the precious applause that was being wasted +out there! Suddenly he rose—tossed that extraordinary hat of his off, +picked me up in his arms and carried me like a big property doll to the +curtain's side, signaled it up, and, with his arm about me, supported me +on to the stage. Oh, but I was proud to stand there with him, for in +those days he would not make the simplest speech; would not show himself +even. Why, at the banquet of his own giving, he hid behind a big floral +piece and made Mr. Oakey Hall speak for him. And yet he had been pleased +enough with my work to bring me there himself. I saw his hand upon my +shoulder, and suddenly I stooped my head and kissed it, in purest +gratitude.</p> + +<p>Afterward, when I had been unpinned, as we walked through the entrance +together, he said, with a gleeful laugh: "This is the third and greatest, +but we share it."</p> + +<p>"The third what?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"The third surprise," he answered. "First you surprised the town in 'Man +and Wife'; second, you surprised <i>me</i> in 'L'Article 47'; now 'Alixe'—the +greatest of all—surprises you as well as me!"</p> + +<p>He stopped, stepped in front of me and asked: "What do you most wish +for?"</p> + +<p>I stared at him. He added, "About your home, say?"</p> + +<p>And swiftly I made answer: "A writing-desk; why?"</p> + +<p>He laughed a little and said: "Good-night, now. Oh, by the way, there's a +forfeit against you for not wearing your bustle to-night."</p> + +<p>But I was not greatly alarmed or excited—not half so much as I was next +day, about four o'clock, when some men drove up and insisted upon leaving +in my room a handsome inlaid desk that was taller than I was. At first I +protested, but a card, saying that it was "A souvenir of 'Alixe,' from +your manager and friend, A. Daly," changed my bearing to one of most +unseemly pride.</p> + +<p>In the next ten days I wrote I think to every soul I knew, and kept up my +diary with vicious exactitude, just for the pleasure of sitting before +the lovely desk, that to-day stands in my "den" in the attic. Its +mirror-door, is dim and cloudy, its sky-blue velvet writing-leaf faded to +a silvery gray, but even so it still remains "A souvenir of 'Alixe,' from +A. Daly."</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="FORTY-FIRST"></a>FORTY-FIRST</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">Trouble about Obnoxious Lines in "Madeline Morel"—Mr. Daly's +Manipulation of Father X: In Spite of our Anxiety the Audience accepts +the Situation and the Play—Mr. Daly gives me the smallest Dog in New +York.</p></div> + + + + +<p>The last and fourth success that was granted to me under Mr. Daly's +management was in "Madeline Morel." Of course I played in many plays, +sometimes small, comparatively unimportant parts, sometimes, as in the +two-hundred-night run of "Divorce," I played a long, hard-working part, +that was without any marked characteristic or salient feature to make a +hit with.</p> + +<p>But I only mention "Madeline Morel" because of a couple of small +incidents connected with its production. First of all, let me say that I +believe Mr. Daly, who was an ardent Catholic, was not the first manager +to give benefits to the Orphan Asylums, for I think that had long been a +custom, but he was the first to arrange those monster programmes, which +included the names of every great attraction in the city—bar none. The +result was not merely an Academy of Music literally packed, but crowds +turned from its doors. I remember what excitement there was over the +gathering together in one performance of such people as Fechter, Sothern, +Adelaide Neilson, Aimée, and Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams. I first saw +the beautiful Mary Anderson at one of these benefits, as well as those +two clever English women, Rose Coghlan and Jeffreys Lewis. Later on, when +I was under Mr. Palmer's management, I had an experience at a benefit +that I am not likely to forget. I had consented to do the fourth act of +"Camille" (the ball-room scene), and when I swept through the crowd of +"guests," every word was wiped clean out of my memory, for as they faced +me I recognized in the supposed supers and extras all the various +stars—the leading ladies and gentlemen who had had a place on the +lengthy programme. Working hard, giving of their best, they had all +laughingly joined in this gracious whim of playing supernumeraries in +Dumas's ball-scene. And I remember that Mademoiselle Aimée was +particularly determined to be recognized as she walked and strolled up +and down. Once I whispered imploringly to her: "Turn your back, Madame!" +but she laboriously answered: "Non! I haiv' not of ze shame to be supe +for you, Mademoiselle!" It was a charming compliment, but more than a bit +overwhelming to its recipient.</p> + +<p>Well, Mr. Daly having originated, as I believe, these splendid and +lengthy benefit performances, was, as a result, able to place a goodly +sum of money at the service of the Asylum authorities, and naturally he +received warm thanks from his Church.</p> + +<p>Then, when "Madeline Morel" came along, with the great cathedral scene, +we all stood aghast at what I was called upon to say and do. Everyone was +on the stage, and nearly everyone whispered: "Sacrilege!" I stopped +stock-still, in sheer fright. Mr. Daly pulled nervously at the lapel of +his coat for a moment, and then said, sharply, "Go on!" I obeyed, but +right behind me someone said: "And he calls himself a Catholic!"</p> + +<p>It was a horrid bit, in an otherwise beautiful and impressive act. As a +"sister" who had served the "novitiate," I had just taken the life vows +and had been invested with the black veil. Then the wedding procession +and the Church procession, coming from opposite sides and crossing before +the altar, like a great "X," brought the bridegroom and the black nun +face to face, in dreadful recognition, and in the following scene I had +to drag from my head the veil and swathing white linen—had to tear from +my breast the cross, and, trampling it under foot, stretch my arms to +Heaven and, with upraised face, cry: "I call down upon my guilty soul +the thunders of a curse, that none may hear and live!" and then fall +headlong, as though my challenge had been accepted.</p> + +<p>Nothing was talked of day or night but that scene, and those of the +company who were Catholics were particularly excited, and they cried: +"Why, if we find it so repellant, what on earth will an audience think of +it?"</p> + +<p>Some prophesied hisses, some that the people would rise and leave the +theatre. That Mr. Daly was uneasy about its effect he did not attempt to +hide, and one day he said to me: "I think I'll call on Father X—— (his +confessor and friend) to-morrow evening, and get his—well—his opinion +on this matter." But, unfortunately, rumors had already reached churchly +ears, and the reverend gentleman came that same day to inquire of Mr. +Daly concerning them. I say "unfortunately," because Mr. Daly was a +masterful man and resented anything like interference. Had he been +permitted to introduce the matter himself, no doubt a few judicious words +from the priest would have induced him to tone down the objectionable +speech and action: but the visit to him rubbed him the wrong way and +aroused every particle of obstinacy in him. He described the play, +however, assured his old friend there were no religious arguments, no +homilies in it, but when he came to <i>the</i> scene, the Father shook his +head: "No—no! my son!" said he, "I do not see how that can be +sanctioned."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly reasoned, argued, almost pleaded; but though it evidently hurt +the good man to refuse, since he was greatly attached to his son in the +church, he still shook his head and at last declared it was a serious +matter, and he would have to bring it to the Bishop's attention. But that +was just what Mr. Daly did not want. "Can you not see, Father," he said, +"these lines are spoken in a frenzy? They come from the lips of a woman +mad with grief and trouble! They have not the value or the consequence of +words spoken by a sane person!"</p> + +<p>The priest shook his head. Suddenly Mr. Daly ceased his arguments and +persuasions. After a little silence, he said: "You cannot sanction this +scene, then, Father?"</p> + +<p>A positive shake of the head. Mr. Daly looked pensively out of the +window.</p> + +<p>"Too bad!" he sighed, "too bad!"</p> + +<p>The kind old man sighed too, companionably.</p> + +<p>"You see, if that scene is not done, the play cannot be done."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear!" murmured the priest.</p> + +<p>"And if the play is not done, having nothing else at hand, I shall have +to close the season with the old play, and naturally that will mean bad +business."</p> + +<p>"Too bad, too bad!" muttered the voice, comfortably.</p> + +<p>"And if the season ends badly, why, of course, there can be no charity +benefit."</p> + +<p>"What?" sharply exclaimed the erstwhile calm voice. "No benefit for our +poor? Why—why—'er—I—dear me! and the Asylum needs help so +badly!—'er—a 'frenzy' you said, my son? Spoken in +madness?—'er—I—well—I will give the matter serious thought, and I'll +acquaint you with my conclusion," and evidently much disturbed he +retired.</p> + +<p>And when Mr. Daly told me this, he added, with a twinkle in his eye: "He +will get the benefit, surely enough." And when he saw my bewilderment, he +added: "Don't you see? I had my doubts about the Bishop, but dear old +Father X—— will be so anxious about his orphans that he will make +things right for me with him, for their sakes." A view of the matter that +proved to be correct. Verily a clever man was our manager.</p> + +<p>Day after day we rehearsed, and day after day I hoped that the dreadful +bit of business might be toned down. At last my nerves gave way +completely, and after a particularly trying rehearsal I rushed to the +managerial office, and, bursting into tears, begged hard to be excused +from trampling the cross under foot.</p> + +<p>"Surely," I sobbed, "it's bad enough to have to tear off the +veil—and—and—I'm afraid something will happen!"</p> + +<p>"And," said Mr. Daly, "to tell you the truth, I'm afraid, too!"</p> + +<p>He gave me a glass of water, and waiting a moment for me to conquer my +tears, he went on: "I'm glad you have come in, I was just about sending +for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I interrupted, "you are going to cut something out?" But he +answered, gravely: "No! I shall cut nothing out! But look here, you are a +brave girl, and forewarned is forearmed, you know, so I am going to speak +quite plainly. I don't know how the public may receive that bit of +business; perhaps with dead silence; perhaps with hisses."</p> + +<p>I sprang to my feet. "Sit down!" he said, "and listen. You shall not be +held responsible, in the slightest degree, for the scene, I promise you +that. If anything disagreeable happens it shall be fairly stated that you +played under protest. It is, of course, possible that the scene may go +along all right, but I want to warn you that you may prepare yourself for +the storm, should it come. I don't want you to be taken unawares and have +you faint or lose your nerve. So, now whenever you go over your part and +reach that point, say to yourself: 'Here they hiss!' Don't look so pale. +I'm sorry you have to bear the brunt alone, but you will be brave, won't +you?"</p> + +<p>And I rose, and after my usual habit, tried to jest, as I answered: +"Since you alone gave me my opportunity of being <i>applauded</i> in New York, +I suppose it's only fair that I should accept this opportunity of being +<i>hissed</i>."</p> + +<p>Excited and miserable I went home. Faithfully I followed Mr. Daly's +suggestion. But no matter how often I went over the scene, whenever I +said: "Here they hiss," my face went white, my hands turned cold as +stone. 'Twas fortunate the first performance was near, for I could not +have borne the strain long. As it was, I seemed to wear my nerves on the +outside of my clothes until the dreaded night was over.</p> + +<p>The play had gone finely; most of the people were well cast. Miss Morant, +Miss Davenport, Miss Jewett, Miss Varian especially so; while Fisher, +Lewis, Lemoyne, Crisp, Clark, and James did their best to make a success +and close in glory the season that had been broken in half by the burning +of the home theatre. The end of the third act had been mine. The +passionate speech of renunciation and farewell had won the favor of the +house, and call after call followed. As I had played the scene alone, I +should have been proud and happy—should have counted the calls with a +miser's gloating satisfaction. But instead my blood was already chilling +with dread of the coming act.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, child!" said Mr. Daly, "your face is as long as my arm! Don't +anticipate evil—take the good the gods send you. You are making a hit +and you're losing all the pleasure of it. I'm ashamed of you!"</p> + +<p>But he wrung my fingers hard, even as he spoke, and I knew that his words +were, what the boys call a "bluff."</p> + +<p>Then the curtain was rising. The cathedral scene won a round of applause, +and kneeling at the altar, as children say, "I scringed" at the sound. +Then after a little I was coming down the stage and the audience, +recognizing <i>Madeline</i> in the nun, applauded long and heartily, and I +fairly groaned aloud. After that the act proceeded really with stately +dignity, but to my terrified eyes it seemed indecent haste; and as I fell +into line with the Church procession of sisters, of novices, of priests +and acolytes, I felt myself a morsel in a kaleidoscopic picture of bright +colors, the churchly purple and its red and white, the brilliant gowns of +the women of fashion, the golden organ-pipes, the candles burning +star-like upon the altar, the massed flowers, and over all, giving a +touch of floating unreality to everything, the clouds of incense.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly, out of the bluish haze, there gleamed the white, set face, +for love of which I was to sacrifice my very soul! The scene was on, +swift, passionate, and furious, and almost before I could realize it, the +dreadful words had been spoken—and with my foot upon the cross, I stood +in a silence the like of which I had never known before! I had not +fallen—stricken absolutely motionless with terror I stood—waiting.</p> + +<p>In that crowded building even breathing seemed suspended. There reigned a +silence, like to death itself! It was awful! Then without changing my +attitude by the movement of a finger, I pitched forward, falling heavily +at the feet of the dismayed lover and the indignant priest. And suddenly, +sharply as by a volley of musketry, the silence was broken by applause. +Yes, actually by applause, and beneath its noise I heard a voice behind +me gasp: "Well, I'll be blest!"</p> + +<p>When all was ended, and after the final courtesies had been extended and +gratefully accepted, there was an outburst of excited comment, and more +than one experienced actor declared that never again would they even try +to anticipate the conduct of an audience. Old Mr. Fisher told Mr. Daly he +had felt the rising hiss and he was positive it was regard for the woman +that had restrained its expression.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daly patted the old gentleman on the shoulder and answered: +"Perhaps—perhaps! but if for her sake the public has swallowed that +scene one night, the public have got to go on swallowing it every +night—and that's the important point for us."</p> + +<p>Very shamefacedly I apologized for not falling at the proper time, and as +I hurriedly promised to do so the next night, to my surprise Mr. Daly +stopped me with a quick: "No! no! change nothing! I was in front, and +that pause, staring straight up into heaven, was tremendously effective. +It was as if God offered you a moment to repent in—then struck you down! +Change nothing, and to-morrow you shall have your heart's desire."</p> + +<p>I gazed at him in amazement. He laughed a bit maliciously and said: "Old +heat-registers and things carry voices. I hear many things. I have heard, +for instance, about a man named Dovey and a wonderful toy terrier that +weighs by ounces. I wouldn't open my eyes any wider, if I were you; they +might stay that way. Well, will you show me the way to Dovey's by eleven +to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"But," I faltered, "I'm afraid of the price——"</p> + +<p>"That's my affair," he answered curtly, then added, more kindly, +"Good-night! you have behaved well, Miss Morris, and if I can give you a +pleasure—I shall be glad."</p> + +<p>And next day I owned the tiniest dog in New York, who slept in a +collar-box, by my pillow, that I might not hurt it in the night. Whose +bark was like a cambric needle, and who, within five minutes after her +arrival, challenged to deadly combat my beloved Bertie, who weighed good +four pounds.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="FORTY-SECOND"></a>FORTY-SECOND</span></h2> +<div class="center"><p class="thin15">I am Engaged to Star part of the Season—Mr. Daly Breaks his Contract—I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction—I meet Mr. Palmer and make Contract and appear at the Union Square in the "Wicked World."</p></div> + + + + +<p>The third season in New York was drawing to its close, and by most +desperate struggling I had managed just to keep my head above water—that +was all. I not only failed to get ahead by so much as a single dollar, +but I had never had really enough of anything. We were skimped on +clothes, skimped on food, indeed we were skimped on everything, except +work and hope deferred. When, lo! a starring tour was proposed to me. +After my first fright was over I saw a possibility of earning in that way +something more than my mere board, though, truth to tell, I was not +enraptured with the prospect of joining that ever-moving caravan of +homeless wanderers, who barter home, happiness, and digestive apparatus +for their percentage of the gross, and the doubtful privilege of having +their own three-sheet posters stare them out of countenance in every town +they visit. Yet without the brazen poster and an occasional lithograph +hung upside down in the window of a German beer saloon, one would lack +the proof of stardom.</p> + +<p>No, I had watched stars too long and too closely to believe theirs was a +very joyous existence; besides, I felt I had much to learn yet, and that +New York was the place to learn it in; so, true to my promise, off I went +and laid the matter before Mr. Daly—and he <i>did</i> take on, but for such +an odd reason. For though he paid me the valued compliment of saying he +could not afford to lose me, his greatest anger was aroused by what he +called the "demoralization" my act would bring into his company.</p> + +<p>"You put that bee in their bonnets and its buzzing will drown all +commands, threats, or reasons. Every mother's son and daughter of them +will demand the right to star! Why, confound it! Jimmie Lewis, who has +had one try at it, is twisting and writhing to get at it again—even now; +and as for Miss Davenport, she will simply raise the dead over her effort +to break out starring, and Ethel—oh, well, she's free now to do as she +likes. But you star one week and you'll see how quick she will take the +cue, while Miss—oh, it's damnable! You can't do it! it will set everyone +on end!"</p> + +<p>"If you will give me a salary equal to that of other people, who do much +less work than I do, I will stay with you," I said.</p> + +<p>But he wanted me to keep to the small salary and let him "make it up to +me," meaning by that, his paying for the stage costumes and occasional +gifts, etc. But that was not only unbusiness-like and +unsatisfactory—though he undoubtedly would have been generous +enough—but it was a bit humiliating, since it made me dependent on his +whims and, worst of all, it opened the door to possible scandal, and I +had but one tongue to deny with, while scandal had a thousand tongues to +accuse with.</p> + +<p>It was a queer whim, but he insisted that he could not give me the really +modest salary I would remain for, though, in his own words, I should have +"three times its value." Finally we agreed that I should give him three +months of the season every year as long as he might want my services, and +the rest of the season I should be free to make as much money as I could, +starring. He told me to go ahead and make engagements at once to produce +"L'Article 47" or "Alixe"—I to pay him a heavy nightly royalty for each +play, and when my engagements were completed to bring him the list, that +he might not produce "Alixe" with his company before me in any city that +I was to visit. I did as he had requested me. I was bound in every +contract to be the first to present "L'Article 47" or "Alixe" in that +city. I was then to open in Philadelphia. I had been announced as a +coming attraction, when I received startling telegrams and threats from +the local manager that "Mr. Daly's Fifth Avenue Company" was announced to +appear the week before me in "Alixe," in an opposition house. Thus Mr. +Daly had most cruelly broken faith with me. I went to him at once. I +reproached him. I said: "These people will sue me!"</p> + +<p>"Bah!" he sneered, "they can't take what you have not got!"</p> + +<p>"But," I cried, "they will throw over my engagement!"</p> + +<p>His face lit up with undisguised pleasure. He thrust his hand into the +open desk-drawer. "Ah," he smiled, "I have a part here that might have +been written for you. It is great—honestly great, and with this starring +business disposed of, we can get at it early!"</p> + +<p>I rose. I said: "Mr. Daly, you have done an unworthy thing, you have +broken faith with me. If you produce 'Alixe' next week, I will never play +for you again!"</p> + +<p>"You will have to!" he threatened. "I have broken the verbal part of our +contract, but you cannot prove it, nor can you break the written part of +the contract!"</p> + +<p>I repeated: "I shall play for you no more!"</p> + +<p>And he hotly answered: "Well, don't you try playing for anyone else. I +give you fair warning—I'll enjoin you if you do! The law is on my side, +remember."</p> + +<p>"My dear sir," I said, "the law was not specially created for you to have +fun with, and it has an odd way of protecting women at times. I shall at +all events appeal to it to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>Next morning my salary was sent to me. I took from it what was due me for +two nights' work I had done early in the week, and returned the rest, +saying: "As I am not a member of the company, no salary need be sent me." +And eleven o'clock found me in the office of ex-Judge William Fullerton.</p> + +<p>He declared that my mind showed a strong legal bent, and he congratulated +me upon my refusal of the proffered salary. "If," said he, "you receive a +desirable offer in the way of an engagement, take it at once and without +fear. Mr. Daly will threaten you, of course, but I can't believe his +lawyers will permit him to take this matter into court. In attacking you +he will attack every young, self-supporting woman in New York, in your +person. The New York man will sympathize with you. Public opinion is a +great power, and no manager wishes to see it arrayed against him."</p> + +<p>And thus it happened that I was not legally quite off with the old +manager when I was on with the new—in the person of Mr. A. M. Palmer, my +sometime manager and still my honored friend. Our relations were always +kindly, yet to this hour I squirm mentally when I recall our first +meeting. I was taking some chocolate at a woman's restaurant on Broadway, +and a common friend brought the "Union Square" manager in and introduced +him, simply as a friend, for whatever my secret hope, there had been no +open word spoken about business in connection with this interview. But, +given a meeting between an idle actress and an active manager, a +Barkis-like willingness to talk business is sure to develop.</p> + +<p>Looking up and seeing Mr. Harriott advancing toward my table with a +strange gentleman in tow, I gave a nervous swallow and fixed my attention +upon the latter. His rigid propriety of expression, the immaculately +spotless and creaseless condition of his garments made me expect each +moment to hear the church-bells clang out an invitation to morning +service. Being presented, he greeted me with a gentle coldness of +manner—if I may use the expression—that sent my heart down like lead. +Now extreme nervousness on my part nearly always expresses itself in +rapid, almost reckless speech, and directly I was off at a tangent, +successfully sharing with them the fun of various absurdities going on +about us; until, in an evil moment, my eye fell upon the smug face of a +young rural beau, whose terrified delight in believing himself a very +devil of a fellow was so ludicrously evident, that one wept for the +presence of a Dickens to embalm him in the amber of his wit.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I said, egged on by one of those imps who hover at the elbow of +just such women as I am, "can't you see he is a minister's son? He has +had more religion given to him than he can digest. He's taking a sniff of +freedom. He has kicked over the traces and he has not quite decided yet +whether he'll go to the demnition bow-wows entirely, or be moderately +respectable. He's a minister's son fast enough, but he doesn't know yet +whether he will manage a theatre in New York or run away with the +Sunday-school funds; and that red-haired young person oppo—opposite——" +And I trailed off stupidly, for judging by the ghastly silence that had +fallen upon my hearers and the stricken look upon Mr. Harriott's face, I +knew I had set my foot deep in some conversational morass. I turned a +frightened glance upon Mr. Palmer's face, and I have always been glad +that I was in time to catch the twinkling laughter in his cool, hazel +eyes. Then he leaned toward me and gently remarked: "I am the son of a +minister, Miss Morris, and the manager of a theatre, but upon my word the +Sunday-school funds never suffered at my hands."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I groaned. And I must have looked just as a pet dog does when it +creeps guiltily to its mistress's foot and waits to be smacked. I +<i>really</i> must, because he suddenly broke into such hearty laughter. Then +presently he made a business proposition that pleased me greatly, but I +felt I must tell him that Mr. Daly promised to get out an injunction to +prevent my appearance anywhere, and he would probably not care to risk +any trouble. And then there came a little squeeze to Mr. Palmer's lips +and a little glint in his eye, as he remarked: "You accept my offer and +I'll know how to meet the injunction."</p> + +<p>And I can't help it—being born on St. Patrick's Day and all that—if +people <i>will</i> step on the tail of one's coat, why of course they must +expect "ructions." And to tell the honest truth, Mr. Palmer's perfect +willingness to fight that injunction filled me with unholy glee; which +combined beautifully with gratitude for his quick forgiveness of my <i>faux +pas</i>—and I signed a contract with Mr. Sheridan Shook and Mr. A. M. +Palmer and was announced to appear in "The Wicked World" at the Union +Square Theatre, and I was pursued day and night by slim young men with +black curly hair, who tried to push folded papers into my unwilling +hands; while life behind the scenes grew more and more strenuous, as +scene-shifters, property-men, and head carpenters, armed with braces and +screw-eyes, charged any unknown male creature that looked as if he could +define the word injunction.</p> + +<p>The night came, and with it an equinoctial gale of perfect fury. Whether +the people were blown in by the storm or fought their way in by +intention, I can't decide. I only know they were there and in numbers +sufficient to crowd the bright and ruddy auditorium. They were a trifle +damp about the ankles and disordered about the hair, but their hands were +in prime working order, their hearts were warm, their perceptions +quick—what more could the most terrified actress pray for in an +audience?</p> + +<p>The play was one of Gilbert's deliciously poetic satires—well cast, +beautifully produced, after the manner of Union Square productions +generally, and Success shook the rain off her wings and perched upon our +banners, and we were all filled with pride and joy, in spite of the young +men with folded white papers who swirled wildly up and down Fourth Avenue +in the storm, and of those other young men who came early and strove +diligently to get seats within reaching distance of the foot-lights, only +to find that by some strange accident both those rows of chairs were +fully occupied when the doors were first throw open. Yes, in spite of all +those disappointed young men, we had a success, and I was not enjoined. +Yet there were two rather long managerial faces there that night. For +unless my out-of-town managers threw me overboard, because of the +trouble about "Alixe," I could remain in this charming play of "The +Wicked World" but two short weeks. And no manager can be expected to +rejoice over the forced withdrawal of a success.</p> + +<p>And right there Mr. Palmer saw fit to do a very gracious thing. After the +first outburst of anger and disappointment from Mr. Thomas Hall (my +Philadelphia manager), instead of breaking his engagement with me, as he +had every right to do, he stood by his contract to star me and at the +same terms, if I could provide a play—any play to fill the time with. I +had nothing of course but the Daly plays, so my thanks and utter +abandonment of the engagement were neatly packed within the regulation +ten telegraphic words, when Mr. Palmer offered me the use of his play, +"The Geneva Cross," written by George Fawcett Rowe. In an instant my +first telegram changed into a joyous acceptance. I was studying my part +at night, my mother was ripping, picking out and pressing at skirts and +things by day. Congratulating myself upon my good fortune in having once +seen the play in New York, I went to Philadelphia, and after just one +rehearsal of this strange play, I opened my starring engagement. Can I +ever forget the thrill I felt when I received my first thousand dollars? +I counted it by twenties, then by tens, but I got the most satisfaction +out of counting it by fives—it seemed so much more that way. I was +spending it with the aid of a sheet of foolscap paper and a long pencil +until after two o'clock in the morning. My mother to this day declares +that that was the very best black silk dress she has ever owned—that one +out of that first thousand she means, and on the wall here beside me +hangs a fine and rare engraving of the late Queen Victoria in her +coronation robes that I gave myself as a memento of that first wonderful +thousand. That, when the other managers saw that Mr. Hall kept faith with +me, and had apparently not lost by his action, they followed suit and all +my engagements were filled—thanks to Mr. Palmer's kindness and Mr. +Hall's pluck as well as generosity.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="FORTY-THIRD"></a>FORTY-THIRD</span></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="thin15">We Give a Charity Performance of "Camille," and Are Struck with Amazement at our Success—Mr. Palmer Takes the Cue and Produces "Camille" for Me at the Union Square.</p></div> + + + +<p>Then came the great "charity benefit," and "Camille"—that "Ninon de l' +Enclos" of the drama, who, in spite of her years, can still count lovers +at her feet.</p> + +<p>It is amazing how much accident has to do with the career of actors.</p> + +<p>Shakespeare says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Rough-hew them how we will."</span></div> + + +<p>And heaven knows I "rough-hewed" the "Camille" proposition to the best of +my power. I came hurrying back to New York, specially to act at the +mighty benefit, given for the starving poor of the city. Every theatre +was to give a performance on the same day, and a ticket purchased was +good at any one of them. I had selected "Love's Sacrifice," an old +legitimate play, for that occasion and Mr. Palmer had cast it, when an +actress suddenly presented herself at his office declaring she had made +that play <i>her</i> property, by her own exceptional work in it in former +years, at another theatre. Threatening hysterics often prove valuable +weapons in a manager's office, where, strangely enough, "a scene" is +hated above all things.</p> + +<p>I was informed of this lady's claim to a play that was anybody's +property, and at once withdrew in the interest of peace. But what then +was to be done for the benefit? Every play proposed had some drawback. +Mr. Palmer suggested "Camille," and all my objections crowding to my lips +at once, I fairly stammered and spluttered over the expression of them: I +hated! hated! hated! the play! The people who had preceded me in it were +too great! I should be the merest pigmy beside them. I did not think +<i>Camille</i> as vulgar and coarse as one great woman had made her—nor so +chill and nun-like as another had conceived her to be. And the critics +would fall upon me and joyously tear me limb from limb. They would justly +cry "Presumption," and—and—I had no clothes! no, not one stitch had I +to wear (of course you will make the usual allowance for an excited woman +and not take that literally!) and then, oh, dear! I'm dreadfully ashamed +of myself, but to tell the exact truth, I wept—for the first and only +time in my life—I wept from anger!</p> + +<p>We all fumed—we, meaning Mr. Palmer, Mr. Cazauran, that ferret-faced, +mysterious little man, whose clever brain and dramatic instincts made him +so valuable about a theatre; and the big, silently observant Mr. Shook, +and I. Cazauran said he knew all the business of the play and could tell +me it, and began with certain things Miss Heron (the greatest <i>Camille</i> +America had had) had done, and I indignantly declared I would leave a +theatre before I would do as much. I argued it was unnecessary. <i>Camille</i> +was not brutal—she had associated with gentlemen, members of the +nobility, men who were acquainted with court circles. She would have +learned refinement of manners from them. Such brutalities would have +shocked and driven away the boyish, clean-hearted <i>Armand</i>. Her very +disease made her exquisitely sensitive to music, to beauty, to sentiment. +If she repelled, it was with cynicism, sarcasm, her evident knowledge of +the world. She allured men by the very refinement of her vice. And as I +paused to take breath, Mr. Shook's bass voice was heard for the first +time, as he asked, conclusively: "Whom can we get for <i>Armand</i> on such +short notice?"</p> + +<p>I turned piteously to Mr. Palmer: "The critics"—I gasped and stopped. He +smiled reassuringly and said: "Don't be frightened, Miss Morris, they +will never attack a piece of work offered in charity. Just do your best +and remember it's only for once."</p> + +<p>"Dear Lord! only for once!" and with wet cheeks I made my way home, with +a copy of the detested play in my hand. Late that evening I was notified +that Mr. Mayo would play <i>Armand</i>.</p> + +<p>I had not one dress suited for the part. I knew I should look like a +school-mistress in one act and a stage <i>ingénue</i> in another. I had a +ball-room gown, but it was not a suitable color. I should only be correct +when I got into my night-dress and loose wrapper in the last act. Actress +fashion, I got my gowns together first, and then sat down with my string +of amber beads to study—I never learn anything so quickly as when I have +something to occupy my fingers, and my string of amber beads has assisted +me over many and many an hour of mental labor—a pleasanter custom than +that of walking and studying aloud, I think, and surely more agreeable to +one's near neighbors.</p> + +<p>The rehearsing of that play was simply purgatorial. We went over two acts +on one stage one day and over three acts on another stage the next day, +and we shrieked our lines out against the tumult of creaking winches, of +hammering and sawing, of running and ordering—for every stage was filled +at the rear with rushing carpenters and painters. Yet those were the only +rehearsals that unfortunate play received for the benefit performance, +and, as a result, we were all abroad in the first act, in particular, and +I remember I spent a good part of my time in trying to induce the +handsome young English woman who did <i>Olympe</i> to keep out of my chair and +to go to and from the piano at the right moment.</p> + +<p>The house was packed to the danger-point, the play being given at what +was then called "The Lyceum," which Charles Fechter had just been having +remodeled, and the police discovering that day that the floor of the +balcony was settling at the right, under the too great weight, very +cleverly ordered the ushers to whisper a seeming message in the ear of a +person here, there, and yonder, who would nod, rise, and step quietly +out, returning a moment later to smilingly motion their party out with +them, and thus the weight was lightened without a panic being caused, +though it made one feel rather sick and faint afterward to note the depth +to which the floor had sagged under the feet of that tightly packed +audience.</p> + +<p>James Lewis used to say to me: "Clara is the biggest fraud of a +first-nighter the profession can show. There she'll stand shivering and +shaking, white-sick with fright, waiting for her cue, and when she gets +it, she skips on and waltzes through her scene as if she'd been at it for +a year at least. No wonder Mr. Daly calls her his best first-nighter."</p> + +<p>So at that first performance of "Camille," as Frank Mayo touched my icy +hand and burning brow, and saw the trembling of my limbs, as with +fever-dried lips I waited for the curtain's rise, he said: "God! but you +suffer! I reckon you'll not act much to-day, little woman!" And a few +minutes later, as I laughed and chatted gayly through the opening lines +of the play, I distinctly heard Frank say: "Well, of all the sells! Why +confound her, I'm twice as nervous as she is!"</p> + +<p>The first act went with a sort of dash and go that was the result of pure +recklessness. The house was delighted. The curtain had to go up twice. We +all looked at one another, and then laughingly laid it to the crowd. The +second act went with such a rush and sweep of hot passion between +<i>Armand</i> and <i>Camille</i> that when <i>De Varville's</i> torn letter was cast to +<i>Nanine</i> as <i>Camille's</i> answer, and the lovers leaped to each others' +arms, the house simply roared, and as the curtain went up and down, up +and down, Mayo gasped in amazement: "Well, I'm damned!" But I made +answer: "No, you're not—but you <i>will</i> be if you hammer my poor spine in +another act as you have in this. Go easy, Frank; I can't stand it!"</p> + +<p>The third act went beautifully. Many women sobbed at times. I made my +exit some little time before the end of the act, and of course went +directly to my room, which was beneath the stage, and there began to +dress for the ball-room scene, and lo! after <i>Armand</i> had had two or +three calls for his last speech, something set them on to call for +<i>Camille</i>. And they kept at it, too, till at last a mermaid-like +creature—not exactly half fish and half woman, but half ball-gown train +and half dinky little dressing-sack—came bobbing to the curtain side, +delighting the audience by obeying it, but knocking spots out of the +illusion of the play.</p> + +<p>In the fourth act Mr. Mayo played base-ball with me. He batted me and +hurled me and sometimes I had a wild fear that he would kick me. Finally, +he struck my head so hard that a large gold hairpin was driven through my +scalp and I found a few moments' rest in truly fainting from fatigue, +fright, and pain.</p> + +<p>But it all went. Great heaven! how it went! For Mayo was a great actor, +and it was but intense excitement that made him so rough with me. +Honestly we were so taken aback behind the scenes that none of us knew +what to make of the frantic demonstrations—whether it was just the +result of an extreme good nature in a great crowd, or whether we were +giving an extremely good performance.</p> + +<p>The last act I can never forget. I had cut out two or three pages from +the dialogue in the book. I felt there was too much of it. That if +<i>Camille</i> did not die, her audience would, and had built up a little +scene for myself. Never would I have dared do such a thing had it been +for more than one performance. That scene took in the crossing of the +room to the window, the looking-glass scene, and the return to the bed.</p> + +<p>Dear heaven! it's good to be alive sometimes! to feel your fingers upon +human hearts, to know a little pressure hurts, that a little tighter +pressure will set tears flowing. It was good, too, when that madly-rushed +performance was at last over, to lie back comfortably dead, and hear the +sweet music that is made by small gloved hands, violently spatted +together. "Yes, it was 'werry' good."</p> + +<p>And Mr. Palmer, standing in his box, looking at the pleased, moist-eyed +people in front, took up the cue they offered, so promptly that within +twenty-four hours I had been engaged to play <i>Camille</i> at the Union +Square, as one of a cast to be ever proud of, in a handsome production +with sufficient rehearsals and correct gowns and plenty of extra ladies +and gentlemen to "enter all!" at the fourth act. And more still, the new +play that was then in preparation was called in and packed away with +mothballs to wait until the old play had had its innings.</p> + +<p>Such a cast! Just look at it!</p> +<div class="box"> +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>M. Armand Duval</small></i></td> <td align="right">MR. CHARLES R. THORNE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>Comte de Varville</small></i></td> <td align="right"> MR. MCKEE RANKIN</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>M. Duval (Père)</small></i></td> <td align="right"> MR. JOHN PARSELLE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>M. Gustave</small></i></td> <td align="right"> MR. CLAUDE BURROUGHS</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>M. Gaston</small></i></td> <td align="right">MR. STUART ROBSON</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>Mademoiselle Olympe</small></i> </td> <td align="right">MISS MAUDE GRANGER</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>Mademoiselle Nichette</small></i></td> <td align="right"> MISS KATE CLAXTON</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>Mademoiselle Nanine</small></i> </td> <td align="right">MISS KATE HOLLAND</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>Madame Prudence</small></i></td> <td align="right"> MISS EMILY MESTAYER</td></tr> +</table></div></div> + + + +<p>If Mr. Palmer ever eats opium or hashish and has beauteous visions, I am +sure he will see himself making out those splendid old casts again.</p> + +<p>Every theatre-goer knows it's difficult for a stout, romantic actor to +make his love reach convincingly all the way round, and it is almost as +difficult for an actor who has attained six feet of height to make his +love include his entire length of anatomy. But Charles R. Thorne was the +most satisfactory over-tall lover I ever saw. He really seemed entirely +possessed by the passion of love. "My God Thorne" he was nicknamed +because of his persistent use of that exclamation. Of course it did +often occur in plays by authority of their authors, but whenever Thorne +was nervous, confused, or "rattled," as actors term it, or uncertain of +the next line, he would pass his hand across his brow and exclaim, in +suppressed tones: "My God!" and delicious creepy chills would go up and +down the feminine spine out in the auditorium—the male spine is not so +sensitive, you know. A fine actor, hot-tempered, quick to take offence, +equally quick to repent his too hasty words; as full of mischief as a +monkey, he was greatly beloved by those near to him. I worked with him in +perfect amity, albeit I do not think he ever called me anything but +<i>Johnny</i>, the name Lou James bestowed upon me at Daly's; and his death +found me shocked and incredulous as well as grieved. He should have +served his admiring public many a year longer, this most admirable +<i>Armand</i>.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Parselle, what a delight his stage presence was. He had unction, +jollity, tenderness, dignity, but above all a most polished courtesy. It +was worth two dollars to see John Parselle in court dress, and his +entrance and salutation as <i>Duval Père</i> in the cottage scene of "Camille" +was an unfailing gratification to me—he was a dramatic gem of great +value.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stuart Robson, by expressing a genuine tenderness of sympathy for the +dying woman in the last act, amazed and delighted everyone. It had not +been suspected that a trained comedian, who hopped about and lisped and +squeaked through the other acts, could lay aside those eccentricities and +show real gentleness and sincerity in the last—a very memorable <i>Gaston</i> +was Mr. Stuart Robson.</p> + +<p>But oh, how many of these names are cut in marble now! Poor Claude +Burroughs! with his big eyes, his water curls, and his tight-waisted +coats. We would not have poked so much fun at him, had we known how +terrible was the fate approaching him.</p> + +<p>And little Katie Holland—she of the knee-reaching auburn locks, the +gentlest of living creatures—God in His wisdom, which finite man may not +understand, has taken and held safe, lo! these many years.</p> + +<p>As an ex-votary of pleasure, <i>Prudence</i> is always more convincing if she +can show some remnant of past beauty; so the statuesque regularity of +feature the Mestayer family was famous for, told here, and the <i>Prudence</i> +of Miss Emily Mestayer was as handsome and heartless a harpy as one ever +saw.</p> + +<p>Then, too, there were the gorgeous Maude Granger, the ruddy-haired +Claxton, and the piratically handsome Rankin; their best opportunities +were yet to come to all three. And with that cast Mr. Palmer achieved a +great success, with the play that, old then, shows to this day the most +astounding vitality.</p> + +<p>The only drawback was to be found in its impropriety as an entertainment +for the ubiquitous "young person," in the immorality of <i>Camille's</i> life, +which was much dwelt upon. Now—oh, the pity of it!—now <i>Camille</i> is, by +comparison with modern plays, absolutely staid. It is the adulteries of +wives and husbands that the "young person" looks unwinkingly upon to-day. +Worse still—the breaking of the Seventh Commandment no longer leads to +tragic punishment, as of yore, but the thunders that rolled about Mount +Sinai at the promulgation of that awful warning: "Thou shalt not commit +adultery!" are answered now by the thunders of laughter that greet the +taking in adultery of false wives and husbands in milliners' many-doored +rooms, or restaurants' <i>cabinet particulier</i>. Alas, that the time should +come that this passion for the illicit should so dominate the stage!</p> + +<p>One more delightful production at the Union Square Theatre I shared in, +and then my regular company days were over.</p> + + + + +<h2><span>CHAPTER <a id="FORTY-FOURTH"></a>FORTY-FOURTH</span></h2> +<div class="center"> + +<p class="thin15">"Miss Multon" Put in Rehearsal—Our Squabble over + the Manner of her Death—Great Success of the Play—Mr. Palmer's +Pride in it—My <i>Au Revoir</i>.</p></div> + + + +<p>The other day, in recalling to Mr. Palmer a long list of such successful +productions of his as "Led Astray," "The Two Orphans," "Camille," "Miss +Multon," "The Danicheffs," "The Celebrated Case," etc., he surprised me +by emphatically declaring that the performance of "Miss Multon" came +nearer to absolute perfection than had any other play he had ever +produced; and to convince me of that, he simply brought forward the cast +of the play to help prove the truth of his assertion. As we went over the +characters one by one, I was compelled to admit that from the leading +part to the smallest servant, I had never seen one of them quite equaled +since. Mr. Palmer's pride in this production seemed the more odd at +first, because of its slight demands upon the scenic-artist, the +carpenter, and upholsterer. It needs just two interior scenes—a busy +doctor's study in London and a morning-room in a French +country-house—that's all. "But," he will enthusiastically cry, "think of +that performance, recall those people," and so, presently, I will obey +him and recall them every one.</p> + +<p>The play had twice failed in Paris, which was, to say the least, +discouraging. When it was read to me I thought the tremendous passion of +maternity ought to touch the public heart—others there were, who said +no, that sexual love alone could interest the public. Mr. Palmer thought +the French play had needed a little brightening; then, too, he declared +the people wanted to see the actual end of the heroine (one of Mr. Daly's +fixed beliefs, by the way), therefore he had Mr. Cazauran write two +additional short acts—a first, to introduce some brightness in the +children's Christmas-tree party and some amusement in the old bachelor +doctor and his old maid sister; and a last for the death of <i>Miss +Multon</i>.</p> + +<p>After brief reflection I concluded I would risk it, and then, just by way +of encouragement, Mr. Cazauran, who had always been at pains to speak as +kindly of my work as that work would allow, when he was critic on the +different papers, declared that all my acquired skill and natural power +of expressing emotion united would prove useless to me—that <i>Miss +Multon</i> was to be my Waterloo, and to all anxious or surprised "whys?" +sapiently made answer: "No children." His argument was, that not being a +mother in reality, I could not be one in imagination.</p> + +<p>Always lacking in self-confidence, those words made my heart sink +physically, it seemed to me, as well as figuratively; but the ever-ready +jest came bravely to the fore to hide my hurt from the public eye, and at +next rehearsal I shook my head mournfully and remarked to the little man: +"Bad—bad! Miss Cushman must be a very bad <i>Lady Macbeth</i>—I don't want +to see her!"</p> + +<p>"What?" he exclaimed, "Cushman not play <i>Lady Macbeth</i>—for heaven's +sake, why not?"</p> + +<p>"No murderess!" I declared, with an air of authority recognized by those +about me as a fair copy of his own. "If Miss Cushman is not a murderess, +pray how can she act <i>Lady Macbeth</i>—who is?" And the laugh that followed +helped a little to scare away the bugaboo his words had raised in my +mind.</p> + +<p>Then, ridiculous as it may seem to an outsider, the question of dress +proved to be a snag, and there was any amount of backing and filling +before we could get safely round it.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to wear, Miss Morris?" asked Mr. Cazauran one day +after rehearsal—and soon we were at it, and the air was thick with +black, brown, gray, purple, red, and blue! I starting out with a gray +traveling-dress, for a reason, and Mr. Cazauran instantly and without +reason condemned it. He thought a rich purple would be about the thing. +Mr. Palmer gave a small contemptuous "Humph"! and I cried out, aghast: +"Purple? the color of royalty, of pomp, of power? A governess in a rich +purple? Your head would twist clear round, hind side to, with amazement, +if you saw a woman crossing from Calais to Dover attired in a royal +purple traveling-suit."</p> + +<p>Mr. Palmer said: "Nonsense, Cazauran; purple is not appropriate;" and +then, "How would blue—dark blue or brown do?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"For just a traveling-dress either one would answer perfectly," I +answered; "but think of the character I am trying to build up. Why not +let me have all the help my gown can give me? My hair is to be +gray—white at temples; I have to wear a dress that requires no change in +going at once to cars and boat. Now gray or drab is a perfect +traveling-gown, but think, too, what it can express—gray hair, white +face, gray dress without relief of trimming, does it not suggest the +utterly flat, hopeless monotony of the life of a governess in London? Not +hunger, not cold, but the very dust and ashes of life? Then, when the +woman arrives at the home of her rival and tragedy is looming big on the +horizon, I want to wear red."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" exclaimed Cazauran; and really red was so utterly unworn at +that time that I was forced to buy furniture covering, reps, in order to +get the desired color, a few days later.</p> + +<p>"Yes, red," I persisted. "Not too bright, not impudent scarlet, but a +dull, rich shade that will give out a gleam when the light strikes it; +that will have the force of a threat—a menacing color, that white +collar, cuffs and black lace shoulder wrap will restrict to +governess-like primness, until, with mantle torn aside, she stands a +pillar of fire and fury. And at the last I want a night-dress and a +loose robe over it of a hard light blue, that will throw up the ghastly +pallor of the face. There—that's what I want to wear, and why I want to +wear it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Palmer decided that purple was impossible and black too conventional, +while the proposed color-scheme of gray, red, and blue seemed reasonable +and characteristic. And suddenly that little wretch, Cazauran, laughed as +good-naturedly as possible and said he thought so, too, but it did no +harm to talk things over, and so we got around that snag, only to see a +second one looming up before us in the question of what was to kill <i>Miss +Multon</i>.</p> + +<p>I asked it: "Of what am I to die?"</p> + +<p>"Die? how? Why, just die, that's all," replied Cazauran.</p> + +<p>"But <i>of</i> what?" I persisted; "what kills me? <i>Miss Multon</i> at present +dies simply that the author may get rid of her. I don't want to be +laughed at. We are not in the days of 'Charlotte Temple'—we suffer, but +we live. To die of a broken heart is to be guyed, unless there is an +aneurism. Now what can <i>Miss Multon</i> die from? If I once know that, I'll +find out the proper business for the scene."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you'd have some of the men carry knives," sneered Cazauran, "and +then she could be stabbed?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" I answered; "knives are not necessary for the stabbing of a +woman; a few sharp, envenomed words can do that nicely—but we are +speaking of death, not wounds; from what is <i>Miss Multon</i> to die?"</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Palmer made suggestions, and Miss Morris made suggestions, and +Mr. Cazauran triumphantly wiped them out of existence. But at last +Cazauran himself grudgingly remarked that consumption would do well +enough, and Mr. Palmer and I, as with one vengeful voice, cried out, +<i>Camille!</i> And Cazauran said some things like "Nom de Dieu!" or "Dieu de +Dieu!" and I said: "Chassez à droite," but the little man was vexed and +would not laugh.</p> + +<p>Someone proposed a fever—but I raised the contagion question. Poison was +thought of, but that would prevent the summoning of the children from +Paris, by <i>Dr. Osborne</i>. We parted that day with the question unanswered.</p> + +<p>At next rehearsal I still wondered how I was to die, hard or easy, rigid +or limp, slow or quick. "Oh," I exclaimed, "I must know whether I am to +die in a second or to begin in the first act." And in my own exaggerated, +impatient words I found my first hint—"why <i>not</i> begin to die in the +first act?"</p> + +<p>When we again took up the question, I asked, eagerly: "What are those two +collapses caused by—the one at the mirror, the other at the school-table +with the children?"</p> + +<p>"Extreme emotion," I was answered.</p> + +<p>"Then," I asked, "why not extreme emotion acting upon a weak heart?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Palmer was for the heart trouble from the first—he saw its +possibilities, saw that it was new, comparatively speaking at least—I +suppose nothing is really new—and decided in its favor; but for some +reason the little man Cazauran was piqued, and the result was that he +introduced just one single line, that could faintly indicate that <i>Miss +Multon</i> was a victim of heart disease—in the first act, where, after a +violent exclamation from the lady, <i>Dr. Osborne</i> said: "Oh, I thought it +was your heart again," and on eight words of foundation I was expected to +raise a superstructure of symptoms true enough to nature to be readily +recognized as indicating heart disease; and yet oh, difficult task! that +disease must not be allowed to obtrude itself into first place, nor must +it be too poignantly expressed. In brief, we decided I was to show to the +public a case of heart disease, ignored by its victim and only recognized +among the characters about her by the doctor.</p> + +<p>And verily my work was cut out for me. Why, when I went to the Doctors +Seguin to be coached, I could not even locate my heart correctly by half +a foot. Both father and son did all they could to teach me the full +horror of <i>angina pectoris</i>, which I would, of course, tone down for +artistic reasons. And to this day tears rise in my eyes when I recall the +needless cruelty of the younger Seguin, in running a heart patient up a +long flight of stairs, that I might see the gasping of the gray-white +mouth for breath, the flare and strain of her waxy nostrils. Then, in +remorseful generosity, though heaven knows her coming was no act of mine, +I made her a little gift, and as she was slipping the bill inside her +well-mended glove, her eye caught the number on its corner, and, she must +have been very poor, her tormented and tormenting heart gave a plunge and +sent a rush of blood into her face that made her very eyeballs pinken; +and then again the clutching fingers, the flaring nostrils, the gasping +for air, the pleading look, the frightened eyes! Oh, it is unforgettable! +poor soul! poor soul!</p> + +<p>Well, having my symptoms gathered together, they yet had to be sorted +out, toned down, and adapted to this or that occasion. But at least the +work had not been thrown away, for on the first night Dr. Fordyce +Barker—a keen dramatic critic, by the way—occupied with a friend a +private box. He had rescued me from the hands of the specialists in +Paris, and I had at times been his patient. He applauded heartily after +the first two acts, but looked rather worried. At the end of the third +act a gentleman of his party turned and looked at him inquiringly. The +doctor threw up his hands, while shaking his head disconsolately. The +friend said: "Why, I'm surprised—I thought Miss Morris suffered from her +spine?"</p> + +<p>"So she does—so she does," nodded Dr. Barker.</p> + +<p>"But," went on the friend, "this thing isn't spine—this looks like heart +to me."</p> + +<p>"I should say so," responded the doctor. "I knew she wasn't strong—just +a thing of nerves and will—but I never saw a sign of heart trouble +before. But it's here now, and it's bad; for, by Jove, she can't go +through another attack like that and finish this play. Too bad, too bad!"</p> + +<p>And his honest sympathy for my new affliction spoiled his evening right +up to the point of discovery that it was all in the play. Then he enjoyed +the laugh against himself almost as much as I enjoyed his recognition of +my laboriously acquired symptoms.</p> + +<p>And now for Mr. Palmer's beloved cast.</p> + +<p>With what a mixture of pleasure and grief I recall Sara Jewett, the +loveliest woman and the most perfect representative of a French lady of +quality I have ever seen in the part of <i>Mathilde</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. James O'Neil's success in <i>Maurice de la Tour</i> was particularly +agreeable to me, because I had earnestly called attention to him some +time before he was finally summoned to New York. His fine work in +Chicago, where I had first met him, had convinced me that he ought to be +here, and that beautiful performance fully justified every claim I had +made for him in the first place. The part is a difficult one. Some men +rant in it, some are savagely cruel, some cold as stone. O'Neil's +<i>Maurice</i> bore his wound with a patient dignity that made his one +outbreak into hot passion tremendously effective, through force of +contrast; while his sympathetic voice gave great value to the last tender +words of pardon.</p> + +<p>And that ancient couple—that never-to-be-forgotten pair, Mr. Stoddard +and Mrs. Wilkins! The latter's husband, belonging to the English bar, had +been Sergeant Wilkins, a witty, well-living, popular man, who quite +adored his pretty young wife and lavished his entire income upon their +ever-open house, so that his sudden taking off left her barely able to +pay for a sea of crape—with not a pound left over for a life-preserver +or raft of any kind. But on her return to the stage, her knowledge of +social amenities, the dignity and aplomb acquired by the experienced +hostess, remained with her, in a certain manner, an air of suave and +gentle authority, that was invaluable to her in the performance of +gentlewomen; while the good-fellowship, the downright jollity of her +infectious laugh were the crown of her comedy work. Who can forget the +Multon tea-table scene between Mrs. Wilkins and Mr. Stoddard. How the +audience used to laugh and laugh when, after his accusing snort: "More +copperas!" he sat and glared at her pretty protesting face framed in its +soft white curls. He was so ludicrously savage I had to coin a name for +him; and one night when the house simply would not stop laughing, I +remarked: "Oh, doesn't he look like a perfect old Sardonyx?"</p> + +<p>"Yes-m!" quickly replied the property boy beside me; "yes-m, that's the +very beast he reminds <i>me</i> of!"</p> + +<p>Certainly, I never expect to find another <i>Dr. Osborne</i> so capable of +contradicting a savage growl with a tender caress.</p> + +<p>Mr. Parselle, as the gentle old Latin scholar, tutor, and acting +godfather, was beyond praise. He admitted to me one night, coming out of +a brown study, that he believed <i>Bélin</i> was a character actually beyond +criticism, and that, next to creating it as author, he ranked the honor +of acting it; but there spoke the old-school actor who respected his +profession.</p> + +<p>And those children—were they not charming? That <i>Sister Jane</i>, given so +sweetly, so sincerely by the daughter of the famous Matilda Heron, who, +christened Helène, was known only by the pet name Bijou, in public as +well as in private life. And the boy <i>Paul</i>, her little brother. Almost, +I believe, Mabel Leonard was herself created expressly to play that part. +Never did female thing wear male clothes so happily. All the impish +perversity, all the wriggling restlessness of the small boy were to be +found in the person of the handsome, erratic, little Mabel.</p> + +<p>Even the two maids were out of the common, one being played by a clever +and very versatile actress, who had been a friend of my old Cleveland +days. She came to me out of the laughing merry past, but all pale and sad +in trailing black, for death had been robbing her most cruelly. She +wished for a New York engagement and astonished me by declaring she would +play anything, no matter how small, if only the part gave her a foothold +on the New York stage.</p> + +<p>I sought Mr. Palmer and talked hard and long for my friend, but he +laughed and answered: "An actress as clever as that will be very apt to +slight a part of only two scenes."</p> + +<p>But I assured him to the contrary; that she would make the most of every +line, and the part would be a stepping-stone to bigger things. He granted +my prayer, and Louise Sylvester, by her earnestness, her breathless +excitement in rushing to and fro, bearing messages, answering bells, and +her excellent dancing, raised <i>Kitty</i> to a character part, while +<i>Louise</i>, the smallest of them all, was played with a brisk and bright +assurance that made it hard to believe that Helen Vincent had come direct +from her convent school to the stage-door—as she had.</p> + +<p>A great, great triumph for everyone was that first night of "Miss +Multon," and one of the sweetest drops in my own cup was added by the +hand of New York's honored and beloved poet, Edmund Clarence Stedman, +for, all nested in a basket of sweet violets, came a sonnet from him to +me, and though my unworthiness was evident enough, nevertheless I took +keenest joy in the beauty of its every line—surely a very sweet and +gracious token from one who was secure to one who was still struggling. +And now, when years have passed, he has given me another beautiful memory +to keep the first one company. I was taking my first steps in the new +profession of letters, which seems somewhat uncertain, slow, and +introspective, when compared with the swift, decisive, if rather +superficial profession of acting, and Mr. Stedman, in a pause from his +own giant labor on his great "Anthology," looked at, nay, actually +considered, that shivering fledgling thing, my first book, and wrote a +letter that spelled for me the word <i>encouragement</i>, and being a +past-master in the art of subtle flattery, quoted from my own book and +set alight a little flame of hope in my heart that is not extinguished +yet. So gently kind remain some people who are great. Just as Tomasso +Salvini, from the heights of his unquestioned supremacy—but stay, the +line must be drawn somewhere. It would not be kind to go on until my +publisher himself cried: "Halt!"</p> + +<p>So I shall stop and lock away the pen and paper—lock them hard and fast, +because so many charming, so many famous people came within my knowledge +in the next few years that the temptation to gossip about them is hard to +resist. But to those patient ones, who have listened to this story of a +little maid's clamber upward toward the air and sunshine, that God meant +for us all, I send greeting, as, between mother and husband, with the +inevitable small dog on my knee, I prepare to lock the desk—I pause just +to kiss my hands to you and say <i>Au revoir</i>!</p> + +<div class="center"> +<br /> +<p class="thin15">THE END</p> +<br /> +</div> + + +<div class="adbox"> +<p class="noindent"><small>By A. 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There is pitted against him a skill nearly +equal to his own, and he wins the game almost by a hair."<br /> + +* "I tell you, Watson, this time we have a foeman who is worthy of our +steel."—<i>Sherlock Holmes.</i></p> + +<p class="noindent">$1.25<br /> + +McClure, Phillips & Co.</p></div> + + + +<div class="adbox"> +<p class="noindent"><small>By George Douglas</small><br /> + +THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS<br /> + +The first novel of a new master. The work has gained wide-spread +recognition on both sides of the water. Three of the most conservative +and authoritative publications in England include it among the first +twelve of the year. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life on the Stage + +Author: Clara Morris + +Release Date: August 26, 2010 [EBook #33537] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE ON THE STAGE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Life on the Stage + + +_Previous Books by Clara Morris_ + +The Silent Singer + +Little Jim Crow + +[Illustration: Frontispiece, photograph of Clara Morris] + + + + +CLARA MORRIS + +Life on the Stage + +My Personal Experiences and Recollections + +New York + +McClure, Phillips & Co. + +MCMII + +_Copyright, 1901, by_ S. S. MCCLURE CO. + +_1901, by_ CLARA MORRIS HARRIOTT + +FIFTH IMPRESSION + + + + + In memory of a labor shared, I affectionately dedicate this + book to my husband. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER FIRST--I am Born + +CHAPTER SECOND--Beginning Early, I Learn Love, Fear, and Hunger--I Become +Acquainted with Letters, and Alas! I Lose One of my Two Illusions + +CHAPTER THIRD--I Enter a New World--I Know a New Hunger and we Return to +Cleveland + +CHAPTER FOURTH--I am Led into the Theatre--I Attend Rehearsals--I am Made +Acquainted with the Vagaries of Tights + +CHAPTER FIFTH--I Receive my First Salary--I am Engaged for the Coming +Season + +CHAPTER SIXTH--The Regular Season Opens--I have a Small Part to Play--I +am among Lovers of Shakespeare--I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under +the Charm + +CHAPTER SEVENTH--I find I am in a "Family Theatre"--I Fare Forth away +from my Mother, and in Columbus I Shelter under the wing of Mrs. Bradshaw + +CHAPTER EIGHTH--I Display my New Knowledge--I Return to Cleveland to Face +my First Theatrical Vacation, and I Know the very Tragedy of Littleness + +CHAPTER NINTH--The Season Reopens--I meet the Yellow Breeches and become +a Utility Man--Mr. Murdock Escapes Fits and my "Luck" Proves to be Extra +Work + +CHAPTER TENTH--With Mr. Dan. Setchell I Win Applause--A Strange +Experience comes to Me--I Know Both Fear and Ambition--The Actress is +Born at Last + +CHAPTER ELEVENTH--My Promiscuous Reading wins me a Glass of Soda--The +Stage takes up my Education and Leads me through Many Pleasant Places + +CHAPTER TWELFTH--The Peter Richings' Engagement brings me my First Taste +of Slander--Anent the Splendor of my Wardrobe, also my First Newspaper +Notice + +CHAPTER THIRTEENTH--Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as "That Young Woman," to My +Great Joy--I Issue the "Clara Code"--I Receive my First Offer of Marriage + +CHAPTER FOURTEENTH--Mr. Wilkes Booth comes to us, the whole Sex Loves +him--Mr. Ellsler Compares him to his Great Father--Our Grief and Horror +over the Awful Tragedy at Washington + +CHAPTER FIFTEENTH--Mr. R. E. J. Miles--His two Horses and our Woful +Experience with the Substitute "Wild Horse of Tartary" + +CHAPTER SIXTEENTH--I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study _King Charles_ in +One Afternoon and Play Without a Rehearsal--Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd +Revelation + +CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH--Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my +Reputation--I Own a Baby on Shares--Miss Western's Pathetic Speech + +CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH--Mr. Charles W. Couldock--His Daughter Eliza and his +Many Peculiarities + +CHAPTER NINETEENTH--I Come to a Turning-Point in my Dramatic Life--I play +my First Crying Part with Miss Sallie St. Clair + +CHAPTER TWENTIETH--I have to pass through Bitter Humiliation to win High +Encomiums from Herr Bandmann; while Edwin Booth's Kindness Fills the +Theatre with Pink Clouds, and I Float Thereon + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST--I Digress, but I Return to the Columbus Engagement +of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean--Their Peculiarities and their Work + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND--I hear Mrs. Kean's Story of Wolsey's Robe--I laugh +at an Extravagantly Kind Prophecy + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD--Mr. E. L. Davenport, his Interference, his Lecture +on Stage Business, his Error of Memory or too Powerful Imagination--Why I +remain a Dramatic Old Slipper--Contemptuous Words arouse in me a Dogged +Determination to become a Leading Woman before leaving Cleveland + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH--I recall the Popularity and too early Death of +Edwin Adams + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH--I See an Actress Dethroned--I make myself a +Promise, for the World does Move + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH--Mr. Lawrence Barrett the Brilliant and his Brother +Joseph the Unfortunate + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH--I Play "Marie" to Oblige--Mr. Barrett's +Remarkable Call--Did I Receive a Message from the Dying or the Dead? + +CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH--I accept an Engagement with Mr. Macaulay for +Cincinnati as Leading Lady--My Adieus to Cleveland--Mr. Ellsler Presents +Me with a Watch + +CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH--My first Humiliating Experience in Cincinnati is +Followed by a Successful Appearance--I Make the Acquaintance of the +Enthusiastic Navoni + +CHAPTER THIRTIETH--New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington +and Mr. Johnson--Mr. Ellsler's Mild Assistance--I Journey to New York, +and Return to Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST--John Cockerill and our Eccentric Engagement--I Play +a Summer Season at Halifax--Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at +Last + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND--I Recall Mr. John E. Owens, and How He "Settled my +Hash" + +CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD--From the "Wild West" I Enter the Eastern "Parlor of +Home Comedy"--I Make my First Appearance in "Man and Wife" + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH--I Rehearse Endlessly--I Grow Sick with Dread--I +Meet with Success in _Anne Sylvester_ + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH--I Am Accepted by the Company--I am Warned against +Mr. Fisk--I Have an Odd Encounter with Mr. Gould + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH--A Search for Tears--I Am Punished in "Saratoga" +for the Success of "Man and Wife"--I Win Mr. Daly's Confidence--We Become +Friends + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH--A Study of Stage-Management--I Am Tricked into +Signing a New Contract + +CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH--I Go to the Sea-shore--The Search for a "Scar"--I +Make a Study of Insanity, and Meet with Success in "L'Article 47" + +CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH--I Am too Dull to Understand a Premonition--By Mr. +Daly's Side I See the Destruction of the Fifth Avenue Theatre by Fire + +CHAPTER FORTIETH--We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New +Theatre--Our Astonishing Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a +Great Triumph + +CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST--Trouble about Obnoxious Lines in "Madeline +Morel"--Mr. Daly's Manipulation of Father X: In Spite of our Anxiety the +Audience accepts the Situation and the Play--Mr. Daly gives me the +smallest Dog in New York + +CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND--I am Engaged to Star part of the Season--Mr. Daly +Breaks his Contract--I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction--I meet +Mr. Palmer and make Contract and appear at the Union Square in the +"Wicked World" + +CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD--We Give a Charity Performance of "Camille," and Are +Struck with Amazement at our Success--Mr. Palmer Takes the Cue and +Produces "Camille" for Me at the Union Square + +CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH--"Miss Multon" Put in Rehearsal--Our Squabble over +the Manner of her Death--Great Success of the Play--Mr. Palmer's Pride in +it--My _Au Revoir_ + + + + +LIFE ON THE STAGE + + + + +CHAPTER FIRST + + I am Born. + + +If this simple tale is to be told at all, it may as well begin at the +beginning and in the good old-fashioned and best of all ways--thus: Once +upon a time in the Canadian city of Toronto, on the 17th of March, the +sun rose bright and clear--which was a most surprising thing for the sun +to do on St. Patrick's Day, but while the people were yet wondering over +it the sunlight disappeared, clouds of dull gray spread themselves evenly +over the sky, and then the snow fell--fell fast and furious, quickly +whitening the streets and house-tops, softly lining every hollow, and was +piling little cushions on top of all the hitching-posts, when the flakes +grew larger, wetter, farther apart, and after a little hesitation turned +to rain--a sort of walk-trot-gallop rain, which wound up with one vivid +flash of lightning and a clap of thunder that fairly shook the city. + +Now the Irish, being a brave people and semi-amphibious, pay no heed to +wet weather. Usually all the Hibernians residing in a city divide +themselves into two bodies on St. Patrick's Day, the ones who parade and +the ones who follow the parade; but on this occasion they divided +themselves into three bodies--the men who paraded, the men and women who +followed the parade, and the Orangemen who made things pleasant for both +parties. + +As the out-of-time, out-of-tune band turned into a quiet cross-street to +lead its following green-bannered host to a broader one, the first brick +was thrown--probably by a woman, as it hit no one, but metaphorically it +knocked the chip off of the shoulder of every child of Erin. Down fell +the banners, up went the fists! Orange and Green were at each other tooth +and nail! Hats from prehistoric ages side by side with modern beavers +scarcely fifty years old received the hurled brick-bat and went down +together! + +The band reached the broad avenue alone, and looked back to see the short +street a-sway with struggling men, while women holding their bedraggled +petticoats up, their bonnets hanging down their backs by green ribbon +ties, hovered about the edges of the crowd, making predatory dashes now +and then to scratch a face or rescue some precious hat from the melee, +meanwhile inciting the men to madness by their fierce cries--and in a +quiet house, in the very midst of this riot--just before the constabulary +charged the crowd--I was born. I don't know, of course, whether I was +really intended from the first for that house, or whether the stork +became so frightened at the row in the street that he just dropped me +from sheer inability to carry me any farther--anyway, I came to a house +where trouble and poverty had preceded me, and, worse than both these put +together--treachery. + +Still, I accepted the situation with indifference. That the cupboard +barely escaped absolute emptiness gave me no anxiety, as I had no teeth +anyway. As a gentleman with a medicine-case in his hand was leaving the +house he paused a moment for the slavey to finish washing away a pool of +blood from the bottom step--and then there came that startling clap of +thunder. Brand new as I was to this world and its ways, I entered my +protest at once with such force and evident wrath that the doctor +down-stairs exclaimed: "Our young lady has temper as well as a good pair +of lungs!" and went on his way laughing. + +And so on that St. Patrick's Day of sunshine, snow, and rain, of riot and +bloodshed, in trouble and poverty--I was born. + + + + +CHAPTER SECOND + + Beginning Early, I Learn Love, Fear, and Hunger--I Become Acquainted + with Letters, and Alas! I Lose One of my Two Illusions. + + +Of the Days of St. Patrick that followed, not one found me in the city of +my birth--indeed, six months completed my period of existence in the +Dominion, and I have known it no more. + +Some may think it strange that I mention these early years at all, but +the reason for such mention will appear later on. Looking back at them, +they seem to divide themselves into groups of four years each. During the +first four, my time was principally spent in growing and learning to keep +out of people's way. I acquired some other knowledge, too, and little +child as I was, I knew fear long before I knew the thing that frightened +me. I knew that love for my mother which was to become the passion of my +life, and I also knew hunger. But the fear was harder to endure than the +hunger--it was so vague, yet so all-encompassing. + +We had to flit so often--suddenly, noiselessly. Often I was gently roused +from my sleep at night and hastily dressed--sometimes simply wrapped up +without being dressed, and carried through the dark to some other place +of refuge, from--what? When I went out into the main business streets I +had a tormenting barege veil over my face that would not let me see half +the pretty things in the shop windows, and I was quick to notice that no +other little girl had a veil on. Next I remarked that if a strange lady +spoke to me my mother seemed pleased--but if a man noticed me she was not +pleased, and once when a big man took me by the hand and led me to a +candy store for some candy she was as white as could be and so angry she +frightened me, and she promised me a severe punishment if I ever, ever +went one step with a strange man again. And so my fear began to take the +form of a man, of a big, smiling man--for my mother always asked, when I +reported that a stranger had spoken to me, if he was big and smiling. + +I had known the sensation of hunger long before I knew the word that +expressed it, and I often pressed my hands over my small empty stomach, +and cried and pulled at my mother's dress skirt. If there was anything at +all to give I received it, but sometimes there was absolutely nothing but +a drink of water to offer, which checked the gnawing for a moment or two, +and at those times there was a tightening of my mother's trembling lips, +and a straight up and down wrinkle between her brows, that I grew to +know, and when I saw that look on her face I could not ask for anything +more than "a dwink, please." + +As an illustration of her almost savage pride and honesty: I one day saw +a woman in front of the house buying some potatoes. I knew that potatoes +cooked were very comforting to empty stomachs. One or two of them fell to +the street during the measuring and I picked one up, and, fairly wild +with delight, I scrambled up the stairs with it. But my mother was angry +through and through. + +"Who gave it to you?" she demanded. + +I explained with a trembling voice: "I des' founded it on the very +ground--and I'se so hungry!" + +But hungry or not hungry, I had to take the potato back: "Nothing in the +world could be taken without asking--that was stealing--and she was the +only person in the world I had a right to ask anything of!" + +It was a bitter lesson, and was rendered more so by the fact that when I +carried the tear-bathed potato back to the street and laid it down, +neither the woman who bought nor the man who sold was in sight--and, dear +Heaven! I could almost have eaten it raw. + +But I was learning obedience and self-respect; more than that, I was +already acquiring one of the necessary qualities for an actress--the +power of close observation. + +The next four years (the second group) were the hardest to endure of them +all. True, I now had sufficient food and warmth, since my mother had +given up sewing for shops--which kept us nearly always hungry--and had +found other occupations. But the great object of both our lives was to be +together, and there are few people who are willing to employ a woman who +has with her a child. And if her services are accepted, even at a reduced +salary, it is necessary for that child to be as far as possible neither +seen nor heard. Therefore until I was old enough to be admitted into a +public school I never knew another child--I never played with any living +creature save a remarkable cat, that seemed to have claws all over her, +and in my fixed determination to trace her purr and find out where it +came from, she buried those claws to the very last one in my fat, +investigating little hands. + +Meantime my "fear" had assumed the shape and substance of a man, a man +who bore a name that should have been loved and honored above all others, +for this "bogey" of my baby days--this nightmare and dread--was my own +father. When my mother had discovered his treachery--which had not +hesitated to boldly face the very altar--she took her child and fled from +him, assuming her mother's maiden name as a disguise. But go where she +would, he followed and made scenes. Finally, understanding that she was +not to be won back by sophistries, he offered to leave her in peace if +she would give the child to him. And when that offer was indignantly +rejected, he pleasantly informed her that he would make life a curse to +her until she gave me up, and that by fair means or by foul he would +surely obtain possession of me. Once he did kidnap me, but my mother had +found friends by that time, and their pursuit was so swift and unexpected +that he had to abandon me. + +So, he who should have been the defender and support of my mother--whose +arms should have been our shelter from the world--the big, smiling +French-Canadian father--became instead our terror and our dread. +Therefore when my mother served in varying capacities in other people's +homes, and I had to efface myself as nearly as possible, I dared not even +go out to walk a little, so great was my mother's fear. + +It seems odd, but in spite of my far-reaching memory, I cannot remember +when I learned to read. I can recall but one tiny incident relating to +the subject of learning. I stood upon a chair and while my hair was +brushed and braided I spelled my words, and I had my ears boxed--a custom +considered criminal in these better days--because, having successfully +spelled "elephant," I came to grief over "mouse," as, according to my +judgment, m-o-w-s filled all the requirements of the case. I remember, +too, that the punishment made me afraid to ask what "elephant" meant; but +I received the impression that it was some sort of a public building. + +However, when I was six years old I joyfully betook myself to a primary +school, from which I was sent home with a note, saying that "in that +department they did not go beyond the 'primer,' and as this little girl +reads quite well from a 'reader,' she must have been taught well at +home." We were a proud yet disappointed pair, my mother and I, that day. + +An odd little incident occurred about that time. One of our hurried +flights had ended at a boarding house, and my extreme quietude--unnatural +in a child of health and intelligence--attracted the attention of a +certain boarder, who was an actress. She was very popular with the +public, and both she and her husband were well liked by the people about +them. She took a fancy to me, and informing herself that my mother was +poor and alone, she offered to adopt me. She stated her position, her +income, and her intention of educating me thoroughly. She thought a +convent school would be desirable--from ten, say to seventeen. + +Perhaps my mother was tempted--she was a fanatic on the question of +learning--but, oh! what a big _but_ came in just then: "but when I should +have, by God's will, reached the age of seventeen, she (the actress) +would place me upon the stage." + +"Gracious Heaven! her child on the stage!" my mother was stricken with +horror! She scarcely had strength to make her shocked refusal plain +enough; and when her employer ventured to remonstrate with her, pointing +out the great advantage to me, she made answer: "It would be better for +her to starve trying to lead a clean and honorable life, than to be +exposed to such publicity and such awful temptations!" + +Poor mother! the theatre was to her imagination but a beautiful vestibule +leading to a place of wickedness and general wrong-doing! + +During those endless months, when I had each day to sit for hours and +hours in one particular chair in a corner, well out of the way--sit so +long that often when I was lifted down I could not stand at all, my limbs +being numbed to absolute helplessness, I had two great days to dream of, +to look forward to--Christmas and that wonderful 17th of March, when +because it was my birthday all those nice gentlemen, with the funny hats +and green collars, walked out behind the band. And I felt particularly +well disposed toward those most amusing gentlemen who wore, according to +my theory at least, their little girls' aprons tied about their big +waists. + +I did not like so well the attendant crowd, but then I could not be +selfish enough to keep people from looking at "my procession" and +enjoying the music that made the blood dance in my own veins, even as my +feet danced on the chill pavement. + +I always received an orange on that day from my mother, and almost always +a book, so it was a great event in my life, and I used to get down my +little hat-box and fix the laces in my best shoes days ahead of time that +I might be ready to stand on some steps where I could bow and smile to +the nice gentlemen who walked out in my honor. Heaven only knows how I +got the idea that the procession was meant for me, but it made me very +happy, and my heart was big with love and gratitude for those people who +took so much trouble for me. + +I had but two illusions in the world--Santa Claus and "my +procession"--but, alas! on my eighth birthday, when in an outburst of +innocent triumph and joy I cried to a grown-up: "Ain't they good--those +funny gentlemen--to come and march and play music for my birthday?" I was +answered with the assurance that I "was a fool--that no one knew or cared +a copper about me--that it was a Saint, a dead and gone man, they marched +for!" + +All the dance went out of my feet, heavy tears fell fast and stood round +and clear on the woolly surface of my cloak, and bending my head low to +hide my disappointment, I went slowly home, where the chair seemed +harder, the hours longer, and life more bare because I had lost the +illusion that had brightened and glorified it. + +At the present time, here in my home, there is seated in an arm-chair, a +venerable doll. She is a hideous specimen of the beautiful doll of the +early "fifties." She sits with her soles well turned up, facing you, her +arms hanging from her shoulders in that idiotically helpless +"I-give-it-up" fashion peculiar to dolls. With bulging scarlet cheeks, +button-hole mouth and flat, blue staring eyes she faces Time and +unwinkingly looks him down. To anyone else she is stupidity personified, +but to me she speaks, for she came to me on my fourth Christmas, and she +is as gifted as she is ugly. Only last birthday--as I straightened out +her old, old dress skirt--she asked me if I remembered how I cried, with +my face in her lap, over that first loss of an illusion--and I told her +quite truly that I remembered well! + + + + +CHAPTER THIRD + + I Enter a New World--I Know a New Hunger and we Return to Cleveland. + + +The experiences of the first two of my third group of years have +influenced my entire life. Still flying from my seemingly ubiquitous +father, my mother after a desperate struggle gained enough money to pay +for our journey to what was then called the "far West"--namely, the +southwestern part of Illinois. Child-fashion, I was delighted at the +prospect of a change, and happy over the belief that I was going to some +place where I could be free to go and come like other children, without +dreading the appearance of a big, smiling man from any deep doorway or +from around the next corner. To tell the truth, that persistent, +indestructible smile always seemed an insult added to the injury of his +malicious and revengeful conduct. + +Then, too, I experienced my first delicious thrill of imaginary terror. +In a torn and abandoned old geography I had seen a picture labelled +"Prairie." The grass was as high as a man's shoulders, and stealthily +emerging from it was a sort of compound animal, neither tiger nor +leopard, but with points of resemblance to both. And here every day I was +listening to the grown-ups talking of "prairie lands," and how far we +might have to drive across the prairie after leaving the train; and I +made up my mind that I would hold our umbrella all the time, and when the +uncertain beast came out I'd try to stick his eyes with it, and under +cover of the confusion we would undoubtedly escape. + +That being settled, I could turn all my attention to preparations for +the long journey. Dear me, I remember just where each big red rose came +on the carpet-bag, and how sorry I was that the tiny brass lock came +right in the side of one. It was a large bag and held a great deal, but +was so arranged that whatever you wanted was always found at the +bottom--whether it was the tooth-brush or a night-gown or a pair of +rubbers. It had a sort of dividing wall of linen in its middle, and while +one side held clothing, the other side was the commissary department. No +buffet-cars then, travellers ran their own buffets, and though the things +did not come into actual contact, there was not an article, big or +little, in that bag that did not smell of pickles. And once when my +mother had hastily attended to my needs in the miserable toilet-room of +the car (no sleeper--just a sit-up-all-night affair), my clean stockings, +white apron and little handkerchief all exhaled vinegar so strongly that +I wrinkled up my nose, exclaiming: "I smell jes' like a pickled little +girl--don't I, ma'ma?" And then, when weary and worn and dusty, we left +the cars and had to drive some thirty miles, in a carriage of uncertain +class, over the open prairie--then smooth and bright and green--I wearily +remarked, after a time, that it was a "pretty big lawn, but where was the +prairie?" for true to my plan I had secured the umbrella, and being told +that I was crossing the prairie then, I was a bitterly disappointed young +person. Oh, how I longed to give way to one of those passionate outbursts +we so often see children indulge in! Oh, how I wanted to hurl aside the +umbrella I had begged for, to fling my weary self down on the floor and +cry, and cry! But I dared not--never in my whole life had I ventured on +such an exhibition of temper or feeling--so I winked fast and held very +still and swallowed hard at the disappointment, which was but the first +of such a number of very bitter pills that I was yet to swallow. + +But, thank God! if I was easily cast down, I was as easily cheered; and +the prairie left behind, the sight of the first orchard we passed, with +the soft perfumed snow of the blossoms floating through the rosy sunset +light, raised my spirits to an ecstasy of joy; and when our journey +ended, at the rough farm-house, with my arm around the surly looking +watch-dog, I stood and heard for the first time the mournful cry of the +whippoorwill out in the star-pierced dark of the early May night, I +thrilled with the unspoken consciousness that this was a new world that I +was entering--a lovely, _lovely_ world, that the grown-ups called the +"country"! + +For the two years I knew it the charm of that backwood life never palled. +I had never seen the country before, and I found it a place of beauty and +many marvels. I did not miss the fine city shops, for I never had had +money to spend in them. I did not miss the people, for they had been +nothing to me. And here no day that dawned failed to bring me some new +experience. With what awed wonderment I faced the mystery of the +springing grain. I saw the seed, hard and dry, fall into the furrowed +earth and, a few days later, with gentle strength, tiny pale green spears +come pricking through the brown. I learned not to look under the +hickory-trees for the oak acorns that I adored. I was soon able to tell +the rapidly forming furry green peaches from the smooth young apples, and +I literally fell down upon my knees and worshipped before lambs, calves, +and colts. + +In this new, strange life everyone worked, but they worked for +themselves--to use a country expression, no one "hired out." I was a very +little girl. I could not spin as could my mother, who had passed her +childhood in backwood life. Of course I could not weave, but I was taught +to knit my own stockings--such humpy, lumpy knitting! But I was very +proud of the accomplishment, even though my mother did have to "turn the +heel." Then, too, I with other children at planting-time dropped corn in +the sun-warmed furrows, while a man followed behind with a hoe covering +it up; and when it had sprouted and was a tempting morsel for certain +black robbers of the field, I made a very active and energetic young +scare-crow. + +Here, too, I became acquainted with children. They were all older than I +was, a hearty, healthy, wisely-ignorant lot. They knew so much about +farming and so little about anything else. Not one of them could tell a +story out of the Bible, and as for the "Pilgrim's Progress," they had +never heard tell of it; while Bunyan only meant to them an enlarged +toe-joint--not a great author. + +The lack of reading matter was the one blemish on my country life. The +library, composed of the Bible and the almanac, was not satisfying to my +inquiring mind. One paper was taken in by the head of the family--it was +a weekly, in every possible sense--but I came to watch eagerly for it, +and it filled the family with amazement to see me sit down on the step +and gravely wade through its dreary columns--happy if I could catch hold +of some idea--some bit of news--some scrap of story; and my farmer host +one day at his noon smoke removed his corn-cob pipe from his lips long +enough to remark of me: "Dogorne my skin! if that young 'un ain't awake +and enj'ien hersel'. Now I allers go ter sleep over that paper mysel'!" +So should I--now--I presume. + +These children being for-true, real children had no idea of showing +courtesy or politeness to a stranger, but they had a very natural +yearning to get fun out of that stranger if they could, and so they +blithely led me forth to a pasture shortly after our arrival at the farm, +and catching a horse they hoisted me up on to its bare, slippery back. I +have learned a good bit about horses since then--have hired, borrowed, +and bought them--have been to circuses and horse shows, but never since +have I seen a horse of such appalling aspect. His eyes were the size of +soup-plates, large clouds of smoke came from his nostrils. He had a +glass-enamelled surface, and if he was one half as tall as he felt, some +museum manager missed a fortune. Then the young fiends, leaving me on my +slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off and stood over +against the fence and gave me plenty of room--to fall off. But when I +suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild +shriek--clenched my hands in the animal's back hair, and, madly flinging +propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be behind me, I +cast one pantalet over the enamelled back, and thus astride, safely +crossed the pasture--and lo! it was not I who fell, but their faces +instead. When they came to take me down, somehow the animal seemed +shrunken and I hesitated about leaving it, whereupon the biggest boy said +I had "pluck" (I had been frightened nearly to death, but I always could +be silent at the proper moment; I was silent then), and he would teach me +to ride sideways, for my mother would surely punish me if I sat astride +like that; and in a few weeks, thanks to him, I was the one who was +oftenest trusted to take the horses to water at noon, riding sideways and +always bare-back, mounted on one horse and leading a second to the creek, +until all had had their drink. Which habit of riding--from balance--has +made me quite independent of stirrups on various occasions since those +far-away days. + +In the late autumn, these same children taught me where and when and how +to find such treasures of the woods as hickory-nuts, chestnuts (rare +there), butternuts, and pecan-nuts, while the thickets furnished +hazel-nuts and the frost brought sweetness to the persimmon, and +consequently pleasure to our palates, but never could I acquire a taste +for the "paw-paw," that inane custard-like fruit, often called the +American banana. + +I helped obtain the roots and barks and nut-shells from which the +grown-ups made their dyes. I learned to use a bow and arrow; and on rainy +days, having nothing new to read, I learned by heart the best chapters of +my own birthday books, and often repeated them to the other children when +we cuddled in the hayloft, above the horses. + +One day I became too realistic, and in my "flight from my step-mother's +home" I fell through the hole where the hay was tossed down to old +Jerry's manger. He was a serious-minded and kindly old horse, and did +nothing worse than snort a little over the change in his diet, from hay +to small girl. My severe bruises would have been borne with fortitude, +but when I arose--behold a wretched wandering hen had been in the manger +before me, and if one judged from the state of my clothing, the egg she +had left behind must have been the size of a melon at least! If that +seems an exaggeration, just break an egg in your pocket, if you don't +care to sit down on one, and see how far it will spread. Then, indeed, I +lifted my voice and wept! + +Yes, those were two precious years, in which I learned to love +passionately the beauty of the world! The tender, mystic charm of dawn, +the pomp and splendor of the setting of the sun! Finding in the tiny +perfection of the velvety moss the minute repetition of the form and +branching beauty of the stately tree at whose root it grew! Seeing all +the beauty of the blue sky and its sailing clouds encompassed by a +quivering drop of dew upon a mullein leaf I dimly felt some faint +comprehension of the divine satisfaction when the Creator pronounced the +work of His hands, "Good!" + +From the first my mother had been greatly distressed by the absence of +any school to which I might go, and also by her inability to earn money. +She had been wise enough not to leave Cleveland without sufficient means +to bring us back again--which proved most fortunate. For when quite +suddenly we heard of the published death of my father, we immediately +returned and she obtained employment, while I was sent to the public +school. But, oh, what a poor, meagre course of study I entered on. +Reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and geography--that was all! Only +one class in the grammar-school studied history. However, improvements +were being discussed, and I remember that three weeks before my final +withdrawal from school my mother had to buy me a book on physiology, +which was to be taught to the children, who had not even a bowing +acquaintance with grammar. But I hungered and thirsted for knowledge--I +craved it--longed for it. During the weary years of repression I had +fallen back upon imagination for amusement and comfort, and when I was +ten my "thinks," as I then called my waking dreams, almost surely took +one of these two forms. Since I had abandoned "thinks" about fairies +coming to grant my wishes, I always walked out (in my best hat), and +saved either an old lady or an old gentleman--sometimes one, sometimes +the other--from some imminent peril--a sort of impressionist peril--vague +but very terrible! and the rescued one was always tremblingly grateful +and offered to reward me, and I always sternly refused to be rewarded, +but unbent sufficiently to see the saved one safely to his or her +splendid home. There I revelled in furniture, pictures, musical +instruments and an assortment of beautiful dogs. On leaving this palatial +residence I consented to give my address, and next day the "saved" called +on my mother and after some conversation it was settled that I was to go +to the convent-school for four years, where I knew the education was +generous and thorough, and that languages, music, and painting were all +taught. As these "thinks" took place at night after the ill-smelling +extinguishment of the candle, I generally fell asleep before, in white +robe and a crown of flowers, I gathered up all the prizes and diplomas +and things I had earned. + +When my mother in the performance of her duties had to accept orders, she +received them calmly and as a matter of course--whatever she may have +felt in her heart--but I loved and reverenced her so! To me she was the +one woman of the world; and when I saw her taking orders from another I +flinched and shrank as I would have done beneath the sharp lash of a +whip, and then for nights afterward (so soon as I had released my nose, +tightly pinched to keep out the smell of candle-smoke), I settled down, +with my mother's hand tight clasped in mine, to my other favorite +"thinks" wherein I did some truly remarkable embroidery, of such +precision of stitch, such perfection of coloring and shading, that when +I offered it for sale I was much embarrassed by the numbers of would-be +buyers. However, an old lady finally won me away from the store (that old +lady was bound to appear in all my "thinks"), and I had to be very firm +with her to keep her from over-paying me for the work of my hands. + +Then, as I had graciously promised the store-keeper any over-plus of +embroidery not needed by the generous old person, I felt my income +secure, and hastened to rent two rooms and furnish them, ready to take my +astonished mother there--where she could do the ordering herself. + +I hung curtains, laid carpets, put dishes in the cupboard, gave one +window to my mother and kept one for myself and my very exceptional +embroidery; and, though I laugh now, I had then many an hour of genuine +happiness, furnishing this imaginary home and refuge for the mother I +loved! + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTH + + I am Led into the Theatre--I Attend Rehearsals--I am Made Acquainted + with the Vagaries of Tights. + + +I was approaching my thirteenth birthday when it came about that a +certain ancient boarding-house keeper--far gone in years--required +someone to assist her, someone she could trust entirely and leave in +charge for a month at a time; and I, not being able to read the future, +was greatly chagrined because my mother accepted the offered situation. I +was always happiest when she found occupation in a house where there was +a library, for people were generally kind to me in that respect and gave +me the freedom of their shelves, seeing that I was reverently careful of +all books; but in a boarding-house there would be no library, and my +heart sank as we entered the gloomy old building. + +No, there were no books, but among the boarders there were two or three +actors and two actresses--a mother and a daughter. The mother played the +"first old women"; the daughter, only a year or two older than I was, +played, I was told, "walking-ladies," though what that meant I could not +imagine. + +The daughter (Blanche) liked me, while I looked upon her with awe, and +wondered why she even noticed me. She was very wilful, she would not +study anything on earth save her short parts. She had never read a book +in her life. When I was home from school I told her stories by the hour, +and she would say: "You ought to be in a theatre--you could act!" + +And then I would be dumb for a long time, because I thought she was +making fun of me. One day I was chewing some gum she gave me--I was not +chewing it very nicely, either--and my mother boxed my ears, and Blanche +said: "You ought to be in a theatre--you could chew all the gum you liked +there!" + +And just then my mother was so cruelly overworked, and the spring came in +with furious heat, and I felt so big and yet so helpless--a great girl of +thirteen to be worked for by another--and the humiliation seemed more +than I could bear, and I locked myself in our dreary cupboard of a room, +and flung myself upon my knees, and in a passion of tears tried to make a +bargain with my God! I meant no irreverence--I was intensely religious. I +did not see the enormity of the act--I only knew that I suffered, and +that God could help me--so I asked His help! But, instead of stopping +there, I cried out to Him this promise: "Dear God! just pity me and show +me what to do! Please--please help me to help my mother--and if you will, +I'll never say 'No!' to any woman who comes to me all my life long!" + +My error in trying to barter with my Maker must have been forgiven, for +my prayer was answered within a week, while there are many women +scattered through the land who know that I have tried faithfully to keep +my part of that bargain, and no woman who has sought my aid has ever been +answered with a "No!" + +One day Blanche greeted me with the news that extra ballet-girls were +wanted, and told me that I must go at once and get engaged. + +"But," I said, "maybe they won't take me!" + +"Well," answered she, "I've coaxed your mother, and my mother says she'll +look out for you--so at any rate go and see. I'll take you to-morrow." + +And so dimly, vaguely, I seemed to see a way opening out before me, and +again behind the locked door I knelt and said: "Dear God! dear God!" and +got no further, because grief has many words and joy has so few. + +The school term had closed on Friday, and on Saturday morning, with my +heart beating almost to suffocation, I started out to walk to the theatre +with Blanche, who had promised to ask Mr. Ellsler (the manager) to take +me on in the ballet. When we reached the sidewalk we saw the sky +threatened rain and Blanche sent me back for an umbrella. I had none of +my own, so I borrowed one from Mrs. Miller (our landlady), and at sight +of it my companion broke into laughter. It was a dreadful affair--with a +knobby, unkind handle, a slovenly and corpulent body, and a +circumference, when open, that suggested the idea that it had been built +to shelter not only the landlady, but those wise ones of the boarders who +had paid up before the winds rose and the rain fell. Then we proceeded to +the old Academy of Music on Bank Street, and entering, went upstairs, and +just as we reached the top step a small dark man hurried across the hall +and Blanche called quickly: "Oh, Mr. Ellsler--Mr. Ellsler! wait a moment, +please--I want to speak to you!" + +I could not know that his almost repellent sternness of face concealed a +kindness of heart that approached weakness, so when he turned a frowning, +impatient face toward us, hope left me utterly, and for a moment I seemed +to stand in a great darkness. I think I can do no better than to give Mr. +Ellsler's own account of that, our first meeting, as he has given it +often since. He says: "I was much put out by a business matter and was +hastily crossing the corridor when Blanche called me, and I saw she had +another girl in tow; a girl whose appearance in a theatre was so droll I +must have laughed, had I not been more than a little cross. Her dress was +quite short--she wore a pale-blue apron buttoned up the back, long braids +tied at the ends with ribbon, and a brown straw hat, while she clutched +desperately at the handle of the biggest umbrella I ever saw. Her eyes +were distinctly blue and were plainly big with fright. Blanche gave her +name and said she wanted to go on in the ballet, and I instantly answered +she would not do, she was too small--I wanted women, not children, and +started to return to my office. Blanche was voluble, but the girl herself +never spoke a single word. I glanced toward her and stopped. The hands +that clutched the umbrella trembled--she raised her eyes and looked at +me. I had noticed their blueness a moment before--now they were almost +black, so swiftly had the pupils dilated, and slowly the tears rose in +them. All the father in me shrank under the child's bitter +disappointment; all the actor in me thrilled at the power of expression +in the girl's face, and I hastily added: 'Oh, well! You may come back in +a day or two, and if anyone appears meantime who is short enough to march +with you I'll take you on,' and after I got to my office I remembered the +girl had not spoken a single word, but had won an engagement--for I knew +I should engage her--with a pair of tear-filled eyes." + +The following Tuesday, under the protection of the ever-faithful Blanche, +I again presented myself and was engaged for the term of two weeks, to go +on the stage in the marches and dances of a play called "The Seven +Sisters," for which service I was to receive three dollars a week, or +fifty cents a night, as there were no matinees then, and so I entered, +with wide-astonished eyes, into that dim, dusty, chaotic place known as +"behind the scenes"--a strange place, where nothing _is_ and everything +_may be_. + +In the daytime I found the stage a thing dead--at night, with the blazing +of the gas, it lived! for light is its life, music is its soul, and the +play its brain. + +Silently and cautiously I walked about, gazing curiously at the "scenes," +so fine on one side, so bare and cheap on the other; at the tarlatan +"glass windows"; at the green "calico sea," lying flat and waveless on +the floor. Everything there pretended to be something else, and at last I +said solemnly to Blanche: "Is everything only make-believe in a theatre?" + +And she turned her gum to the other side and answered: "Yes, everything's +make-believe--except salary day!" + +Then came the rehearsal--everything was military just then--and there was +a Zouave drill to learn, as well as a couple of dances. The women and +girls who had been engaged were not the very nicest people in the world, +though they were the best to be found at such short notice; and Mrs. +Bradshaw told me not to stand about with them, but to come to her as soon +as my share in the work was over. "But," said this wise woman, "don't +fail in politeness to them; for nothing can hold a person so far off as +extreme politeness." + +To me the manual of arms was mere child's play, and the drill a veritable +delight. The second day I scribbled down the movements in the order that +they had been made, and learned them by heart, with the result that on +the third day I sat aside chewing gum, while the stage-manager raved over +the rest. Then the star--Mr. McDonough--came along and furiously demanded +to know why I was not drilling. "The gentleman sent me out of the ranks, +sir," I answered, "because he said I knew the manual and drill!" + +"Oh, indeed! well, there's not one of you that knows it--and you never +will know it! You're a set of numbskulls! Here!" he cried, catching up a +rifle, "take hold of this--get up here--and let's see how much you know! +Now, then, shoulder arms!" + +And standing alone--burning with blushes, blinded with tears of +mortification--I was put through my paces with a vengeance; but I really +knew the manual as thoroughly as I knew the drill, and when it was over +Mr. McDonough took the rifle from me, and exclaimed: "Well, saucer-eyes, +you do know it! I'm d----d if you don't! and I'm sorry, little girl, I +spoke so roughly to you!" + +He held out his fat white hand to me, and as I took it he added: "You +ought to stay in this business--you've got your head with you!" + +It was a small matter, of course, but there was a faint hint of triumph +in it, and the savor was very pleasant to me. + +Naturally, with a salary of but three dollars a week, we turned to the +management for our costumes. I wonder what the _danseuse_ of to-day +would think of the costume worn by her sister of the "sixties"? Now her +few gauzy limb-betraying skirts reach but to the middle of the thigh; her +scrap of a bodice, cut far below the shoulder blades at the back, being +absolutely sleeveless, is precariously held in place by a string or two +of beads. To be sure, she is apt to wear a collar of blazing diamonds, +instead of the simple band of black velvet that used to be sufficient +ornament for the peerless Bonfanti and the beautiful and modest Betty +Rigl, who in their graceful ignorance of "splits" and athletic "tours de +force," managed in their voluminous and knee-long skirts to whirl, to +glide, to poise and float, to show, in fact, the poetry of motion. + +But we, this untrained ballet, were not Bonfantis nor Morlachis, and we +wore our dancing clothes with a difference. In one dance we were supposed +to be fairies. We wore flesh-colored slippers and tights. It took one +full week of our two weeks' engagement to learn how to secure these +treacherous articles, so that they would remain smooth and not wrinkle +down somewhere or twist about. One girl never learned, and to the last +added to the happiness of the public by ambling about on a pair of legs +that looked as if they had been done up in curl papers the night before. + +We each had seven white tarlatan skirts, as full as they could be +gathered--long enough to come a little below the knee. Our waists were +also flesh-colored, and were cut fully two or three inches below our +collar-bones, so you see there was plenty of cloth at our backs to hook +our very immature wings to. We had wreaths of white roses on our +heads--Blanche, who was very frank, said they looked like wreaths of +turnips--and garlands of white roses to wave in the dance. I remember the +girl with the curled legs was loathed by all because she lassoed everyone +she came near with her garland--so you see we were very decorous fairies, +whether we were decorative or not. + +Of course we were rather substantial, and our wings did seem too thin and +small to sustain us satisfactorily. One girl took hers off in the +dressing-room and remarked contemptuously that "they couldn't lift her +cat even!" + +But another, who was dictatorial and also of a suspicious nature, +answered savagely: "You don't know nothing about wings--and you haven't +got no cat, nohow, and you know it--so shut up!" and the conversation +closed. + +In our second costume we were frankly human. We still wore dancing +skirts, but we were in colors, and we had, of course, shed our +wings--nasty, scratchy things they were, I remember. Then for the drill +and march we wore the regular Fire Zouave uniform. + +It was all great fun for me--you remember I was not stage-struck. +Dramatically speaking, I was not yet born--I had neither ambition nor +fear--I was simply happy because I was going to earn that, to me, great +sum of money, and was going to give it to my mother, and planned only +what I should say to her, and had no thought at all of the theatre or +anything or any person in it. + +The donning of fleshings for the first time is an occasion of anxiety to +anyone, man or woman. I, however, approached the subject of tights with +an open mind, and Blanche freely gave me both information and advice. She +chilled my blood by describing the mortifying mishaps, the dread +disasters these garments had brought to those who failed to understand +them. She declared them to be tricky, unreliable, and malicious in the +extreme. + +"There's just one way to succeed with 'em," she said, "and that's by +bullying 'em. Show you're afraid and they will slip and twist and wrinkle +down and make you a perfect laughing-stock. You must take your time, you +know, at first, and fit 'em on very carefully and smoothly over your feet +and ankles and up over your knees. See that they are nice and straight or +you'll look as if you were walking on corkscrews, but after that bully +'em--yank and pull and drag 'em, and when you have 'em drawn up as tight +as you can draw 'em, go at 'em and pull 'em up another inch at least. +They'll creak and snap and pretend they're going to tear, but don't you +ever leave your dressing-room satisfied, unless you feel you can't +possibly get down-stairs without going sideways." + +"But," I remonstrated, "they'll break and let my knees through!" + +"Oh, no they won't!" she cheerfully answered. "They'll make believe +they're going to split at the knee, of course, but instead they'll just +keep as safe and smooth as the skin on your arm. But, for Heaven's sake, +don't be afraid of 'em!" + +And I gravely promised to be as bold as I possibly could in my first +encounter with the flesh-colored terrors. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTH + + I Receive my First Salary--I am Engaged for the Coming Season. + + +At last the night came. Hot? Oh, my, hot it was! and we were so crowded +in our tiny dressing-room that some of us had to stand on the one chair +while we put our skirts on. The confusion was great, and I was glad to +get out of the room, down-stairs, where I went to show myself to Mrs. +Bradshaw or Blanche, to see if I was all right. They looked at me, and +after a hopeless struggle with their quivering faces they burst into +shrieks of laughter. With trembling hands I clutched my tarlatan skirts +and peering down at my tights, I groaned: "Are they twisted, or run down, +or what?" + +But it was not the tights, it was my face. I knew you had to put on +powder because the gas made you yellow, and red because powder made you +ghastly, but it had not occurred to me that skill was required in +applying the same, and I was a sight to make any kindly disposed angel +weep! I had not even sense enough to free my eyelashes from the powder +clinging to them. My face was chalk white and low down on my cheeks were +nice round bright red spots. + +Mrs. Bradshaw said: "With your round blue eyes and your round +white-and-red face, you look like a cheap china doll! Come here, my +dear!" + +She dusted off a few thicknesses of the powder, removed the hard scarlet +spots, took a great soft hare's foot, which she rubbed over some pink +rouge, and then holding it in the air she proceeded: "To-morrow, after +you have walked to get a color, go to your glass and see where that color +shows itself. I think you will find it high on your cheek, coming up +close under the eye and growing fainter toward the ear. I'll paint you +that way to-night on chance. You see _my_ color is low on my cheek. Of +course when you are making-up for a character part you go by a different +rule, but when you are just trying to look pretty be guided by nature. +Now----" + +I felt the soft touch of the hare's foot on my burning cheeks; then she +gave me a tooth-brush, which had black on it, and bade me draw it across +my lashes. I did so and was surprised at the amount of powder it removed. +She touched her little finger to some red pomade, and said: "Thrust out +your under lip--no, not like a kiss--that makes creases--make a sulky +lip--so!" + +She touched my lip with her finger, then she drew back and laughed again, +in a different way. She drew me to the glass, and said, "Look!" + +I looked and cried: "Oh--oh! Mrs. Bradshaw, that girl doesn't look a bit +like me--she's ever so much nicer!" + +In that lesson on making-up was the beginning and the ending of my +theatrical instruction. What I have learned since then has been by +observation, study, and direct inquiry--but never by instruction, either +free or paid for. + +Now, while I was engaged to go on with the crowd, fate willed after all +that I should have an independent entrance for my first appearance on the +stage. The matter would be too trivial to mention were it not for the +influence it had upon my future. One act of the play represented the back +of a stage during a performance. The scenes were turned around with their +unpainted sides to the public. The scene-shifters and gas-men were +standing about--everything was going wrong. The manager was giving orders +wildly, and then a dancer was late. She was called frantically and +finally when she appeared on the run, the manager caught her by the +shoulders, rushed her across the stage and fairly pitched her on the +imaginary stage--to the great amusement of the audience. + +The tallest and prettiest girl in the ballet had been picked out to do +this bit of work, and she had been rehearsed and rehearsed as if she were +preparing for the balcony scene of "Romeo and Juliet"; and day after day +the stage-manager would groan: "Can't you run? Did you never run? Imagine +the house a-fire and that you are running for your life!" + +At last, on that opening night, we were all gathered ready for our first +entrance and dance, which followed a few moments after the incident I +have described. The tall girl had a queer look on her face as she stood +in her place--her cue came, but she never moved. + +I heard the rushing footsteps of the stage-manager: "That's you!" he +shouted; "go on! go on, run!" + +Run? She seemed to have grown fast to the floor. We heard the angry +_aside_ of the actor on the stage: "Send someone on here--for Heaven's +sake!" + +"Are you going on?" cried the frantic prompter. + +She dropped her arms limply at her sides and whispered: "I--I--c-a-n-t!" + +He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each +girl shrank back from it. He reached me--I had no fear, and he saw it. +"Can you go on there?" he cried. I nodded. "Then for God's sake go!" + +I gave a bound and a rush that carried me half, across the stage before +the manager caught me--and so I made my entrance on the stage, and danced +and marched and sang with the rest, and all unconsciously took my first +step upon the path that I was to follow through shadow and through +sunshine--to follow by steep and stony places, over threatening bogs, +through green and pleasant meadows--to follow steadily and faithfully for +many and many a year to come. + +On our first salary day, to the surprise of all concerned, I did not go +to claim my week's pay. To everyone who spoke to me of the matter, I +simply answered: "Oh, that will be all right." When the second day came I +was the last to present myself at the box-office window. Mr. Ellsler was +there and he opened the door and asked me to come in. As I signed my name +on the salary list I hesitated perceptibly and he laughingly said: "Don't +you know your own name?" Now on the first day of all, when the +stage-manager had taken down our names, I had been gazing at the scenery +and when he called out: "Little girl, what is your name?" I had not +heard, and someone standing by had said: "Her name is Clara--Clara +Morris, or Morrisey, or Morrison, or something like that," and he dropped +the last syllable from my name Morrison, and wrote me down Morris; so +when Mr. Ellsler put his question, "Don't you know your name?" that was +certainly the moment when I should have spoken--but I was too shy, and +there and thereafter held my peace, and have been in consequence Clara +Morris ever since. + +I having signed for and received my two weeks' salary, Mr. Ellsler asked +why I had not come the week before, and I told him I preferred to wait +because it would seem so much more if I got both weeks' salary all at one +time. And he gravely nodded and said "it was rather a large sum to have +in hand at one time"--and, though I was very sensitive to ridicule, I did +not suspect him of making fun of me. + +Then he said: "You are a very intelligent little girl, and when you went +on alone and unrehearsed the other night you proved you had both +adaptability and courage. I'd like to keep you in the theatre. Will you +come and be a regular member of the company for the season that begins in +September next?" + +I think it must have been my ears that finally stopped my ever-widening +smile while I made answer that I must ask my mother first. + +"To be sure," said he, "to be sure! Well, suppose you ask her, then, and +let me know whether you can or not." + +Looking back and speaking calmly, I must admit that I do not now believe +that Mr. Ellsler's financial future depended entirely upon the yes or no +of my mother and myself; but that I was on an errand of life or death +everyone must have thought who saw me tearing through the streets on that +90-in-the-shade summer day, racing along in a whirl of short skirts, with +the boyish, self-kicking gait peculiar to running girls of thirteen. + +One man, a tailor, ran out hatless and coatless and looked up the street +anxiously in the direction from which I came. A big boy on the corner +yelled after me: "S-a-a-y, Sis, where's the fire?" but you see they did +not know that I was carrying home my first earnings--that I was clutching +six damp one-dollar bills in the hands that had been so empty all my +life! Poor little hands that had never held a greater sum than one big +Canadian penny, that had never held a dollar bill till they had first +earned it. But if the boy was blind to what I held, so was I blind to +what the future held--which made us equal. + +I had meant to take off my hat and smooth my hair, and in a decorous and +proper manner approach my mother and deliver my nice little speech, and +then hand her the money. But, alas! as I rushed into the house I came +upon her unexpectedly--for, fearing dinner was going to be late, she was +hurrying things by shelling a great basket of peas as she sat by the +dining-room window. At sight of her tired face, all my nicely planned +speech disappeared. I flung my arm about her neck, dropped the bills on +top of the empty pods, and cried with beautiful lucidity: "Oh, mother! +that's mine--and it's all yours!" + +She kissed me, but to my grieved amazement put the money back into my +hand, folding my four stiff, unwilling fingers over it, as she said: "No, +you have earned this money yourself--you are the only one who has the +right to use it--you are to do with it exactly as you please." + +And while tears of disappointment were yet swimming in my eyes, triumph +sprang up in my heart at her last words; for if I could do exactly as I +pleased, why, after all, she should have the new summer dress she needed +so badly. So I took the money to our room, and having secreted it in the +most intricate and involved manner I could think of, I returned and laid +Mr. Ellsler's offer before my mother, who at first hesitated, but +learning that Mrs. Bradshaw was engaged for another season, she finally +consented, and I rushed back to the theatre, where, red and hot and out +of breath, I was engaged for the ballet for the next season. After this I +was conscious of a new feeling, which I would have found it very hard to +explain then. It was not importance, it was not vanity, it was a pleasant +feeling, it lifted the head and gave one patience to bear calmly many +things that had been very hard to bear. I know now it was the +self-respect that comes to everyone who is a bread-winner. + +Directly after breakfast next day I was off to get my mother's dress. I +went quite alone, and my head was well in the air; for this was indeed an +important occasion. I looked long and felt gravely at the edges of the +goods, I did not know what for, but I had seen other people do it, and +when my lavender-flowered muslin was cut off, done up and paid for, I +found quite a large hole in my six dollars; for it was war time, and +anything made of cotton cost a dreadful price. But, good Heaven! how +happy I was, and how proud that I should get a dress for my mother, +instead of her getting one for me! Undoubtedly, had there been a fire +just then, I would have risked my life to save that flowered muslin gown. + +I had not been more than two or three days in the theatre when I +discovered that its people seemed to be divided into two distinct +parties--the guyers and the guyed--those who laughed and those who were +laughed at. All my life I have had a horror of practical joking, and I +very quickly decided I would not be among the guyed. I had borrowed many +of Mrs. Bradshaw's play books to read, and often found in the directions +for costumes the old word "ibid." "Count Rudolph--black velvet doublet, +hose and short cloak. Count Adolph, ibid." So when the property-man, an +incorrigible joker, asked me to go home and borrow Mrs. Bradshaw's ibid +for him, I simply looked at him and smiled a broad, silent smile and +never moved a peg. He gave me a sharp look, then affecting great anger at +my laziness, he wrote a request for an ibid and gave it to the fattest +girl in the crowd, and she carried it to Mrs. Bradshaw, who wrote on it +that her ibid was at Mrs. Dickson's, and the fat girl went to Mrs. +Dickson's, who said she had lent it to Mr. Lewis--so the poor fat goose +was kept waddling through the heat, from one place to another, until she +was half dead, to the great enjoyment of the property-man. + +Next day he was very busy, when, glancing up, he saw me looking on at his +work. Instantly he caught up a bottle, and said: "Run upstairs to the +paint-frame (three flights up) and ask the painter to put a little +ad-libitum in this bottle for me--there's a good girl!" + +Now I did not yet know what ad-libitum meant, but I was a very close +observer, and I saw the same malicious twinkle in his eye that had shone +there when he had sent the fat girl on her hot journey, and once more I +slowly chewed my gum, and smiled my wide, unbelieving smile. He waited a +moment, but as I did not touch the bottle he tossed it aside, saying: +"What a suspicious little devil you are!" + +But when a man wanted me to blow down a gun-barrel next morning, the +property-man exclaimed: "Here, you! let saucer-eyes alone! I don't know +whether she gets her _savey_ out of her head or chews it out of her gum, +but she don't guy worth a cent, so you needn't try to put anything on to +her!" + +And from that day to this I have been free from the attacks of the +practical joker. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTH + + The Regular Season Opens--I have a Small Part to Play--I am among + Lovers of Shakespeare--I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under the + Charm. + + +Up to this time the only world I had known had been narrow and sordid and +lay chill under the shadow of poverty; and it is sunlight that makes the +earth smile into flower and fruit and laugh aloud through the throats of +birds. But now, standing humbly at the knee of Shakespeare, I began to +learn something of another world--fairy-like in fascination, marvellous +in reality. A world of sunny days and jewelled nights, of splendid +palaces, caves of horror, forests of mystery, and meadows of smiling +candor. All peopled, too, with such soldiers, statesmen, lovers, clowns, +such women of splendid chill chastity, fierce ambition, thistle-down +lightness, and burning, tragic love as made the heart beat fast to think +of. + +Perhaps if I had attempted simply to read Shakespeare at that time, I +might have fallen short both in profit and in pleasure; but it was the +_hearing_ him that roused my attention. There was such music in the sound +of the words, that the mind was impelled to study out their meaning. It +seems to me that a human voice is to poetry what a clear even light is to +a reader, making each word give up its full store of meaning. + +At that time Forrest, crowned and wrapped in royal robes, was yet +tottering on his throne. Charlotte Cushman was the Tragic Queen of the +stage. Mr. James Murdoch, frail and aging, but still acting, was highly +esteemed. Joseph Jefferson, E. L. Davenport, J. K. Hackett, Edwin Adams, +John E. Owens, Dan. Setchell, Peter Richings and his daughter Caroline, +Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Miss Lucille Western, Miss Maggie Mitchell, Mr. and +Mrs. Conway, Matilda Heron, Charles Couldock, Joseph Proctor, Mr. and +Mrs. Albaugh, Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, the Webb Sisters, Kate +Reynolds, were all great favorites, not pausing to mention many more, +while Edwin Booth, the greatest light of all, was rising in golden glory +in the East. + +Of the above-mentioned twenty-eight stars, eighteen acted in +Shakespeare's plays. All stars played a week's engagement--many played +two weeks, therefore at least twenty-four of our forty-two week season +was given over to Shakespearean productions, and every actor and actress +had the Bard at their tongue's tip. + +In the far past the great disgrace of our profession was the inebriety of +its men. At the time I write of, the severity of the managers had nearly +eradicated the terrible habit, and I never saw but two of that class of +brilliant actor-drunkards, beloved of newspaper story writers, who made +too much of their absurd vagaries. + +Looking back to the actors of '65, I can't help noticing the difference +between their attitude of mind toward their profession, and that of the +actor of to-day. Salaries were much smaller then, work was harder, but +life was simpler. The actor had no social standing; he was no longer +looked down upon, but he was an unknown quantity; he was, in short, an +actor pure and simple. He had enthusiasm for his profession--he lived to +act, not merely living by acting. He had more superstition than religion, +and no politics at all; but he was patriotic and shouldered his gun and +marched away in the ranks as cheerfully as any other citizen soldier. + +But above all and beyond all else, the men and women _respected_ their +chosen profession. Their constant association of mind with Shakespeare +seemed to have given them a certain dignity of bearing as well as of +speech. + +To-day our actors have in many cases won some social recognition, and +they must therefore give a portion of their time to social duties. They +are clubmen and another portion of their time goes in club lounging. +They draw large salaries and too frequently they have to act in long +running plays, that are made up of smartish wit and cheapest +cynicism--mere froth and frivolity, while the effective smashing of the +Seventh Commandment has been for so long a time the principal _motif_ of +both drama and farce, that one cannot wonder much at the general tone of +flippancy prevailing among the theatrical people of to-day. They guy +everything and everybody, and would jeer at their profession as readily +as they would at an old man on the street wearing a last year's hat. + +They are sober, they are honest, they are generous, but they seem to have +grown utterly flippant, and I can't help wondering if this alteration can +have come about through the change in their mental pabulum. + +At all events, as I watched and listened in the old days, it seemed to me +they were never weary of discussing readings, expressions, emphasis, and +action. One would remark, say at a rehearsal of "Hamlet," that Macready +gave a certain line in this manner, and another would instantly express a +preference for a Forrest--or a Davenport--rendering, and then the +argument would be on, and only a call to the stage would end the weighing +of words, the placing of commas, etc. + +I well remember my first step into theatrical controversy. "Macbeth" was +being rehearsed, and the star had just exclaimed: "Hang out our banners +on the outward walls!" That was enough--argument was on. It grew +animated. Some were for: "Hang out our banners! on the outward walls the +cry is still: they come!" while one or two were with the star's reading. + +I stood listening and looking on and fairly sizzling with hot desire to +speak, but dared not take the liberty, I stood in such awe of my elders. +Presently the "old-man" turned and, noticing my eagerness, laughingly +said: "Well, what is it, Clara? you'll have a fit if you don't ease your +mind with speech." + +"Oh, Uncle Dick," I answered, my words fairly tripping over each other +in my haste. "I have a picture home, I cut it out of a paper, it's a +picture of a great castle, with towers and moats and things, and on the +outer walls there are men with spears and shields, and they seem to be +looking for the enemy, and, Uncle Dick, the _banner_ is floating over the +high tower!" + +"Where it ought to be," interpolated the old gentleman, who was English. + +"So," I went on, "don't you think it ought to be read: 'Hang out our +banners! on the outward walls'--the outward walls, you know, is where the +lookout are standing--'the cry--is still, they come!'" + +A general laugh followed my excited explanation, but Uncle Dick patted me +very kindly on the shoulder, and said: "Good girl! you stick to your +picture--it's right and so are you. Many people read the line that way, +but you have worked it out for yourself, and that's a good plan to +follow." + +And I swelled and swelled, it seemed to me, I was so proud of the gentle +old man's approval. But that same night I came quite wofully to grief. I +had been one of the crowd of "witches"; I had also had my place at that +shameless _papier-mache_ banquet given by _Macbeth_ to his tantalized +guests, and then, being off duty, was, as usual, planted in the entrance, +watching the acting of the grown-up and the grown-great. _Lady Macbeth_ +was giving the sleep-walking scene. Her method was of the old, old +school. She spoke at almost the full power of her lungs, throughout that +mysterious, awe-inspiring sleep-walking scene. It jarred upon my +feelings--I could not have told why, but it did. I believed myself alone, +and when the memory-haunted woman roared out: "Yet, who would have +thought the old man to have had so much _blood_ in him?" I remarked, +_sotto voce_: "Did you expect to find ink in him?" + +A sharp "ahem!" right at my shoulder told me I had been overheard, and I +turned to face--oh, horror! the stage-manager. He glared angrily at me, +and began: "Since when have the ladies of the ballet taken to +criticising the work of the stars?" + +Humbly enough, I said: "I beg your pardon, sir, I was just talking to +myself, that was all." + +But he went on: "Oh, you would not criticize a reading, unless you could +better it--so pray favor us with _your_ ideas on this speech!" + +Each sneering word cut me to the heart. Tears filled my eyes. I struggled +hard to keep them from falling, while I just murmured: "I beg your +pardon!" Again he demanded my reading, saying they were not "too old to +learn," and in sheer desperation, I exclaimed: "I was only speaking to +myself, but I thought _Lady Macbeth_ was amazed at the _quantity_ of +blood that flowed from the body of such an old man--for when you get old, +you know, sir, you don't have so much blood as you used to, and I only +just thought, that as the 'sleeping men were laced,' and the knives +'smeared,' and her hands 'bathed' with it, she might have perhaps +whispered: 'Yet, who would have thought the old man to have had _so much_ +blood in him?' I didn't mean an impertinence!" and down fell the tears, +for I could not talk and hold them back at the same time. + +He looked at me in dead silence for a few moments, then he said: "Humph!" +and walked away, while I rushed to the dressing-room and cried and cried, +and vowed that never, never again would I talk to myself--in the theatre +at all events. I mention these incidents to show how quickly I came under +the influence of these Shakespeare-studying men and women, some of whom +had received their very adequate education from him alone. + +It was odd to hear how they used his words and expressions in their daily +conversation. 'Twas not so much quoting him intentionally, as it was an +unconscious incorporation into their own language of Shakespeare's lines. + +Tramps were to them almost always "vagrom men." When one did some very +foolish thing, he almost surely begged to be "written down an ass." The +appearance of a pretty actress in her new spring or fall gown was as +surely hailed with: "The riches of the ship have come on shore!" + +I saw a pet dog break for the third time from restraint to follow his +master, who put his hand on the animal's head and rather worriedly +remarked: "'The love that follows us sometimes is our trouble--which +still'" (with a big sigh) "'we thank as love!' But you'll have to go +back, old fellow, all the same." If someone obliged you, and you +expressed the fear that you had given him trouble, he would be absolutely +certain to reply, pleasantly and quite honestly: "The labor we delight in +physics pain!" And so on and on unendingly. And I almost believe that had +an old actor seen these three great speeches: The "seven ages" of man, +"To be or not to be!" and "Othello's occupation's gone," grouped +together, he would have fallen upon his knees and become an idolator +there and then. + +Yes, I found them odd people, but I liked them. The world was brightening +for me, and I felt I had a right to my share of the air and light, and as +much of God's earth as my feet could stand upon. + +I had had a little part entrusted to me, too, the very first week of the +season. A young backwoods-boy, Tom Bruce, by name, and I had borrowed +some clothes and had slammed about with my gun, and spoken my few words +out loud and clear, and had met with approving looks, if not words, but +not yet was the actress aroused in me, I was still a mere school-girl +reciting her lessons. My proudest moment had been when I was allowed to +go on for the longest witch in the cauldron scene in "Macbeth." Perhaps I +might have come to grief over it had I not overheard the leading man say: +"That child will never speak those lines in the world!" and the leading +man was six feet tall and handsome, and I was thirteen and a half years +old, and had to be called a "child!" + +I was in a secret rage, and I went over and over my lines, at all hours, +under all kinds of circumstances, so that nothing should be able to +frighten me at night. And then, with my paste-board crown and white sheet +and petticoat, I boiled-up in the cauldron and gave my lines well enough +for the manager (who was _Hecate_ just then) to say low, "Good! Good!" +and the leading man next night asked me to take care of his watch and +chain during his combat scene, and my pride of bearing was most unseemly, +and the other ballet-girls loved me not at all, for you see they, too, +knew he was six feet tall and handsome. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTH + + I find I am in a "Family Theatre"--I Fare Forth away from my Mother, + and in Columbus I Shelter under the wing of Mrs. Bradshaw. + + +This theatre in which I found myself was, in professional parlance, a +family theatre, a thing abhorred by many, especially by actresses. Not +much wonder either, for even as the green bay tree flourisheth in the +psalm, so does nepotism flourish in the family theatre; and when it's a +case of the managerial _Monsieur_, _Madame_, _et Bebes_ all acting, many +are the tears, sobs, and hot words that follow upon the absorption by +these three of all the good parts, while all the poor ones are placed +with strictest justice where they belong. At that time men and women were +engaged each for a special "line of business," and to ask anyone to act +outside of his "line" was an offence not lightly passed over. + +For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with theatrical terms of +procedure, I will state that a company was generally made up of a leading +man (heroes, of course), first old man, second old man, heavy man, first +comedian, second comedian, juvenile man, walking gentleman, and utility +man. + +That term, "heavy man," of course had no reference to the actor's +physical condition, but it generally implied a deep voice, heavy +eyebrows, and a perfect willingness to stab in the back or smilingly to +poison the wine of the noblest hero or the fairest heroine in the +business; so the professional player of villains was a heavy man. + +The juvenile man may have left juvenility far, far behind him in reality, +but if his back was flat, his eyes large and hair good; he would support +old mothers, be falsely accused of thefts, and win wealthy sweethearts in +last acts, with great _eclat_--as juvenile men were expected to do. + +Walking gentlemen didn't walk all the time; truth to tell, they stood +about and pretended a deep interest in other people's affairs, most of +the time. They were those absent Pauls or Georges that are talked about +continually by sweethearts or friends or irate fathers, and finally +appear just at the end of everything, simply to prove they really do +exist, and to hold a lady's hand, while the curtain falls on the +characters, all nicely lined up and bowing like toy mandarins. + +The utility man was generally not a man, but a large, gloomy boy, whose +mustache would not grow, and whose voice would crack over the few lines +he was invited to address to the public. He sometimes led mobs, but more +often made brief statements as to the whereabouts of certain +carriages--and therein laid his claim to utility. + +Then came the leading lady, the first old woman (who was sometimes the +heavy woman), the first singing soubrette, the walking ladies, the second +soubrette (and boys' parts), the utility woman, and the ladies of the +ballet. These were the principal "lines of business," and in an artistic +sense they bound actors both hand and foot; so utterly inflexible were +they that the laws of the Medes and Persians seemed blithe and friendly +things in comparison. + +"Oh, I can't play that; it's not in my line!" "Oh, yes, I sing, but the +singing don't belong to my line!" "I know, he _looks_ the part and I +don't, but it belongs to my line!" and so, nearly every week, some +performance used to be marred by the slavish clinging to these defined +"lines of business." + +Mr. Augustin Daly was the first manager who dared to ignore the absolute +"line." "You must trust my judgment to cast you for the characters you +are best suited to perform, and you must trust my honor not to lower or +degrade you, by casting you below your rightful position, for I will not +be hampered and bound by any fixed 'lines of business.'" So said he to +all would-be members of his company. The pill was a trifle bitter in the +swallowing, as most pills are, but it was so wholesome in its effect that +ere long other managers were following Mr. Daly's example. + +But to return to our mutton. If the family theatre was disliked by those +who had already won recognized positions, it was at least an ideal place +in which a young girl could begin her professional life. The manager, Mr. +John A. Ellsler, was an excellent character-actor as well as a first old +man. His wife, Mrs. Effie Ellsler, was his leading woman--his daughter +Effie, though not out of school at that time, acted whenever there was a +very good part that suited her. The first singing soubrette was the wife +of the prompter and the stage-manager. The first old woman was the mother +of the walking lady, and so it came about that there was not even the +pink flush of a flirtation over the first season, and, though another +season was shaken and thrilled through and through by the elopement and +marriage of James Lewis with Miss Frankie Hurlburt, a young lady from +private life in Cleveland, yet in all the years I served in that old +theatre, no real scandal ever smirched it. + +True, one poor little ballet-girl fell from our ranks and was drawn into +that piteous army of women, who, with silk petticoats and painted cheeks, +seek joy in the bottom of the wine cup. Poor little soul! how we used to +lock the dressing-room door and lower our voices when we spoke of having +seen her. + +I can never be grateful enough for having come under the influence of the +dear woman who watched over me that first season--Mrs. Bradshaw, one of +the most versatile, most earnest, most devoted actresses I ever saw, and +a good woman besides. + +She had known sorrow, trouble, and loss. She was widowed, she had two +children to support unaided, but she made moan to no one. She worked +early and late; she rehearsed, studied, acted, mended, and made; for her +salary absolutely forbade the services of a dress-maker. She had two +gowns a year, one thick, one thin. She could not herself compute the age +of her bonnets, so often were they blocked over, or dyed and retrimmed. +Yet no better appearing woman ever entered a stage-door than this +excessively neat, well-groomed, though plainly clad, old actress. + +It is not to be denied that a great many professional women are +absolutely without the sense of order. Their irregular hours, their +unsettled mode of life, camping out a few days in this hotel and then in +that in a measure explain it, but Mrs. Bradshaw set an example of neat +orderliness that was well worth following. + +"I can't see," she used to say, "why an actress should be a slattern." + +Then if anyone murmured: "Early rehearsals, great haste, you know!" she +would answer: "You know at night the hour of morning rehearsal--then get +up fifteen minutes earlier, and leave your room in order. Everything an +actress does is commented upon, and as she is more or less an object of +suspicion, her conduct should be even more rigidly correct than that of +other women." She had been a beauty in her youth, as her regular features +still proclaimed, and though her figure had become almost Falstaffian, +her graceful arm movements and the dignity of her carriage saved her from +being in the slightest degree grotesque. The secret of her smiling +contentment was her honest love for her work. + +We had one taste in common--this experienced woman and my now +fourteen-year-old self--books! books! and yet books, we read. I borrowed +from my friends and she also read--she borrowed from her friends and I, +too, read, and she came to speak of them, and then of her own ideas, and +so I found that this woman, already on the way to age, who was so poor +and hard-working, and had nothing to look forward to but work, was yet +cheerfully contented, because she loved the work--yes, and honored it, +and held her head high, because she was an actress with a clean +reputation! + +"Study your lines--speak them with exactitude, just as they are written!" +she used to say to me, with a sort of passion in her voice. + +"Don't just gather the idea of a speech, and then use your own words, +that's an infamous habit. The author knew what he wanted you to say--for +God's sake honor the poor dead writer's wishes and speak his lines +exactly as he wrote them! If he says: 'My lord the carriage waits!' don't +you go on and say: 'My lord the carriage is waiting!'" + +I almost believe she would have fallen in a dead faint had she been +prompted, and to have been late to a rehearsal would have been a shame +greater than she could have borne. To this woman's example, I owe the +strict business-like habits of attention to study and rehearsals that +have won so much praise for me from my managers. + +Had Mr. Ellsler's intention of taking his company to another city for a +great part of the season been known in advance, my mother would never +have given consent to my membership; but the season was three months old +before we knew that we were to be transferred to Columbus, the State +capital, where we were to remain, while the Legislature sat in large +arm-chairs, passing bad bills, and killing good ones, for some three +months or more--at least that was the ordinary citizen's opinion of the +conduct of the State's wise men. It seemed to me that when a man paid his +taxes he felt he had purchased the right to grumble at his +representatives to his heart's content. + +But that move to Columbus was a startling event in my life. It meant +leaving my mother and standing quite alone. She was filled with anxiety, +principally for my physical welfare, but I felt, every now and then, my +grief and fright pierced through and through with a delicious thrill of +importance. I was going to be just like a grown-up, and would decide for +myself what I should wear. I might even, if I chose to become so +reckless, wear my Sunday hat to a rehearsal; and when my cheap little +trunk came, with C. M. on the end, showing it was my very own, I stooped +down and hugged it. But later, when my mother with a sad face separated +my garments from her own, taking them from her trunk, where they had +always rested before, I burst into sobs and tears of utter forlornness. + +The Columbus trip had a special effect upon the affairs of the ballet. We +had received $3 a week salary, but every one of us had had some home +assistance. Now we were going to a strange city, and no one on earth +could manage to live on such a salary as that, so our stipend was raised +to $5 a week, and the three of us (we were but three that season) set to +work trying to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board-bill, +her basket-bill, her wash-bill, and all the small expenses of the +theatre--powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc., to say nothing at all of +shoes and clothing--all out of $5 a week. + +Of course there was but one way to do it, and that was by doubling-up and +sharing a room with some one, and that first season I was very lucky. +Mrs. Bradshaw found a house where the top floor had been finished off as +one great long room, running the entire length of the building from gable +to gable, and she offered me a share in it. + +Oh, I was glad! Blanche and I had one-half the room, and Mrs. Bradshaw +and the irrepressible little torment and joy of her life, small Jack, had +the other half. No wonder I grew to reverence her, whose character could +bear such intimate association as that. I don't know what her religious +beliefs were. She read her Bible Sundays, but she never went to church, +neither did she believe in a material hell; but it was not long before I +discovered that when I said my prayers over in my corner, she paused in +whatever she was doing, and remained with downcast eyes--a fact that made +me scramble a bit, I'm afraid. + +There was but one thing in our close companionship that caused her pain, +and that was the inevitable belief of strangers, that I was her daughter +and Blanche her protegee--they being misled by the difference in our +manner toward her. In the severity of my upbringing I had been taught +that it was nothing short of criminal to be lacking in respect for those +who were older than myself; therefore I was not only strictly obedient to +her expressed wishes, but I rose when she entered a room, opened and +closed doors, placed chairs at table, gave her precedence on all +occasions, and served her in such small ways as were possible; while +Blanche ignored her to such a degree that one might have mistaken her for +a stranger to our little party. + +Poor mother! the tears stood thick in her brave eyes when the landlady, +on our third day in her house, remarked to her, patting me on the +shoulder as she spoke: "You have a most devoted little daughter, here!" + +And there was a distinct pause, before she answered, gently: "You +mistake--I have a devoted little friend here, in Clara, but Blanche is my +daughter!" She was a singular being, that daughter. It is seldom indeed +that a girl, who is not bad, can yet be such a thorn in the side of a +mother. She was a most disconcerting, baffling creature--a tricksy, +elfish spirit, that delighted in malicious fun. Pleasure-loving, +indolent, and indifferent alike to praise or blame, she (incredible as it +seems) would willingly give up a good part to save herself the trouble of +playing it. I recall a trick she once performed in my favor. I thought +the _Player-Queen_ in "Hamlet" was a beautiful part, and I hungered to +play it; but it belonged to Blanche, and, of course, she was cast for it; +but said she: "You could have it, for all I'd care!" Then, suddenly, she +added: "Say, you may play it with the next _Hamlet_ that comes along!" + +I pointed out the impossibility of such an assertion coming true, but she +grinned widely at me and chewed her gum as one who knew many things +beyond my ken, and counselled me to "watch out and see what happened." I +watched out, and this happened: + +When the mimic-play was going on before the King and Court, my impish +friend Blanche, as the _Player-Queen_, should have said: "Both here and +hence, pursue me lasting strife, if once a widow, ever I be wife!" + +Instead of which, loudly and distinctly, she proclaimed: "Both here and +hence, pursue me lasting strife, _if once a wife, ever I be widowed_!" + +_Hamlet_ rolled over on his face, _Queen Gertrude_ (Mrs. Bradshaw) +groaned aloud, _Polonius_ (Mr. Ellsler) threatened discharge, under cover +of the laughter of the audience, while guilty Blanche grinned in impish +enjoyment of her work, and next "Hamlet" I was cast for the +_Player-Queen_, to punish Blanche. To punish her, indeed--she was as +merry as a sand-boy, standing about chewing gum and telling stories all +the evening. + +The "tatting" craze was sweeping over the country then, everybody wore +tatting and almost everybody made it. I worked day and night at it, +tatting at rehearsal and between scenes, and lady-stars often bought my +work, to my great pleasure as well as profit. Blanche wanted a new +shuttle, and her mother, who was under extra expense just then, told her +she could have it the next week. It was shortly before Christmas, and +next morning at rehearsal, with all the company present, Blanche walked +up to Mr. Ellsler and asked him if he had any money. + +He looked bewildered, and answered somewhat doubtfully that he thought he +had a little. "Well," said she, "I want you to give me a quarter, so I +can get you a Christmas present." + +There was a burst of laughter as Mr. Ellsler handed her the quarter, and +after rehearsal this is what she did with it: + +On Superior Street a clothing store was being sold out--a forced sale. +There she bought a black shoe-string tie for five cents, as a gift for +Mr. Ellsler, and elsewhere got for herself a tatting-shuttle and five +pieces of chewing-gum, and chuckled over her caper, quite undisturbed by +her mother's tears. + +One thing only moved her, one thing only she loved, music! She had a +charming voice, clear, pure, and cold as crystal, and she sang willingly, +nay, even eagerly, whenever she had the opportunity. In after years she +became a well-known singer in light opera. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTH + + I Display my New Knowledge--I Return to Cleveland to Face my First + Theatrical Vacation, and I Know the very Tragedy of Littleness. + + +During that first season I learned to stand alone, to take care of myself +and my small belongings without admonition from anyone. One of my notions +was that, since an immortal soul had to dwell in my body, it became my +bounden duty to bestow upon it regular and painstaking care in honor of +its tenant. The idea may seem extravagant, yet it served me well, since +it did for me what a mother's watchful supervision does for other little +girls when habits are being formed. + +I had learned, too, most of the technical terms used in the profession. I +knew all about footlights, wings, flies, borders, drops, braces, grooves, +traps, etc. I understood the queer abbreviations. Knew that O.P. side was +opposite the prompt side, where the prompter stood with his book of the +play to give the word to any actor whose memory failed him and to ring +the two bells for the close of the act--one of warning to the curtain-man +up aloft to get ready, the other for him to lower the curtain. Knew that +R.U.E. and L.U.E. were right or left upper entrance; C., centre of the +stage; R.C., right of centre; CD., centre-door. That to go D.S. or U.S. +was an intimation that you would do well to go down stage or up stage, +while an X. to C. was a terse request for you to cross to the centre of +the stage, and that a whole lot of other letters meant a whole lot of +other directions that would only bore a reader. + +I understood how many illusions were produced, and one of the proofs that +I was meant to be an actress was to be found in my enjoyment of the +mechanism of stage effects. I was always on hand when a storm had to be +worked, and would grind away with a will at the crank that, turning a +wheel against a tight band of silk, made the sound of a tremendously +shrieking wind, which filled me with pride and personal satisfaction. And +no one sitting in front of the house looking at a white-robed woman +ascending to heaven, apparently floating upward through the blue clouds, +enjoyed the spectacle more than I enjoyed looking at the ascent from the +rear, where I could see the tiny iron support for her feet, the rod at +her back with the belt holding her securely about the waist (just as +though she were standing on a large hoe, with the handle at her back), +and the men hoisting her through the air, with a painted, sometimes +moving, sky behind her. + +This reminds me that Mrs. Bradshaw had several times to go to heaven +(dramatically speaking), and as her figure and weight made the hoe +support useless in her case, she always went to heaven on the entire +paint-frame or gallery, as it is called--a long platform the whole width +of the stage that is raised and lowered at will by windlass, and on which +the artists stand while painting scenery. This enormous affair would be +cleaned and hung about with nice blue clouds, and then Mrs. Bradshaw, +draped in long, white robes, with hands meekly crossed upon her ample +breast and eyes piously uplifted, would rise heavenward, slowly, as so +heavy an angel should. But, alas! there was one drawback to this +otherwise perfect ascension. Never, so long as the theatre stood, could +that windlass be made to work silently. The paint-gallery always moved up +or down to a succession of screaks unoilable, untamable, blood-curdling, +that were intensified by Mrs. Bradshaw's weight, so that she ascended to +the blue tarlatan empyrean accompanied by such chugs and long-drawn +yowlings as suggested a trip to the infernal regions. Mrs. Bradshaw's +face remained calm and unmoved, but now and then an agonized moan +escaped her, lest even the orchestra's effort to cover up the +paint-frame's protesting cries should prove useless. Poor woman, when she +had been lowered again to terra firma and stepped off, the whole +paint-frame would give a kind of joyous upward spring. She noticed it, +and one evening looked back, and said: "Oh, you're not a bit more glad +than I am, you screaking wretch!" + +I had learned to make up my face properly, to dress my hair in various +ways, and was beginning to know something about correct costuming; but as +the season was drawing to its close my heart quaked and I was sick with +fear, for I was facing, for the first time, that terror, that affliction +of the actor's life, the summer vacation. + +People little dream what a period of misery that is to many stage folk. +Seeing them well dressed, laughing and talking lightly with the +acquaintances they meet on the street, one little suspects that the +gnawing pain of hunger may be busy with their stomachs--that a woman's +fainting "because of the extreme heat, you know," was really caused by +want of food. That the fresh handkerchiefs are of their own washing. That +the garments are guarded with almost inconceivable care, and are only +worn on the street, some older articles answering in their lodgings--and +that it is not vanity, but business, for a manager is not attracted by a +seedy or a shabby-looking applicant for an engagement. + +Oh, the weary, weary miles the poor souls walk! with not a penny in their +pockets. They are compelled to say, "Roll on, sweet chariot!" to even the +street-car as it appears before their longing eyes. + +Some people, mostly men, under these circumstances will stand and look at +the viands spread out temptingly in the restaurant windows; others, +myself among the number, will avoid such places as one would avoid a +pestilence. + +We were back in Cleveland for the last of the season, and I used to +count, over and over again, my tiny savings and set them in little piles. +The wash, the board, and, dear heaven! there were six long, long weeks +of vacation, and I had only one little pile of board money to set against +the whole six. I had six little piles of wash money, and one other little +pile, the _raison d'etre_ of which I may explain by and by, if I am not +too much ashamed of the early folly. + +Now I was staying at that acme of inconvenience and discomfort, a cheap +boarding-house, where, by the way, social lines were drawn with sharp +distinction, the upper class coldly recognizing the middle class, but +ignoring the very existence of the lower class, refugees from ignoble +fortune. + +Mrs. Bradshaw, by right of dignity and regular payments for the best room +in the house, was the star-boarder, and it was undoubtedly her friendship +which raised me socially from that third and lowest class to which my +small payments would have relegated me. + +Standing in my tiny, closet-like room, by lifting myself to my toes, I +could touch the ceiling. There was not space for a bureau, but the yellow +wash-stand stood quite firmly, with the assistance of a brick, which made +up for the absence of part of its off hind leg. There was a kitchen-chair +that may have been of pine, but my aching back proclaimed it lignum-vitae. +A mere sliver of a bed stretched itself sullenly in the corner, where its +slats, showing their outlines through the meagre bed-clothing, suggested +the ribs of an attenuated cab-horse. From that bed early rising became a +pleasure instead of a mere duty. Above the wash-stand, in a narrow, once +veneered but now merely glue-covered frame, hung a small looking-glass, +that, size considered, could, I believe, do more damage to the human +countenance than could any other mirror in the world. It had a sort of +dimple in its middle, which had the effect of scattering one's features +into the four corners of the glass, loosely--a nose and eyebrow here, a +mouth yonder, and one's "altogether" nowhere. + +It was very disconcerting. Blanche said it made her quite sea-sick, or +words to that effect. This dreadful little apartment lay snug against the +roof. In the winter the snow sifted prettily but uncomfortably here and +there. In the summer the heat was appalling. Those old-timers who knew +the house well, called No. 15 the "torture-chamber," and many a time, +during the fiercest heat, Mrs. Bradshaw would literally drive me from the +small fiery furnace to her own room, where at least there was air to +breathe, for No. 15 had but half a window. And yet, miserable as this +place was, it was a refuge and a shelter. The house was well known, it +was ugly, as cheap things are apt to be, but it was respectable and safe, +and I trembled at the thought of losing my right to enter there. + +In the past my mother had been employed by the landlady as seamstress and +as housekeeper, besides which she had once nursed the lonely old woman +through a severe sickness, and as I had been permitted to live with my +mother, Mrs. Miller of course knew me well; so one day when she found me +engaged in the unsatisfactory occupation of recounting my money she asked +me, very gruffly, what I was going to do through the summer. I gazed at +her with wide, frightened eyes, and was simply dumb. More sharply, she +asked: "Do you hear?--what are you going to do when the theatre closes?" + +I swallowed hard, and then faintly answered: "I've got one week's board +saved, Mrs. Miller, but after that I--I--," had my soul depended upon the +speaking of another word I could not have uttered it. + +She glared her most savage glare at me. She impatiently pushed her false +front awry, pulled at her spectacles, and finally took up one of my six +little piles of coin and asked: "What's this for?" + +"Washing," I gasped. + +"You don't send your handkerchiefs to the wash, do you?" she demanded, +suspiciously. + +I shook my head and pointed to a handkerchief drying on a string at my +half-window. + +"That's right," she remarked, in a slightly mollified tone. Then she +reached over, took up the pile that was meant for the next week's board, +and putting it in her pocket, she remarked: "I'll just take this _now_, +so you won't run no risk of losing it, and for the next five weeks after, +why, well your mother was honest before you, and I reckon you're going to +take after her. You promise to be a hard worker, too, so, well nobody +else has ever been able to stay in this room over a week--so I guess you +can go on stopping right here, till the theatre opens again, and you can +pay me by fits and starts as it comes handy for you. Why, what's the +matter with you? Well, I vum! you must be clean tuckered out to cry like +that! Land sakes, child! tie a wet rag on your head and lay right down, +till you can get picked up a bit!" and out she bounced. + +Dear old raging savage! how she used to frighten us all! how she barked +and barked, but she never, never bit! How I wanted to kiss her withered +old cheek that day when she offered me shelter on trust! But she was +eighty-five years old and my honored guest here at "The Pines" before I +told her all the terror and the gratitude she brought to me that day. + +My clear skin, bright eyes, and round face gave me an appearance of +perfect health, which was belied by the pain I almost unceasingly +endured. The very inadequate provision my poor mother had been able to +make for the necessaries of her child's welfare, the cruel restrictions +placed upon my exercise, even upon movement in that wooden chair, where I +sat with numb limbs five hours at a stretch, had greatly aggravated a +slight injury to my spine received in babyhood. And now I was facing a +life of hard work, handicapped by that most tenacious, most cruel of +torments, a spinal trouble. + +At fourteen I knew enough about such terms as vertebra of the back, +spinal-column, spinal-cord, sheath of cord, spinal-marrow, axial nervous +system, curvatures, flexes and reflexes to have nicely established an +energetic quack as a specialist in spinal trouble; and, alas! after all +these years no one has added to my list of flexes and reflexes the words +"fixed or refixed," so my poor spine and I go struggling on, and I +sometimes think, if it could speak, it might declare that I am as dented, +crooked, and wavering as it is. However, I suppose that state of +uncertain health may have caused the capricious appetite that tormented +me. Always poor, I had yet never been able to endure coarse food. Heavy +meats, cabbage, turnips, beets, fried things filled me with cold +repulsion. Crackers and milk formed my dinner, day in and day out. Now +and then crackers and water had to suffice me; but I infinitely preferred +the latter to a meal of roast pork or of corned beef, followed by +rice-pudding. + +But the trouble from the fastidious appetite came when it suddenly +demanded something for its gratification--imperiously, even furiously +demanded it. If anyone desires a thing intensely, the continual denial of +that craving becomes almost a torture. So, when that finical appetite of +mine would suddenly cry out for oysters, I could think of nothing else. +Quick tears would spring into my eyes as I approached the oysterless +table. Again and again I would dream of them, cans and cans would be +piled on my table (I lived far from shell-oysters then), and when I awoke +I would turn on my lumpy bed and moan like a sick animal. I mention this +because I wish to explain what that little odd pile of money had been +saved for. + +At the approach of hot weather a craving for ice-cream had seized upon me +with almost agonizing force. It is a desire common to all young things, +but the poverty of my surroundings, the lack of the more delicate +vegetables, of fruits, of sweets, added to the intensity of my craving. I +had found a place away up on the market where for ten cents one could get +quite a large saucer of the delicate dainty. Fifteen or twenty-five cents +was charged elsewhere for no better cream, but a more decorative saucer. + +But, good gracious! what a sum of money--ten cents for a mere pleasure! +though the memory of it afterward was a comfort for several days, and +then, oh, unfortunate girl! the sick longing would come again! And so, in +a sort of despair, I tried to save thirty cents, with the deliberate +intention of spending the whole sum on luxury and folly. Six long, +blazing-hot, idle weeks I should have to pass in the "torture-chamber," +but with that thirty cents by me I could, every two weeks, loiter +deliciously over a plate of cream, feel its velvety smoothness on my lips +and its icy coldness cooling all my weary, heat-worn body. One week I +could live on memory, and the next upon anticipation, and so get through +the long vacation in comparative comfort. + +There was no lock upon my room door, but I said nothing about it, as the +door would not close anyway; and at night, for security, I placed the +lignum-vitae chair against it. In the day-time I had to entrust my +belongings to the honor of my house-mates, as it were. + +The six little piles of wash-money I had, after the manner of a squirrel, +buried here and there at the bottom of my trunk, which I securely locked; +but my precious thirty cents I carried about with me, tied in the corner +of a handkerchief. It generally rested in the bosom of my dress, but +there came a day when, for economy's sake, I washed a pair of stockings +as well as my three handkerchiefs, and Mrs. Miller said I might hang them +on the line in the yard below. My tiny window opened in that direction. +The day was fiercely hot. I put the money in my pocket and carefully hung +my dress up opposite the window, and, in a little white jacket, did out +my washing; then, singing happily, I ran down-stairs, two long flights, +to hang the articles on the line. As I was putting a clothes-pin in place +I glanced upward at the musk-plant on my window-sill--and then my heart +stood still in my breast. I could neither breathe nor move for the +moment. I could see my dress-skirt depending from its nail, and oh, dear +God! a man's great red hand was grasping it--was clutching it, here and +there, in search of the pocket! Suddenly I gave a piercing cry, and +bounding into the house, I tore madly up the stairs--too late. The dress +lay in the doorway--the pocket was empty! On the floor, with my head +against the white-washed wall, I sat with closed eyes. The smell of a +musk-plant makes me shudder to this day. I sat there stupidly till dusk; +then I crept to my sliver of a bed, and cried, and cried, and sobbed the +whole weary, hot night through. Next day I simply could not rise, and so +for weeks I dragged heavily up and down the stairs, loathing the very +sight of the dining-room, and driven half wild with that never-sleeping +craving for ice-cream. + +It was purgatory, it was the very tragedy of littleness. And that was my +first theatrical vacation. + + + + +CHAPTER NINTH + + The Season Reopens--I meet the Yellow Breeches and become a Utility + Man--Mr. Murdock Escapes Fits and my "Luck" Proves to be Extra Work. + + +The exuberance of my joy over the opening of the new season was somewhat +modified by my close relations with a certain pair of knee-breeches--and +I wish to say right here that when Gail Hamilton declared inanimate +things were endowed with powers of malice and general mischievousness, +she was not exaggerating, but speaking strictly by the card. + +Some men think her charge was made solely against collar-buttons, whose +conduct the world admits is detrimental to good morals; but they are +wrong; she included many things in her charge. Consider the +innocent-looking rocking-chair, for instance. When it strikes does not +the rocker always find your ankle-joint? In darkness or in light did it +ever miss that exact spot? Never! And then how gently it will sway, while +you rear and stamp, and, with briny eyes, say--well, things you should +not say, things you would not say but for the malice of an inanimate +thing. + +Perhaps the quickest way to win your sympathy is to tell you at once that +those knee-breeches were made of yellow plush, bright yellow--I thought +that would move you! There was a coat, too--yes, things can always be +worse, you see; and when I was crowded into that awful livery I felt like +hopping about in a search for hemp-seed, I looked so like an enormous +canary that had outgrown its cage. + +Had Gail Hamilton known those breeches she would have said: "Here is +total depravity in yellow plush!" + +You see, the way they got their grip on me originally was this. There had +been two utility men engaged for the company, but one of them was taken +sick and could not come to the city at all, and the other one made the +manager sick, and was discharged for utter incompetency, and that very +night there was required a male servant who could in the first act summon +the star to the presence of his employer, with a name hard to pronounce; +and in the last act, when the star had become the boss of the whole +affair, could announce the coming of his carriage. + +"Could I do those two lines?" + +"Oh, yes!" I joyfully announced my ability and my willingness; "but I had +no clothes." + +And then, instead of turning the part into a girl attendant, in an evil +moment the manager bethought himself of some wardrobe he had purchased +from a broken up or down opera manager, and search discovered the +yellow-plush breeches, coat, and white wig. I put them on--the canary was +hatched! + +I played the part of two announcements; I walked out clear from the hip, +like a boy--and I became the utility man of the company, and the +tormented victim of the yellow breeches. + +I was a patient young person and willing to endure much for art's sake, +but that wig was too much. Built of white horse-hair mounted upon linen, +its heat and weight were fearful. It had evidently been constructed for a +big, round, perfectly bumpless head. It came down to my very eyebrows on +top, and at the sides, instead of terminating just at the hair-line above +the ear, it swallowed up my ears, covered my temples, and extended clear +to my eyes, giving me the appearance of being harnessed up in large white +blinders--like a shying horse. In common humanity the manager released me +from the wig and let me wear powder, but the clutch of the yellow +breeches remained unbroken. + +As in their opera days (I don't know what they sang, but they were +probably in the chorus) they had wandered through the world, knowing all +continental Europe and the South Americas, so now they wandered through +dramatic literature. One night accompanying me on to deliver a note to +Madame de Pompadour, the next night those same yellow breeches and I +skipped back to Louis XIV., and admitted many lords and ladies, with +tongue-tying names, to that monarch's presence, only to skip forward +again, in a few days, to bring in mail-bags to snuffy rural gentry, under +almost any of the Georges. Though the lace ruffles and jabots of the +French period might give place to a plain red waistcoat for the Georgian +English household, the canary breeches were always there, ready to burst +into song at any moment, to basely fire off a button or break a buckle +just at the moment of my entrance-cue, treacherously suggesting, by their +easy wrinkling while I stood, that I might just as well sit down and rest +my tired feet, and the moment I attempted to lower myself to a chair, +beginning such a mad cracking and snapping in every seam as brought me +upright with a bound and the settled conviction that weariness was +preferable to public shame. + +I am glad to this day that the stage-door was always kept locked, for, +had it been open, heaven only knows where those cosmopolitan breeches +might have taken me--they were such experienced travellers that a trip to +Havana or to the City of Mexico would have struck them as a nice little +jaunt. + +My pleasantest moments as utility man came to me when, in a very brief +white cotton Roman shirt and sandals, I led the shouts for the _supers_, +who are proverbially dumb creatures before the audience, though noisy +enough behind the scenes. So all the furious and destructive mobs of that +season were led on by a little whipper-snapper who yelled like a demon +with a copper-lined throat and then stood about afterward peacefully +making tatting. + +It must not be thought that I had in the first place a monopoly of the +small parts; far from it, but the company being rather short of utility +people, if the ballet-girls could play speaking servants, it not only +saved a salary or two to the manager, but it was of immense advantage to +the girls themselves. Then, too, Mr. Ellsler was particularly anxious to +avoid any charge of favoritism; so in the earliest days these little +parts were given out turn and turn about, without choice or +favor--indeed, two or three times my short dress caused me to be passed +over in favor of long dresses and done-up hair. But a few disasters, +caused by failure of memory or loss of nerve on the part of these +competitors, gave the _pas_ to me, and it must be remembered that these +lapses and mishaps, though amusing to recall, were absolutely disastrous +at the time, ruining, as they did, the scene, if not the entire act, in +which they occurred. + +With special vividness I recall the first one of these happenings. "Romeo +and Juliet" was the play, and _Balthazar_ the part. I longed for it +because, aside from his fine speech, he was really quite important and +had to show tenderness, anxiety, and determination during the time +_Romeo_ addressed him. I pleaded with my eyes, but I could not, dared not +speak up and ask for the part, as did Annie, who was older than I. The +star and prompter exchanged a few low-spoken sentences. I caught the +condemnatory word "child," and knew my fate was sealed--long skirts and +turned-up hair had won. However, my wound was salved when the page to +_Paris_ was given me with two lines to speak. + +Now there is no one but _Romeo_ on the stage when _Balthazar_ enters, +which, of course, gives him great prominence. His first speech, of some +fifty or fifty-six words, is simply expressed, not at all involved, yet +from the moment Annie received the part she became a broken, +terror-stricken creature. Many people when nervous bite their nails, but +Annie, in that state of mind, had a funny habit of putting her hand to +the nape of her neck and rubbing her hair upward. She had a pretty dress +of her own, but she had to borrow a wig, and, like all borrowed wigs, it +failed to fit; it was too small, and at last, when the best had been +done, its wobbly insecurity must have been terrifying. + +The girl's figure was charming, and as she stood in the entrance in her +boy's costume, I remarked: "You look lovely, Annie!" + +Silently she turned her glassy, unseeing eyes toward me, while she +shifted her weight swiftly from one foot to the other, opening and +shutting her hands spasmodically. _Romeo_ was on, and he joyously +declared: + + "My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne!" + +He then described his happy dream--I heard the words: + + "When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!" + +And there Annie staggered forward on to the stage. + + "News from Verona!" cried _Romeo_: "How now, Balthazar?" + +Oh, well might he ask "How now?" for, shifting from foot to foot, this +stricken _Balthazar_ was already feeling at the nape of her neck, and +instead of answering the questions of _Romeo_ about _Juliet_ with the +words: + + "Then she is well, and nothing can be ill, + Her body sleeps in Capets' monument, + And her immortal part with angels lives; + I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault, + And presently took post to tell it you: + O pardon me for bringing these ill news, + Since you did leave it for my office, sir," + +these were the startling statements he made in gulps and gasps: + + "O-Oh, y-yes! Sh-e's very well--and nothing's wrong; + +[titter from audience, and amazement on _Romeo's_ face] + + H-her immortal parts are in a vault, + I--I saw them laid there, and come to tell you!" + +Perhaps she would have got to the right words at last, but just there the +wig, pushed too hard, lurched over on one side, giving such a piratical +look to the troubled face that a very gale of laughter filled the house, +and she retired then and there, though in the next speech she should have +refused to leave _Romeo_: + + "Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus: + Your looks are pale and wild," + +yet now, because his looks were red and wild, she left without +permission, and the enraged instead of grieving _Romeo_ had no one to +receive his order: + + "----get me ink and paper, + And hire post horses." + +So when, in his confusion, he went on continuing his lines as they were +written, and, addressing empty space, fiercely bade _Balthazar_: + + "----get thee gone!" + +and in unintentionally suggestive tones promised: + + "----I'll be with thee straight!" + +the audience laughed openly and heartily at the star himself. + +"Yes, sir," he snorted later on to Mr. Ellsler, "by heaven, sir! they +laughed at me--AT ME! I have been made ridiculous by your measly little +_Balthazar_--who should have been a man, sir! Yes, sir, a man, whom I +could have chastised for making a fool of himself, sir! and a d----d +fool of me, sir!" + +For the real tragedy of that night lay in the wound given to the dignity +of Mr. F. B. Conway, who played a measured and stately _Romeo_ to the +handsome and mature _Juliet_ of his wife. + +We had no young _Juliets_ just then, they were all rather advanced, +rather settled in character for the reckless child of Verona. But every +lady who played the part declared at rehearsal that Shakespeare had been +foolish to make _Juliet_ so young--that no woman had learned enough to +understand and play her before middle age at least. + +Mrs. Bradshaw, one day, said laughingly to me: "By your looks you seemed +to disagree with Mrs. Ellsler's remarks this morning. She, too, thinks a +woman is not fit for _Juliet_ until she has learned much of nature and +the world." + +"But," I objected, lamely, "while they are learning so much about the +world they are forgetting such a lot about girlhood!" + +Her laughter confused and distressed me. "I can't say it!" I cried, "but +you know how very forward _Juliet_ is in speech? If she _knew_, that +would become brazen boldness! It isn't what she _knows_, but what she +_feels_ without knowing that makes the tragedy!" And what Mrs. Bradshaw +meant by muttering, "Babes and sucklings--from the mouths of babes and +sucklings," I could not make out; perhaps, however, I should say that my +mate Annie played few blankverse parts after _Balthazar_. + +Then, one Saturday night, we were all corralled by the prompter before we +could depart for home, and were gravely addressed by the manager--the +whole thing being ludicrously suggestive of the reading of the riot act; +but after reminding us that Mr. James E. Murdoch would begin his +engagement on Monday night, that the rehearsals would be long and +important, he proceeded to poison the very source of our Sunday's rest +and comfort by fell suggestions of some dire mishap threatening the +gentleman through us. We exchanged wondering and troubled glances. What +could this mean? + +Mr. Ellsler went on: "You all know how precise Mr. Murdoch has always +been about your readings; how exacting about where you should stand at +this word or at that; how quickly his impatience of stupidity has burst +into anger; but you probably do not know that since his serious sickness +he is more exacting than ever, and has acquired the habit, when much +annoyed, of--of--er--well, of having a fit." + +"O-h!" it was unanimous, the groan that broke from our oppressed chests. +Stars who _gave us_ fits we were used to, but the star who went into fits +himself--good heavens! good heavens! + +Rather anxiously, Mr. Ellsler continued: "These fits, for all I know, may +spell apoplexy--anyway, he is too frail a man to safely indulge in them; +so, for heaven's sake, do nothing to cross him; be on time, be +perfect--dead letter-perfect in your parts; write out all his directions +if necessary; grin and bear anything, so long as he doesn't have a fit! +Good-night." + +The riot act had been read, the mob dispersed, but the nerve of the most +experienced was shaken by the prospect of acting a whole week with a +gentleman who, at any moment, might get mad enough to have a fit. + +Think, then, what must have been the state of mind of my other +ballet-mate, Hattie, who, in her regular turn, had received a small part, +but of real importance, and who had to address her lines to Mr. Murdoch +himself. Poor girl, always nervous, this new terror made her doubly so. +She roused the star's wrath, even at rehearsal. + +"Speak louder!" (imperatively). "_Will_ you speak louder?" (furiously). +"Perhaps, in the interest of those who will be in front to-night, I may +suggest that you speak loud enough to be heard by--say--the first row!" +(satirically). Now a calmly controlled body is generally the property of +a trained actress, not of a raw ballet-girl, and Hattie's restless +shifting about and wriggling drove him into such a rage that, to the +rest of us, he seemed to be trembling with inchoate fits, and I saw the +property man get his hat and take his stand by the stage-door, ready to +fly for the doctor, or, as he called him, "the fit sharp." + +She, too, was to appear as a page. She was to enter hurriedly--always a +difficult thing for a beginner to do. She was to address Mr. Murdoch in +blank verse--a _more_ difficult thing--and implore him to come swiftly to +prevent bloodshed, as a hostile meeting was taking place between young +Count So-and-so and "your nephew, sir!" + +This news was to shock the uncle so that he would stand dazed for a +moment, when the page, looking off the stage, should cry: + + "Ah, you are too late, sir, already their blades are out! + See how the foils writhe," etc. + +With a cry, the uncle should recover himself, and furiously order the +page to + + "----call the watch!" + +Alas! and alas! when the night, the play, the act, the cue came, Hattie, +as handsome a boy as you could wish to see, went bravely on, as quickly, +too, as her terror-chilled legs could carry her, but when she got there +had no word to say--no, not one! + +In a sort of icy rage, Mr. Murdoch gave her her line, speaking very low, +of course: + + "My lord--my lord! I do beseech you haste, + Else here is murder done!" + +But the poor girl, past prompting properly, only caught wildly at the +_sense_ of the speech, and gasped out: + + "Come on, quick!" + +She saw his foot tapping with rage--thought his fits might begin that +way, and madly cried, at the top of her voice: + + "Be quick--see--see! publicly they cross their _financiers_!" + +then, through the laughter, rushed from the stage, crying, with streaming +tears: "I don't care if he has a dozen fits! He has just scared the words +out of my head with them!" + +And truly, when Mr. Murdoch, trembling with weakness, excitement, and +anger, staggered backward, clasping his brow, everyone thought the +dreaded fit had arrived. + +Next day he reproachfully informed Mr. Ellsler that he could not yet see +blank verse and the King's English (so he termed it) murdered without +suffering physically as well as mentally from the shocking spectacle. +That he was an old man now, and should not be exposed to such tests of +temper. + +Yes, as he spoke, he was an old man--pallid, lined, weary-faced; but that +same night he was young _Mirabel_--in spirit, voice, eye, and movement. +Fluttering through the play, "Wine Works Wonders," in his satins and his +laces--young to the heart--young with the immortal youth of the true +artist. + +Both these girls spoke plain prose well enough, and always had their +share of the parts in modern plays; but, as all was grist to my +individual mill, most of the blankverse and Shakespearean small +characters came to me. Nor was I the lucky girl they believed me; there +was no luck about it. My small success can be explained in two +words--extra work. When they studied their parts they were contented if +they could repeat their lines perfectly in the quiet of their rooms, and +made no allowance for possible accidents or annoyances with power to +confuse the mind and so cause loss of memory and ensuing shame. But I was +a careful young person, and would not trust even my own memory without +first taking every possible precaution. Therefore the repeating of my +lines correctly in my room was but the beginning of my study of them. In +crossing the crowded street I suddenly demanded of myself my lines. At +the table, when all were chatting, I again made sudden demand for the +same. If on either occasion my heart gave a jump and my memory failed to +present the exact word, I knew I was not yet perfect, and I would repeat +those lines until, had the very roof blown off the theatre at night, I +should not have missed one. Then only could I turn my attention to the +acting of them--oh, bless you, yes! I quite thought I was acting, and at +all events I was doing the next best thing, which was trying to act. + +But a change was coming to me, an experience was approaching which I +cannot explain to myself, neither has anyone else explained it for me; +but I mention it because it made such a different thing of dramatic life +for me. Aye, such a difficult thing as well. Looking back to that time I +see that all my childhood, all my youth, was crowded into that first year +on the stage. There I first knew liberty of speech, freedom of motion. +There I shared in the general brightness and seemed to live by right +divine, not by the grudging permission of some task-mistress of my +mother. I had had no youth before, for in what should have been babyhood +I had been a troubled little woman, most wise in misery. In freedom my +crushed spirits rose with a bound. The mimicry, the adaptability of +childhood asserted themselves--I pranced about the stage happily but +thoughtlessly. + +It seems to me I was like a blind puppy, born into warmth and comfort and +enjoying both, without any fear of the things it could not see. As I have +said before, I knew no fear, I had no ambition, I was just happy, blindly +happy; and now, all suddenly, I was to exchange this freedom of +unconsciousness for the slavery of consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER TENTH + + With Mr. Dan. Setchell I Win Applause--A Strange Experience Comes to + Me--I Know Both Fear and Ambition--The Actress is Born at Last + + +My manager considered me to have a real gift of comedy, and he several +times declared that my being a girl was a distinct loss to the profession +of a fine low comedian. + +It was in playing a broad comedy bit that my odd experience came to me. +Mr. Dan. Setchell was the star. He was an extravagantly funny comedian, +and the laziest man I ever saw--too lazy even properly to rehearse his +most important scenes. He would sit on the prompt table--a table placed +near the footlights at rehearsal, holding the manuscript, writing +materials, etc., with a chair at either end, one for the star, the other +for the prompter or stage manager--and with his short legs dangling he +would doze a little through people's scenes, rousing himself reluctantly +for his own, but instead of rising, taking his place upon the stage, and +rehearsing properly, he would kick his legs back and forth, and, smiling +pleasantly, would lazily repeat his lines where he was, adding: "I'll be +on your right hand when I say that, Herbert. Oh, at your exit, Ellsler, +you'll leave me in the centre, but when you come back you'll find me down +left." + +After telling James Lewis several times at what places he would find him +at night, Lewis remarked, in despair: "Well, God knows where you'll find +_me_ at night!" + +"Oh, never mind, old man," answered the ever-smiling, steadily kicking +Setchell, "if you're there, all right; if you're not there, no matter!" +which was not exactly flattering. + +Of course such rehearsals led to many errors at night, but Mr. Setchell +cleverly covered them up from the knowledge of the laughing audience. + +It is hard to imagine that lazy, smiling presence in the midst of awful +disaster, but he was one of the victims of a dreadful shipwreck while +making the voyage to Australia. Bat-blind to the future, he at that time +laughed and comfortably shirked his work in the day-time, and made others +laugh when he did his work at night. + +In one of his plays I did a small part with him--I was his wife, a former +old maid of crabbed temper. I had asked Mr. Ellsler to make up my face +for me as an old and ugly woman. I wore corkscrew side curls and an awful +wrapper. I was a fearful object, and when Mr. Setchell first saw me he +stood silent a moment, then, after rubbing his stomach hard, and +grimacing, he took both my hands, exclaiming: "Oh, you hideous jewel! you +positively gave me a cramp at just sight of you! Go in, little girl, for +all you're worth! and do just what you please--you deserve the liberty +for that make-up!" + +And goodness knows I took him at his word, and did anything that came +into my giddy head. Even then I possessed that curious sixth sense of the +born actress, and as a doctor with the aid of his stethoscope can hear +sounds of grim warning or of kindly promise, while there is but the +silence to the stander-by, so an actress, with that stethoscopic sixth +sense, detects even the _forming_ emotions of her audience, feeling +incipient dissatisfaction before it becomes open disapproval, or +thrilling at the intense stillness that ever precedes a burst of +approbation. + +And that night, meeting with a tiny mishap, which seemed to amuse the +audience, I seized upon it, elaborating it to its limit, and making it my +own, after the manner of an experienced actor. + +There was no elegant comedy of manners in the scene, understand, it was +just the broadest farce, and it consisted of the desperate effort of a +hen-pecked husband to assert himself and grasp the reins of home +government, which resolved itself at last into a scolding-match, in +which each tried to talk the other down--with what result you will know +without the telling. + +The stage was set for a morning-room, with a table in the centre, spread +with breakfast for two; a chair at either side and, as it happened, a +footstool by mine. His high silk hat and some papers, also, were upon the +table. For some unexplainable cause the silk hat has always been +recognized, both by auditor and actor, as a legitimate object of +fun-making, so when I, absent-mindedly, dropped all my toast-crusts into +that shining receptacle, the audience expressed its approval in laughter, +and so started me on my downward way, for that was my own idea and not a +rehearsed one. When my husband mournfully asked if "There was not even +one hot biscuit to be had?" I deliberately tried each one with the back +of my knuckles, and remarking, "Yes, here is just one," which was the +correct line in the play, I took it myself, which was not in the play, +and so went on till the scolding-match was reached. + +In my first noisy speech I meant to stamp my foot, but by accident I +brought it down upon the footstool. The people laughed, I saw a point--I +lifted the other foot and stood upon the stool. By the twinkle in Mr. +Setchell's eye, as well as by the laughter in front, I knew I was on the +right track. + +He roared--he lifted his arms above his head, and in my reply, as I +raised my voice, I mounted from the stool to the seat of the chair. He +seized his hat, and with the toast-crusts falling about his face and +ears, jammed it on his head, while in my last speech, with my voice at +its highest screech, I lifted my foot and firmly planted it upon the very +breakfast-table. + +It was enough--the storm broke from laughter to applause. Mr. Setchell +had another speech--one of resigned acceptance of second place, but as +the applause continued, he knew it would be an anti-climax, and he +signalled the prompter to ring down the curtain. + +But I--I knew he ought to speak. I was frightened, tears filled my eyes. +"What is it?" I whispered, as I started to get down. + +"Stand still," he sharply answered, then added: "It's you, you funny +little idiot! you've made a hit--that's all!" and the curtain fell +between us and the laughing crowd in front. + +The prompter started for me instantly from his corner, exclaiming, in his +anger: "Well, of all the cheeky devilment I ever heard or saw--" But Mr. +Setchell had him by the arm in a second, crying: "Hold on, old man! I +gave her leave--she had my permission! Oh, good Lord! did you see that +ascent of stool, chair, and table? eh? ha! ha! ha!" + +I stood trembling like a jelly in a hot day. Mr. Setchell said: "Don't be +frightened, my girl! that applause was for you! You won't be fined or +scolded--you've made a hit, that's all!" and he patted me kindly on the +shoulder and broke again into fat laughter. + +I went to my room, I sat down with my head in my hands. Great drops of +sweat came out on my temples. My hands were icy cold, my mouth was dry, +that applause rang in my ears. A cold terror seized upon me--a terror of +what, the public? + +Ah, a tender mouth was bitted and bridled at last! the reins were in the +hands of the public, and it would drive me--where? + +The public! the public! I had never feared it before, because I had never +realized its power. If I pleased, well and good. If I displeased it, I +should be driven forth from the dramatic Eden I loved, in which I hoped +to learn so many things theatrical and to become very wise, and I should +wander all my life in the stony places of poverty and disappointment! I +clenched my hands and writhed in misery at the thought. I seemed again to +hear that applause, which had been for me--my very self! and I thrilled +at its wild sweetness. Ah, the public! it could make or it could mar my +whole life. Mighty monster, without mercy! The great many-headed +creature, all jewelled over with fierce, bright eyes, with countless ears +a-strain for error of any kind! That beat the perfumed air with its +myriad hands when pleased--when pleased! A strange, great stillness +seemed to close about me; something murmured: "In the future, in the +_dim_ future, a woman may cause this many-headed monster you fear to +think as one mind, to feel as one heart! _Then_ the bit and bridle will +be changed--that woman will hold the reins and will drive the public!" At +which I broke into shrill laughter, in spite of flowing tears. Two women +came in, one said: "Why, what on earth's the matter? Have they blown you +up for your didoes to-night? What need you care, you pleased the +audience?" But another said, quietly: "Just get a glass of water for her, +she has a touch of hysteria--I wonder who caused it?" + +But I only thought of that woman of the dim future, who was to conquer +the public--who was she? + +Why that round of applause should have so shattered my happy confidence I +cannot understand, but the fact remains that from that night I never +faced a new audience, or attempted a new part, without suffering a +nervous terror that sometimes but narrowly escaped collapse. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVENTH + + My Promiscuous Reading wins me a Glass of Soda--The Stage takes up my + Education and Leads me through Many Pleasant Places. + +I suppose it sounds absurd to say that during those first seasons, with +choruses, dances, and small parts to learn, with rehearsals every day and +appearances every night, I was getting an education. + +But that depends upon your definition of the word. If it means to you +schooling, special instruction, and formal training, then my claim is +absurd; but if it means information, cultivation of the intellectual +powers, enlightenment, why then my claim holds good, my statement stands, +I was getting an education. And let me say the stage is a delightful +teacher; she never wearies you with sameness or drives you to frenzy with +iteration. No deadly-dull text-book stupefies you with lists of bare, +bald dates, dryly informing you that someone was born in 1208, mounted +the throne in 1220, died in 1258, and was succeeded by someone or other +who reigned awhile--really you can't remember how long, and don't much +care. There's nothing in figures for the memory to cling to. But no one +can forget that Edward V. was born in 1470, because he is such a tragic +little figure, only thirteen years old and of scant two months reign, +because there was the Tower and there the crafty, usurping Duke of +Gloster eager for his crown. + +Perhaps people would remember that Edward III. was born in 1312 and was +succeeded by his grandson, Richard, if they were told at the same moment +that he was father to that superb Black Prince, beloved alike of poet, +painter, and historian. + +Now, to be a good actress and do intelligent work, one should thoroughly +understand the play and its period in history, as the mainspring of its +action is often political. To be able to do that requires a large fund of +general information. That I had from my very babyhood been a reckless +reader, came about from necessity--I had no choice, I simply read every +single thing in print that my greedy hands closed upon; the results of +this promiscuous reading, ranging from dime novels to Cowper, were +sometimes amusing. One day, I remember, an actress was giving a very +excited account of a street accident she had witnessed. Her colors were +lurid, and some of her hearers received her tale coldly. "Oh!" she cried, +"such an awful crowd--a mob, you know--a perfect mob!" + +"Oh, nonsense!" contradicted another, "there couldn't have been a mob, +there are not people enough in that street to make a mob!" + +Then I mildly but firmly remarked: "Oh, yes, there are, for you know that +legally three's a mob and two's a crowd." + +A shout of laughter followed this bit of information. "How utterly +absurd!" cried one. "Well, of all the ridiculous ideas I ever heard!" +laughed another. And then, suddenly, dear old Uncle Dick (Mr. Richard +Stevens and player of old men, to be correct) came to my support, and, +with the authority of a one-time barrister, declared my statement to be +perfectly correct. + +"But where, in the name of Heaven, did you get your information?" + +"Oh," I vaguely replied, "I just read it somewhere." + +"That's a rather broad statement," remarked Uncle Dick; "you don't give +your authority, page and line, I observe. Well, see here, now, Clara +_mia_, in whatever field you found that one odd fact, you certainly +gleaned others there, so if you can produce, at once, three other legal +statements, I will treat you to soda-water after rehearsal." + +Oh, the delicious word was scarcely over his lips when I was wildly +searching my memory, and presently, very doubtfully, offered the +statement: "It is a fraud to conceal a fraud." + +But Uncle Dick gravely and readily accepted it. Another search, and then +joyfully I announced: "Contracts made with minors, lunatics, or drunkards +are void." + +A shout of laughter broke from the kind old man's lips, but he accepted +that, too. Oh, almost I could hear the cool hiss of the soda--but now not +another thing could I find. My face fell, my heart sank. Hitherto I had +been thinking of papers, now I frantically ran through stories. Suddenly +I cried: "A lead-pencil signature stands in law." + +But, alas! Uncle Dick hesitated--my authority was worthless. Oh, dear! +oh, dear! was I to lose my treat, just for lack of a little legal +knowledge? Sadly I remarked, "I guess I'll have to give it up, +unless--unless you'll take: 'Principals are responsible for their +agents,'" and, with pleasure beaming in his kind old eyes, he accepted +it. + +Ah, I can taste that vanilla soda yet--and, what is more, the old +gentleman took the trouble to find out about the legality of the +lead-pencil signature; and, as my statement had been correct, he took +great pains to make the fact known to all who had heard him question it, +and he added to my little store of knowledge, "that a contract made on +Sunday would not stand," which, by the way, later on, saved me from a +probably painful experience. + +I mention this to show that even my unadvised reading had not been +absolutely useless, I had learned a little about a variety of things; but +now, plays continually presented new subjects to me to think and read +about; thus "Venice Preserved" set me wild to find out what a _Doge_ was, +and why Venice was so adored by her sons, and I straightway obtained a +book about the wonderful city--whose commerce, power of mart and +merchant may have departed, but whose mournful beauty is but hallowed by +her weakness. + +So many plays were produced, representing so many periods, so many +countries, I don't know how I should have satisfied my craving for the +books they led me to had not the Public Library opened just then. I was +so proud and happy the day my mother surprised me with half the price of +a membership, and happier yet when I had the right to enter there and +browse right and left, up and down, nibbling here, feeding long and +contentedly there. Oh, the delight of reading one book, with two or three +others in my lap; 'twas the pleasure of plenty, new to one who could have +spelled "economy" in her sleep. + +Then, again, if it is the Stage that is making you read, you have to keep +your eyes wide open and take note of many things. Some girls read just +for the sake of the story, they heed nothing but that, they are even +guilty of the impertinence of "skipping," "to get to the story more +quickly, you know." But if you are on the stage you understand, for +instance, that different kinds of furniture are used for different +periods and for different countries; so even the beginner knows, when she +sees the heavy old Flemish pieces of furniture standing on the stage in +the morning, that no modern play is on that night, and is equally sure +that the bringing out of the high tile-stove means a German interior is +in preparation. Therefore, if you read for the stage, you watch +carefully, not only Sir Thomas's doings, but his surroundings. If his +chair or desk or sideboard is described, you make a note of the "heavily +carved wood," or the "inlaid wood," or the "boule," or whatever it may +be, and then you note the date of the story, and you say to yourself: +"Ah, such and such furniture belongs to such a date and country." + +I once heard the company expressing their shocked amazement over the +velvet robes of some _Macbeth_. I could not venture to ask them why it +was so dreadful, but later I found some paper stating that velvet was +first known in the fifteenth century, and was confined to the use of the +priests or high ecclesiastical authorities--and my mind instantly grasped +the horror of the older actors at seeing _Macbeth_ swathed in velvet in +the grim, almost barbaric Scotland of about 1012; for surely it was a +dreadful thing for an actor to wear velvet four hundred years ahead of +its invention. + +You never know just where the Stage is going to lead you in your search +for an education; only one thing you may be sure of, it will not keep you +very long to any one straight road, but will branch off in this direction +or in that, taking up some side issue, as it seems, like this matter of +furniture, and lo, you presently find it is becoming a most important and +interesting subject, well worth careful study. You come to believe you +could recognize the workmanship of the great cabinet-makers at sight. You +learn to shrink from misapplied ornament, you learn what gave rise to the +"veneering reign-of-terror," you bow at the name of Chippendale, and are +filled with wonder by the _cinque-cento_ extravagance of beauty. You find +yourself tracing the rise and fall of dynasties through the chaste beauty +or the over-ornamentation of their cabinet work. If all that Sir Henry +Irving knows on this subject could be crowded into a single volume, the +book would have at least one fault--'twould be of most unwieldy size. + +Then holding you by the hand the Stage may next lead you through the +green and bosky places that the poets loved, and, having had your eyes +opened to natural beauties, lo! you go down another lane, and you are +learning about costumes, and suddenly you discover that "sumptuary laws" +once existed, confining the use of furs, velvets, laces, etc., to the +nobility. Fine woollens and linens, and gold and silver ornaments being +also reserved for the privileged orders. That the extravagant young maids +and beaux of the lower class who indulged in yellow starched-ruff, furred +mantle, or silver chain were made to pay a cruel price for their folly +in aping their betters. So it was well for me to make a note of the date +of the "sumptuary law," that I might not some day outrageously overdress +a character. + +It is a delightful study, that of costume--to learn how to drape the +toga, how to hang the peplum; to understand the meaning of a bit of +ribbon in the hair, whether as arranged in the three-banded fillet of the +Grecian girl or as the snood of the Scottish lassie; to know enough of +the cestus and the law governing its wearing, not to humiliate yourself +in adopting it on improper occasions; to have at least a bowing +acquaintance with all foot-gear, from sandals down to an Oxford tie; to +be able to scatter your puffed, slashed, or hanging sleeves over the +centuries, with their correct accompanying, small-close, large-round, or +square-upstanding ruffs. Why the mere detail of girdles and hanging +pouches, from distant queens down to "Faust's" _Gretchen_, was a joy in +itself. + +Then a girl who played pages, and other young boys, was naturally anxious +to know all about doublets, trunks, and hose, as well as Scottish +"philibeg and sporran." And wigs? I used to wonder if anyone could ever +learn all about wigs--and I'm wondering yet. + +But as one studies the coming and going of past fashions in garments, it +is amusing to note their influence upon the cabinet-makers, as it is +expressed in the changing shape of their chairs. For instance: when +panniers developed into farthingale and monstrous hoop, chairs, high and +narrow, widened, lowered their arms--dropped them entirely, making indeed +a fair start toward our own great easy-chair of to-day. + +I remember well what a jump my heart gave when in rooting about among +materials--their weaves and dyes--I came upon the term "samite." It's a +word that always thrills me, "samite, mystic, wonderful." Almost I was +afraid to read what might follow; but I need not have hesitated, since +the statement was that "samite" was supposed to have been a delicate web +of silk and gold or silver thread. How beautiful such a combination must +have been--white silk woven with threads of silver might well become +"mystic, wonderful," when wrapped about the chill, high beauty of an +Arthur's face. + +But hie and away, to armor and arms! for she would be but a poorly +equipped actress who had no knowledge of sword and buckler, of solid +armor, chain-mail, rings of metal on velvet, or of plain leather +jerkin--of scimitar, sword, broadsword, foil, dagger, dirk, stiletto, +creese. + +Oh, no! don't pull your hand away if the Stage wants to lead you among +arms and armor for a little while; be patient, for by and by it will take +you up, up into the high, clear place where Shakespeare dwells, and there +you may try your wings and marvel at the pleasure of each short upward +flight, for the loving student of Shakespeare always rises--never sinks. +Your power of insight grows clearer, stronger, and as you are lifted +higher and higher on the wings of imagination, more and more widely opens +the wonderful land beneath, more and more clearly the voices of its +people reach you. You catch their words and you treasure them, and by and +by, through much loving thought, you comprehend them, after which you can +no longer be an uneducated woman, since no man's wisdom is superior to +Shakespeare's, and no one gives of his wisdom more lavishly than he. + +Therefore, while a regular school-education is a thing to be thankful +for, the actress who has been denied it need not despair. If she be +willing to work, the Stage will educate her--nor will it curtly turn her +away at the end of a few years, telling her her "term" is ended. I clung +tightly to its hand for many a year, and was taken a little way through +music's halls, loitered for a time before the easel, and even made a +little rush at a foreign language to help me to the proper pronunciation +of names upon the stage; and no man, no woman all that time rose up to +call me ignorant. So I give all thanks and all honor to the profession +that not only fed and clothed me, but educated me too! + + + + +CHAPTER TWELFTH + + The Peter Richings' Engagement brings me my First Taste of + Slander--Anent the Splendor of my Wardrobe, also my First Newspaper + Notice. + + +I remember particularly that second season, because it brought to me the +first taste of slander, my first newspaper notice, and my first proposal +of marriage. The latter being, according to my belief, the natural result +of lengthening my skirts and putting up my hair--at all events, it was a +part of my education. + +Of course the question of wardrobe was a most important one still. I had +done very well, so far as peasant dresses of various nationalities were +concerned; I had even acquired a page's dress of my own, but I had no +ball-dress, nothing but a plain, skimpy white muslin gown, which I had +outgrown; for I had gained surprisingly in height with the passing year. +And, lo! the report went about that Mr. Peter Richings and his daughter +Caroline were coming in a fortnight, and they would surely do their play +"Fashion," in which everyone was on in a dance; and I knew everyone would +bring out her best for that attraction, for you must know that actresses +in a stock company grade their costumes by the stars, and only bring out +the very treasures of their wardrobes on state occasions. I was in great +distress; one of my mates had a genuine silk dress, the other owned a +bunch of artificial gold grapes, horribly unbecoming, stiff things, but, +mercy, gold grapes! who cared whether they were becoming or not? Were +they not gorgeous (a lady star had given them to her)? And I would have +to drag about, heavy-footed, in a skimpy muslin! + +But in the company there was a lady who had three charming little +children. She was the singing soubrette (by name Mrs. James Dickson). One +of her babies became sick, and I sometimes did small bits of shopping or +other errands for her, thus permitting her to go at once from rehearsal +to her beloved babies. Entering her room from one of these errands, I +found her much vexed and excited over the destruction of one of a set of +fine new lace curtains. The nursemaid had carelessly set it on fire. Of +course Mrs. Dickson would have to buy two more curtains to replace them; +and now, with the odd one in her hand, she started toward her trunk, +paused doubtfully, and finally said to me: "Could you use this curtain +for some small window or something, Clara?" + +At her very first word a dazzling possibility presented itself to my +mind. With burning cheeks, I answered: "Oh, yes, ma'am, I--I can use it, +but not at a window, I'm afraid." Her bonnie face flashed into smiles. + +"All right; take it along, then!" she cried, "and do what you like with +it. It's only been up two days, and has not a mark on it." + +I fairly flew from the house. I sang, as I made my way uptown to buy +several yards of rose-pink paper cambric and a half garland of +American-made artificial roses. Then I sped home and, behind locked +doors, measured and cut and snipped, and, regardless of possible +accident, held about a gill of pins in my mouth while I hummed over my +work. All my fears were gone, they had fled before the waving white +curtain, which fortunately for me was of fine meshed net, carrying for +design unusually small garlands of roses and daisies. And when the great +night came, I appeared as one of the ball guests in a pink under-slip, +with white lace overdress, whose low waist was garlanded with wild roses. +So, happy at heart and light of foot, I danced with the rest, my pink and +white gown ballooning about me in the courtesies with as much rustle and +glow of color as though it had been silk. + +But, alas! the imitation was too good a one! The pretty, cheap little +gown I was so happy over attracted the attention of a woman whose whisper +meant scandal, whose lifted brow was an innuendo, whose drooped lid was +an accusation. Like a carrion bird she fed best upon corruption. Thank +Heaven! this cruel creature, hated by the men, feared by the women, was +not an actress, but through mistaken kindness she had been made wardrobe +woman, where, as Mr. Ellsler once declared, she spent her time in ripping +up and destroying the reputation of his actors instead of making and +repairing their wardrobes. + +That nothing was too small to catch her pale, cold eye is proved by the +fact that even a ballet-girl's dress received her attention. Next day, +after the play "Fashion" had been done, this woman was saying: "That +girl's mother had better be looking after her conduct, I think!" + +"Why, what on earth has Clara done?" asked her listener. + +"Done!" she cried, "didn't you see her flaunting herself around the stage +last night in silks and laces no honest girl could own? Where did the +money come from that paid for such finery?" + +A few days later a woman who boarded in the house favored by the +mischief-maker happened to meet Mrs. Dickson, happily for me, and said, +_en passant_: "Which one of your ballet-girls is it who has taken to +dressing with so much wicked extravagance? I wonder Mrs. Ellsler don't +notice it." + +Now Mrs. Dickson was Scotch, generous, and "unco" quick-tempered, and +after she had put the inquiring friend right, she visited her wrath upon +the originator of the slander in person, and verily the Scottish burr was +on her tongue, and her "r's" rolled famously while she explained the +component parts of that extravagant costume: window curtain--her +gift--and paper cambric and artificial flowers to the cost of one dollar +and seventy-five cents; "and you'll admit," she cried, "that even the +purse of a 'gude lass' can stand sic a strain as that; and what's mair, +you wicked woman, had the girl been worse dressed than the others, you +would ha' been the first to call attention to her as slovenly and +careless." + +This was the first drop of scandal expressed especially for me, and I not +only found the taste bitter--very bitter--but learned that it had +wonderful powers of expansion, and that the odor it gives off is rather +pleasant in the nostrils of everyone save its object. + +Mrs. Dickson, who, by the way, is still doing good work professionally, +has doubtless forgotten the entire incident, curtain and all, but she +never will forget the bonnie baby-girl she lost that summer, and she will +remember me because I loved the little one--that's a mother's way. + +Mr. Peter B. Richings was that joy of the actor's heart--a character. He +had been accounted a very fine actor in his day, but he was a very old +man when I saw him, and his powers were much impaired. Six feet tall, +high-featured, Roman-nosed, elegantly dressed; a term from bygone +days--and not disrespectfully used--describes him perfectly: he was an +"old Buck!" + +His immeasurable pride made him hide a stiffening of the joints under the +forced jauntiness of his step, while a trembling of the head became in +him only a sort of debonair senility at worst. Arrogant, short-tempered, +and a veritable martinet, he nevertheless possessed an unbending dignity +and a certain crabbed courtliness of manner very suggestive of the +snuff-box and ruffle period of a hundred years before. + +His daughter, by adoption, was the object of his unqualified worship--no +other word can possibly express his attitude toward her. No heavenly +choir could have charmed him as she did when she sang, while her +intellectual head and marble-cold face seemed beautiful beyond compare in +his eyes. Really it was worth going far to see him walk through a +quadrille with her. His bow was a thing for young actors to dream of, +while with trembling head, held high in air, he advanced and retreated, +executing antiquated "steps" with a grace that deprived them of +comicality, while his air of arrogant superiority changed instantly to +profound homage whenever in the movement of the figures he met his +daughter. + +His pronunciation of her name was as a flourish of trumpets--Car-o-line! +Each syllable distinct, the "C" given with great fulness, and the +emphasis on the first syllable when pleased, but heavily placed upon the +last when he was annoyed. + +He was unconscionably vain of his likeness to Washington, and there were +few Friday nights, this being considered the fashionable evening of the +week, that he failed to present his allegorical picture of Washington +receiving the homage of the States, while Miss Richings, as _Columbia_, +sang the "Star-Spangled Banner," the States joining in the chorus. + +In this tableau the circular opening in the flat, backed by a sky-drop +and with blue clouds hanging about the opening, represented heaven. And +here, at an elevation, Washington stood at the right, with _Columbia_ and +her flag on his left, while the States, represented by the ladies of the +company, stood in lines up and down the stage, quite outside of heaven. + +Now a most ridiculous story anent Mr. Richings and this heaven of his was +circulating through the entire profession. Some of our company refused to +believe it, declaring it a mere spiteful skit against his well-known +exclusiveness; but that gentleman who had wished to send me for an +"Ibid," being an earnest seeker after knowledge, determined to test the +truth of the story. Therefore, after we had been carefully rehearsed in +the music and had been informed by the star that only Car-O-line and +himself were to stand back of that skylike opening, this "inquiring" +person gave one of the extra girls fifty cents to go at night before the +curtain rose and take her stand on the forbidden spot. She took the money +and followed directions exactly, and when Mr. Richings, as _Washington_, +made his pompous way to the stage, he stood a moment in speechless wrath, +and then, trembling with anger, he stamped his foot, and waving his arm, +cried: "Go a-way! Go a-way! you very presuming young person; this is +heaven, and I told you this morning that only my daughter Car-O-line and +I could possibly stand in heaven!" + +It was enough; the "inquiring one" was rolling about with joy at his +work. He had taken a rise out of the old gentleman and proved the truth +of the story which had gone abroad in the land as to this claim of all +heaven for himself and his Car-O-line. + +I naturally remember these stars with great clearness, since it was for a +small part in one of their plays that I received my first newspaper +notice. Imagine my incredulous joy when I was told of this journalistic +feat--unheard of before--of praising the work of a ballet-girl. +Suspecting a joke, I did not obtain a paper until late in the day, and +after I had several times been told of it. Then I ventured forth, bought +a copy of the _Herald_, and lo, before my dazzled eyes appeared my own +name. Ah, few critics, with their best efforts, have thrown as rosy a +light upon the world as did Mr. Jake Sage with his trite ten-word +statement: "Clara Morris played the small part allotted to her well." + +My heart throbbed hard, I seemed to catch a glimpse, through the rosy +light, of a far-away Temple of Fame, and this notice was like a petal +blown to me from the roses that wreathed its portals. Could I ever, ever +reach them! + +"Played the small part allotted to her well." "Oh," I cried aloud, "I +will try to do everything well--I will, indeed!" and then I cut the +notice out and folded it in a sheet of paper, and put both in an envelope +and pinned that fast to my pocket, that I might take it to my mother, who +was very properly impressed, and was a long time reading its few words, +and was more than a trifle misty about the eyes when she gave it back to +me. Looking at them now, the words seem rather dry and scant, but then +they had all the sweetness, life, and color of a June rose--the most +perfect thing of God's bounteous giving. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEENTH + + Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as "That Young Woman," to My Great Joy--I + Issue the "Clara Code"--I Receive my First Offer of Marriage. + + +My mother, moved at last by my highly colored accounts of the +humiliations brought upon me by the shortness of my skirts, consented to +their lengthening, and though I knew she had meant them to stop at my +shoe-tops, I basely allowed a misunderstanding to arise with the +dress-maker, through which my new dress came home the full length of the +grown-ups, and though my conscience worried me a bit, I still snatched a +fearful joy from my stolen dignity, and many a day I walked clear up to +Superior Street that I might slowly pass the big show-windows and enjoy +the reflection therein of my long dress-skirt. Of course I could not +continue to wear my hair _a la_ pigtail, and that went up in the then +fashionable chignon. + +Few circumstances in my life have given me such unalloyed satisfaction as +did my first proposal of marriage. I should, however, be more exact if I +spoke of an "attempted proposal," for it was not merely interrupted, but +was simply mangled out of all likeness to sentiment or romance. The party +of the first part in this case was Mr. Frank Murdoch, who later on became +the author of "Davy Crockett," the play that did so much toward the +making and the unmaking of the reputation of that brilliant actor, the +late Frank Mayo. He was the adoring elder brother of that successful +young Harry Murdoch who was to meet such an awful fate in the Brooklyn +Theatre fire. Neither of them, by the way, were born to the name of +Murdoch; they were the sons of James E.'s sister, and when, in spite of +his advice and warning, they decided to become actors, they added insult +to injury, as it were, by demanding of him the use of his name--their own +being a particularly unattractive one for a play-bill. He let them plead +long and hard before he yielded and allowed them to take for life the +name of Murdoch--which as a trade-mark, and quite aside from sentiment, +had a real commercial value to these young fellows who had yet to prove +their individual personal worth. + +Frank was very young--indeed, our united ages would have barely reached +thirty-six. He had good height, a good figure, and an air of gentle +breeding; otherwise he was unattractive, and yet he bore a striking +resemblance to his uncle, James Murdoch, who had a fine head and most +regular features. But through some caprice of nature in the nephew those +same features received a touch of exaggeration here, or a slight twist +there, with the odd result of keeping the resemblance to the uncle +intact, while losing all his beauty. Frank had a quixotic sense of honor +and a warm and generous heart, but being extremely sensitive as to his +personal defects he was often led into bursts of temper, during which he +frequently indulged in the most childish follies. These outbreaks were +always brief, and ever followed by deep contrition, so that he was +generally regarded as a very clever, spoiled child. + +Poor boy! his life was as sad as it was short. There may be few who +remember him now, but a woman never forgets the man who first pays a +compliment to her eyes, nor can I forget the first man who handed me a +chair and opened and closed doors for me, just as for any grown-up. + +He joined the company in about the middle of that season in which I acted +principally as utility man. He was to play singing parts and young +lovers, and, to his amusement, I criticized his reading of one of +_Cassio's_ speeches. Our wrangle over Shakespeare made friends of us at +once. He had a veritable passion for poetry, and with me he felt free to +bring out his beautiful hobby to mount and ride and ride, with some of +the great poets up behind and me for applauding audience. When he wanted +me to know some special poem he bought it for me if he could; but if he +was short of money, he carefully copied out its every line, tied the +manuscript neatly up with ribbon, and presented the poem in that form. I +came across a copy of "Maud Muller" the other day in Frank's clear, even +handwriting. The paper was yellow, the ribbon faded. Frank is gone, +Whittier is gone, but "Maud Muller" lives on in her immortal youth and +pain. + +But the morning when he first brought and offered me a chair was nothing +less than an epoch in my life. At first I regarded the act as an +aspersion on my strength--a doubt cast upon my ability to obtain a seat +for myself. Then, as I glanced frowningly into his face, I suddenly +realized that it was meant as a mark of consideration--the courtesy a man +shows a woman. A glow of satisfaction spread through my being. I hated to +rise, I was so afraid the thing might never happen to me again. I need +not have worried, however, as I was soon to receive a more impressive +proof of his consideration for my welfare. + +One of the most unpleasant experiences in the life of a young actress is +her frightened lonely rush through the city streets at twelve o'clock at +night to reach her boarding-house and claim sanctuary. I doubt if even a +Una and her lion could pass unmolested through those streets dotted with +all-night "free and easys," where, by the way, nothing is free but the +poisonous air, and nothing easy but the language. At all events from my +own varied and unpleasant experiences, and from the stories of others, I +had first drawn certain deductions, then I had proceeded to establish +certain rules for the guidance and direction of any girl who was so +unfortunate as to be forced to walk abroad unattended at night. These +rules became known as "Clara's Code," and were highly approved, +especially by those girls who "couldn't think," as they declared, but +stood stock-still, "too frightened to move," when some wanderer of the +night unceremoniously addressed them. + +I cannot remember all those rules now, since for these many years God has +granted me a protector, but from the few I can recall I am convinced that +their principal object was to gain plenty of leeway for the persecuted +girl's escape. No. 3 sternly forbade her ever, _ever_ to pass between two +advancing men--at night, of course, be it understood--lest they might +seize hold of and so frighten her to death. She was advised never to +permit herself to take the inside of the walk when meeting a stranger, +who might thus crowd her against the house and cut off her chance to run. +Never to pass the opening to an alley-way without placing the entire +width of the walk between her and it, and always to keep her eyes on it +as she crossed. Never to let any man pass her from behind on the outside +was insisted on, indeed she should take to the street itself first. She +was not to answer a drunken man, no matter what might be the nature of +his speech. She was not to scream--if she could help it--for fear of +public humiliation, but if the worst came and some hideous prowler of the +night passed from speech to actual attack, then she was to forget her +ladyhood and remembering only the tenderness of the male shin and her +right of self-defence, to kick like a colt till help came or she was +released. + +Other portions of the code I have forgotten, but I do distinctly remember +that it wound up with the really Hoyle-like observation, "When in doubt, +take to the centre of the street." + +We all know the magic power of the moonlight--have seen it transmute the +commonest ugliness into perfect beauty and change a world-worn woman into +the veriest lily-maid, but how few know the dread power exerted over man +by the street gaslight after midnight. The kindest old drake of the +farm-pond, the most pompously harmless gobbler of the buckwheat-field +becomes a vulture beneath the midnight street-light. A man who would +shoot for being called a blackguard between seven o'clock in the morning +and twelve at night, often becomes one after midnight. It is frequently +said that "words break no bones," but let a young girl pass alone through +the city streets a few nights and she will probably hear words that, +drowning her in shamed blushes, will go far toward breaking her pride, if +not her bones. Men seem to be creatures of very narrow margin--they so +narrowly escape being gods, and they so much more narrowly escape being +animals. Under the sunlight, man, made in the image of God, lifts his +face heavenward and walks erect; under the street-lamps of midnight he is +stealthy, he prowls, he is a visible destruction! You think I exaggerate +the matter? Do not; I speak from experience. And, what is more, at that +time I had not yet learned what the streets of New York could produce +after midnight. + +But on the night after the chair episode, Frank Murdoch heard one of the +girls say she had used the Clara Code very successfully the night before, +when two drunken men had reeled out of an alley, who would have collided +with her had she not followed the rule and kept the whole sidewalk +between them. He stood at the door as I came down-stairs, and as soon as +I reached him he asked, sharply: "Do you go home alone of nights?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"Good God!" he muttered. + +After a pause I looked up at him, and met his eyes shining wet and blue +through two tears. "Oh," I hastily added, "there's nothing to be afraid +of." + +"I wish I could agree with you," he answered. "Tell me," he went on, +"have you ever been annoyed by anyone?" + +My eyes fell, I knew I was growing red. + +"Good God!" he said again, then, suddenly, he ordered: "Give me that +bag--you'll not go through these streets alone again while I am here! +Never mind the distance. I don't see why you can't take my arm." + +And thus I found myself for the first time escorted by a gentleman, and +after my hot embarrassment wore off a bit, I held my head very high and +languidly allowed my skirt to trail in the dust, and said to myself: +"This is like a real grown-up--surely they can't call me 'child' much +longer now." + +The star playing with us just then was a tragedian, but he was a very +little man, whose air of alertness, even of aggressiveness, had won for +him the title of "Cocky" Roberts. He wore enormously high heels, he had +thick cork soles on the outside and thick extra soles on the inside of +all his boots and shoes. His wigs were slightly padded at their +tops--everything possible was done for a gain in height, while all the +time he was sputtering and swearing at what he called "this cursed cult +of legs!" + +"Look at 'em!" he snorted--for he did snort like a horse when he was +angry, as he often was, at the theatre at least. "Look at 'em, Ellsler; +there's Murdoch, Proctor, Davenport, all gone to legs, damn 'em, and +calling themselves actors! You don't look for brains in a man's legs, do +you? No! no! it's the cranium that tells! Yes, blast 'em! Let 'em come +here and match craniums with me, that they think it smart to call +'Cocky'! They're a lot of theatrical tongs--all legs and no heads!" + +And yet the poor, fuming little man, with his exaggerated strut, would +have given anything short of his life, to have added even a few inches to +his anatomy, the brevity of which was quite forgotten by the public when +he gave his really brilliant and pathetic performance of "Belphegor," one +of the earliest of the so-called "emotional" plays. + +I have a very kindly remembrance of that fretful little star, because +when they were discussing the cast of a play, one of those tormenting +parts turned up that are of great importance to the piece, but of no +importance themselves. Capable actresses refuse to play them, and +incapable ones create havoc in them. This one had already been refused, +when Mr. Roberts suddenly exclaimed: "Who was it made those announcements +last night? She spoke with beautiful distinctness; let _that_ young woman +have the part, she'll do it all right." + +Oh, dear Mr. Roberts! never "Cocky" to me! Oh, wise little judge! how I +did honor him for those precious words: "Let that young woman have the +part." That "_young woman_!" I could have embraced him for very +gratitude--a part _and_ the term "young woman," and since, as my old +washerwoman used to say, "it never rains but it pours," while these two +words were still making music in my ears, by some flash of intuition I +realized that I was being courted by Frank. The discovery filled me with +the utmost satisfaction. I gave no thought to him, in a sentimental way, +either then or ever; quite selfishly I thought only of my own gain in +dignity and importance, for I started out in life with the old-fashioned +idea that a man honored a woman by his courtship, and I knew naught of +the lover who "loves and rides away." Yet in a few days the curious +cat-like instinct of the unconscious coquette awakened in me, and I began +very gently to try my claws. + +I wished very much to know if he were jealous, as I had been told that +real lovers were always so; and, naturally, I did not wish mine to fall +short of any of the time-honored attributes of loverdom. Therefore I, one +morning, selected for experimental use a man whose volume of speech was a +terror to all. Had he been put to the sword, he would have talked to the +swordsman till the final blow cut his speech. He was most unattractive, +too, in appearance, being one of those actors who get shaved after +rehearsal instead of before it, thus gaining a reputation for untidiness +that facts may not always justify--but he served my purpose all the +better for that. + +I deliberately placed myself at his side; I was only a ballet-girl, but I +had two good ears--I was welcome. Conversation, or rather the monologue, +burst forth. Standing at the side of the stage, with rehearsal going on, +he of course spoke low. I watched for Frank's arrival. He came, I heard +his cheery "Good-morning, ladies! good-morning, gentlemen!" and then he +started toward me, but I heard nothing, saw nothing of _him_. My upraised +eyes, as wide as I possibly could make them, were fixed upon the face of +the talker. Yet, with a jump of the heart, I knew the brightness had gone +from Frank's face, the spring from his step. I smiled as sweetly as I +knew how; I seemed to hang upon the words of the untidy one, and oh! if +Frank could only have known what those words were; how I was being +assured that he, the speaker, had that very morning succeeded in stopping +a leaky hole in his shoe by melting a piece of india-rubber over and on +it, and that not a drop of water had penetrated when he had walked +through the rain-puddles; and right there, like music, there came to my +listening ear a word of four letters--a forbidden word, but one full of +consolation to the distressed male; a word beginning with "d," and for +fear that you may think it was "dear," why, I will be explicit and say +that it was "damn!" and that it was from the anger-whitened lips of +Frank, who during the morning gave not only to me, but to all lookers-on, +most convincing proof of his jealousy, and that was the beginning of my +experiments. + +I did this, to see if it would make him angry. I did that, to see if it +would please him. Sometimes I scratched him with my investigating claws, +then I was sorry--truly sorry, because I was grateful always for his +gentle goodness to me, and never meant to hurt him. But he represented +the entire sex to me, and I was learning all I could, thinking, as I once +told him, that the knowledge might be useful on the stage some time, and +I wondered at the very fury my words provoked in him. + +We quarrelled sometimes like spiteful children, as when I, startled into +laughter by hearing his voice break in a speech, unfortunately excused +myself by saying: "It was just like a young rooster, you know!" and he, +white with anger, cried: "You're a solid mass of rudeness, to laugh at a +misfortune; you have no breeding!" + +This brought from me the rejoinder: "I know it, but you would have shown +better breeding yourself had you not told me of it!" + +And then he was on his knee in the entrance, begging forgiveness, and +saying his "cursed, cracking voice made a madman of him!" + +As it really did, for he often accused people of guying him if they did +but clear their own throats. And so we went on till something in his +manner--his increased efforts to find me alone at rehearsal, for as I was +without a room-mate in Columbus, I could not receive him at home, and I +truly think he would have kept silence forever rather than have urged me +to break any conventional rule of propriety--this something gave me the +idea that Frank was going to be--well--explicit, that--that--I was going +to be proposed to according to established form. + +Now, though a proposal of marriage is a thing to look forward to with +desire, to look back upon with pride, it is also a thing to avoid when it +is in the immediate future, and I so successfully evaded his efforts to +find me alone, at the theatre or at some friend's house, that he was +forced at last to speak at night, while escorting me home. + +I lodged in a quiet little street, opening out of the busier, more noisy +Kinsman Street. In our front yard there lived a large, greedy old tree, +which had planted its foot firmly in the very middle of the path, thus +forcing everyone to _chasse_ around it who wished to enter the house. Its +newly donned summer greenery extended far over the gate, and as the moon +shone full and fair the "set" was certainly appropriate. + +We reached the gate, and I held out my hand for my bag--that small +catch-all of a bag that, in the hand of the actress, is the outward and +visible sign of her profession; but he let the bag slip to the walk and +caught my hand in his. The street was deserted. Leaning against the gate +beneath the sheltering boughs of the old tree, the midnight silence all +about us, he began to speak earnestly. + +I made a frantic search through my mind for something to say presently, +when my turn would come to speak. I rejected instantly the ancient wail +of "suddenness." Frank's temper did not encourage an offer of +"sisterhood." I was just catching joyously at the idea of hiding behind +the purely imaginary opposition of my mother, when Frank's words: "Then, +too, dear heart! I could protect you, and--" were interrupted by a yowl, +so long, so piercing, it seemed to rise like a rocket of anguish into the +summer sky. + +"Oh!" I thought, "that's one-eared Jim from next door, and if our Simmons +hears him--and he'd have to be dead not to hear--he will come out to +fight him!" I clenched my teeth, I dropped my eyes that Frank might not +see the threatening laughter there. I noted how much whiter his hand was +than mine, as they were clasped in the moonlight. The pause had been +long; then, very gently, he started again: "Mignonne!" + +Distinctly I heard the thump of Simmons's body dropping from the +porch-roof. "Mignonne, look up! you big-eyed child, and tell me that I +may go to your mother with your promise!" + +"Mi-au! Mi-au! Wow! Spit! Spit! Wow!" Four balls of fire glowed for a +moment beneath the tree, then two dark forms became one dark form, that +whirled and bounded through space, emitting awful sounds. The cats were +too much for me, I threw back my head and laughed. + +My laugh was too much for Frank. His temper broke, he flung my hand away, +crying out: "Laugh, you little idiot! You're worse than the animals, for +they at least know no better! Laugh till morning, if you like!" and then +I'm sorry to say it, but he kicked my bag, the precious insignia of my +profession, and rushed down the street, leaving me standing there amid +the debris of the wrecked proposal. + +Next night he frigidly presented himself to escort me home, and when I +coldly declined his company, he turned silently and left me. Truth to +tell, I did not enjoy my walk alone, through the market-place in +particular, and I planned to unbend a little the next evening; but I was +much piqued to find myself without an excuse for unbending, since on the +next evening he did not offer his company. The third night there was a +big lump in my throat, and the tears would have fallen had they not been +suddenly dried in my eyes by the sight of a familiar light-gray suit +slipping along close to the houses on the other side of the way. +Petulant, irritable, loyal-hearted boy! he had safe-guarded me both those +nights when I thought I was alone! My heart was warm with gratitude +toward him, and when I reached my gate, and passed inside, I called +across the street: "Thank you, Frank! Good-night!" + +And he laughed and answered: "Good-night, Mignonne!" + +And so it came about that Frank's wooing, being of the strict and stately +order, I gradually came to be Miss Morris to others beside himself. I saw +my advance in dignity, and if I did not love him I gave him profound +gratitude, and we were true friends his short and honorable life +through. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEENTH + +Mr. Wilkes Booth comes to us, the whole Sex Loves him--Mr. Ellsler +Compares him to his Great Father--Our Grief and Horror over the Awful +Tragedy at Washington. + + +In glancing back over those two crowded and busy seasons one figure +stands out with such clearness and beauty that I cannot resist the +impulse to speak of him, rather than of my own inconsequential self. In +his case only (so far as my personal knowledge goes) there was nothing +derogatory to dignity or to manhood in being called beautiful, for he was +that bud of splendid promise, blasted to the core before its full +triumphant blooming--known to the world as a madman and an assassin--but +to the profession as "that unhappy boy," John Wilkes Booth. + +He was so young, so bright, so gay, so kind. I could not have known him +well. Of course, too, there are two or three different people in every +man's skin, yet when we remember that stars are not generally in the +habit of showing their brightest, their best side to the company at +rehearsal, we cannot help feeling both respect and liking for the one who +does. + +There are not many men who can receive a gash over the eye in a scene at +night without at least a momentary outburst of temper, but when the +combat between _Richard_ and _Richmond_ was being rehearsed, Mr. Booth +had again and again urged Mr. McCollom (that six-foot tall and handsome +leading man, who entrusted me with the care of his watch during such +encounters) to "Come on hard! Come on hot! Hot, old fellow! +Harder--faster!" He'd take the chance of a blow, if only they could make +a hot fight of it. + +And Mr. McCollom, who was a cold man, at night became nervous in his +effort to act like a fiery one. He forgot he had struck the full number +of head blows, and when Booth was pantingly expecting a thrust, McCollom, +wielding his sword with both hands, brought it down with awful force fair +across Booth's forehead. A cry of horror rose, for in one moment his face +was masked in blood, one eyebrow being cut cleanly through. There came, +simultaneously, one deep groan from _Richard_, and the exclamation: "Oh, +good God! good God!" from _Richmond_, who stood shaking like a leaf and +staring at his work. Then Booth, flinging the blood from his eyes with +his left hand, said, as genially as man could speak: "That's all right, +old man! never mind me--only come on hard, for God's sake, and save the +fight!" + +Which he resumed at once, and though he was perceptibly weakened, it +required the sharp order of Mr. Ellsler to "ring the first curtain bell," +to force him to bring the fight to a close, a single blow shorter than +usual. Then there was a running to and fro, with ice and vinegar paper +and raw steak and raw oysters. When the doctor had placed a few stitches +where they were most required, he laughingly declared there was provision +enough in the room to start a restaurant. Mr. McCollom came to try to +apologize, to explain, but Booth would have none of it; he had out his +hand, crying: "Why, old fellow, you look as if _you_ had lost the blood. +Don't worry. Now if my eye had gone, that _would_ have been bad!" And so, +with light words, he tried to set the unfortunate man at ease, and though +he must have suffered much mortification as well as pain from the eye, +that in spite of all endeavors would blacken, he never made a sign. + +He was, like his great elder brother, rather lacking in height, but his +head and throat, and the manner of its rising from his shoulders, were +truly beautiful. His coloring was unusual, the ivory pallor of his skin, +the inky blackness of his densely thick hair, the heavy lids of his +glowing eyes, were all Oriental, and they gave a touch of mystery to his +face when it fell into gravity; but there was generally a flash of white +teeth behind his silky mustache, and a laugh in his eyes. + +One thing I shall never cease to admire him for. When a man has placed a +clean and honest name in his wife's care for life, about the most +stupidly wicked use she can make of it is as a signature to a burst of +amatory flattery, addressed to an unknown actor, who will despise her for +her trouble. Some women may shrivel as though attacked with "peach-leaf +curl" when they hear how these silly letters are sometimes passed about +and laughed at. "No gentleman would so betray a confidence!" Of course +not; but once when I made that remark to an actor, who was then flaunting +the food his vanity fed upon, he roughly answered: "And no _lady_ would +so address an unknown man. She cast away her right to respectful +consideration when she thrust that letter in the box." That was brutal; +but there are those who think like him this very day, and oh, foolish +tamperers with fire, who act like him! + +Now it is scarcely an exaggeration to say the sex was in love with John +Booth, the name Wilkes being apparently unknown to his family and close +friends. At depot restaurants those fiercely unwilling maiden-slammers of +plates and shooters of coffee-cups made to him swift and gentle offerings +of hot steaks, hot biscuits, hot coffee, crowding round him like doves +about a grain basket, leaving other travellers to wait upon themselves or +go without refreshment. At the hotels, maids had been known to enter his +room and tear asunder the already made-up bed, that the "turn-over" might +be broader by a thread or two, and both pillows slant at the perfectly +correct angle. At the theatre, good heaven! as the sunflowers turn upon +their stalks to follow the beloved sun, so old or young, our faces +smiling, turned to him. Yes, old or young, for the little daughter of the +manager, who played but the _Duke of York_ in "Richard III.," came to +the theatre each day, each night of the engagement, arrayed in her best +gowns, and turned on him fervid eyes that might well have served for +_Juliet_. The manager's wife, whose sternly aggressive virtue no one +could doubt or question, with the aid of art waved and fluffed her hair, +and softened thus her too hard line of brow, and let her keen black eyes +fill with friendly sparkles for us all--yet, 'twas because of him. And +when the old woman made to threaten him with her finger, and he caught +her lifted hand, and uncovering his bonnie head, stooped and kissed it, +then came the wanton blood up in her cheek as she had been a girl again. + +His letters then from flirtatious women, and, alas! girls, you may well +believe were legion. A cloud used to gather upon his face at sight of +them. I have of course no faintest idea that he lived the godly, +righteous, and sober life that is enjoined upon us all, but I do remember +with respect that this idolized man, when the letters were many and +rehearsal already on, would carefully cut off every signature and utterly +destroy them, then pile the unread letters up, and, I don't know what +their final end was, but he remarked with knit brows, as he caught me +watching him at his work one morning: "They," pointing to the pile of +mutilated letters, "they are harmless now, little one; their sting lies +in the tail!" and when a certain free and easy actor, laughingly picked +up a very elegantly written note, and said: "I can read it, can't I, now +the signature is gone?" He answered, shortly: "The woman's folly is no +excuse for our knavery--lay the letter down, please!" + +I played the _Player-Queen_ to my great joy, and in the "Marble Heart" I +was one of the group of three statues in the first act. We were supposed +to represent _Lais_, _Aspasia_, and _Phryne_, and when we read the cast, +I glanced at the other girls (we were not strikingly handsome), and +remarked, gravely: "Well, it's a comfort to know that we look so like the +three beautiful Grecians." + +A laugh at our backs brought us around suddenly to face Mr. Booth, who +said to me: "You satirical little wretch, how do you come to know these +Grecian ladies? Perhaps you have the advantage of them in being +all-beautiful within?" + +"I wish it would strike outward, then," I answered; "you know it's always +best to have things come to the surface!" + +"I know some very precious things are hidden from common sight, and I +know, too, you caught my meaning in the first place; good-night." And he +left us. + +We had been told to descend to the stage at night with our white robes +hanging free and straight, that Mr. Booth himself might drape them as we +stood upon the pedestal. It really is a charming picture, that of the +statues in the first act. Against a backing of black velvet, the three +white figures, carefully posed, strongly lighted, stand out so +marble-like, that when they slowly turn their faces and point to their +chosen master, the effect is uncanny enough to chill the looker-on. + +Well, with white wigs, white tights, and white robes, and half strangled +with the powder we had inhaled in our efforts to make our lips stay +white, we cautiously descended the stairs. We dared not talk, we dared +not blink our eyes, for fear of disturbing the coat of powder; we were +lifted to the pedestal and took our places as we expected to stand. Then +Mr. Booth came, such a picture in his Greek garments as made even the men +exclaim at him, and began to pose us. It happened that one of us had very +good limbs, one medium good, and the third had apparently walked on +broom-sticks. When Mr. Booth slightly raised the drapery of No. 3, his +features gave a twist as though he had suddenly tasted lemon-juice, but, +quick as a flash, he said: "I believe I'll advance you to the centre, for +the stately and wise _Aspasia_." The central figure wore her draperies +hanging straight to her feet, hence the "advance" and consequent +concealment of the unlovely limbs. It was quickly and kindly done, for +the girl was not only spared mortification, but in the word "advance" +she saw a compliment, and was happy accordingly. Then my turn came; my +arm was placed about _Aspasia_, my head bent and turned and twisted, my +right hand curved upon my breast, so that the forefinger touched my chin; +I felt I was a personified simper, but I was silent and patient until the +arrangement of my draperies began--then I squirmed anxiously. + +"Take care, take care!" he cautioned, "you will sway the others if you +move!" But, in spite of the risk of my marble make-up, I faintly groaned: +"Oh, dear! must it be like that?" + +Regardless of the pins in the corner of his mouth, he burst into +laughter, and taking a photograph from the bosom of his Greek shirt, he +said: "I expected a protest from you, miss, so I came prepared; don't +move your head, but just look at this." + +He held the picture of a group of statuary up to me: "This is you on the +right; it's not so dreadful, now, is it?" and I cautiously murmured, that +if I wasn't any worse than that I wouldn't mind. + +And so we were all satisfied and our statue scene was very successful. + +Next morning I saw Mr. Booth come running out of the theatre on his way +to the telegraph office at the corner, and right in the middle of the +walk, staring about him, stood a child--a small roamer of the stony +streets, who had evidently got far enough beyond his native ward to +arouse misgivings as to his personal safety, and at the very moment he +stopped to consider matters, Mr. Booth dashed out of the stage-door and +added to his bewilderment by capsizing him completely. + +"Oh, good Lord! Baby, are you hurt?" exclaimed Mr. Booth, pausing +instantly to pick up the dirty, touselled, small heap and stand it on its +bandy legs again. + +"Don't cry, little chap!" and the aforesaid little chap not only ceased +to cry but gave him a damp and grimy smile, at which the actor bent +toward him quickly, but paused, took out his handkerchief, and first +carefully wiping the dirty little nose and mouth, stooped and kissed him +heartily, put some change in each freckled paw, and continued his run to +the telegraph office. + +He knew of no witness to the act. To kiss a pretty, clean child under the +approving eyes of mamma might mean nothing but politeness, but surely it +required the prompting of a warm and tender heart to make a young and +thoughtless man feel for and caress such a dirty, forlorn bit of babyhood +as that. + +Of his work, I suppose I was too young and too ignorant to judge +correctly, but I remember well hearing the older members of the company +express their opinions. Mr. Ellsler, who had been on terms of friendship +with the elder Booth, was delighted with the promise of his work. He +greatly admired Edwin's intellectual power, his artistic care, but +"John," he cried, "has more of the old man's power in one performance +than Edwin can show in a year. He has the fire, the dash, the touch of +_strangeness_. He often produces unstudied effects at night. I question +him, 'Did you rehearse that business to-day, John?' he answers: 'No, I +didn't rehearse it, it just came to me in the scene, and I couldn't help +doing it; but it went all right, didn't it?' Full of impulse, just now, +like a colt, his heels are in the air, nearly as often as his head, but +wait a year or two till he gets used to the harness, and quiets down a +bit, and you will see as great an actor as America can produce!" + +And, by the way, speaking of Mr. Ellsler and the elder Booth, I am +reminded that I have in my possession a letter from the latter to the +former. It is written in a rather cramped hand, that carries the address +and the marks of the red wafers, as that was before the appearance of +envelopes, and it informs Mr. Ellsler that he, "Junius Brutus Booth, will +play a star engagement of one week for the sum of--" how many dollars? if +it were not unguessable, I should insist upon your guessing, but that +would not be fair, so here it is--"for the sum of three hundred +dollars," and wants to know how many and what plays he is desired to do, +that he may select his wardrobe. + +Think of it--the mighty father of our Edwin asking but $300 for a week of +such acting as he could do, which, if this bright, light-hearted boy was +so much like him, must have been brilliant indeed. + +One morning, going on the stage where a group were talking with John +Wilkes, I heard him say: "No! no, no! there's but one _Hamlet_ to my +mind, that's my brother Edwin. You see, between ourselves, he _is +Hamlet_, melancholy and all!" + +That was an awful time when the dread news came to us. We were in +Columbus. We had been horrified by the great crime at Washington. My +room-mate and I had from our small earnings bought some black cotton, at +a tripled price, as all the black material in the city was not sufficient +to meet the demand, and as we tacked it about our one window, a man, +passing, told us the assassin had been discovered, and that he was the +actor Booth. Hattie laughed so she nearly swallowed the tack that, +girl-like, she held between her lips, and I, after a laugh, told him it +was a poor subject for a jest, and we went in. There was no store in +Columbus then where playbooks were sold, and as Mr. Ellsler had a very +large and complete stage library, he frequently lent his books to us, and +we would hurriedly copy out our lines and return the book for his own +use. On that occasion he was going to study his part first and then leave +the play with us as he passed going home. We heard his knock; I was busy +pressing a bit of stage finery. Hattie opened the door, and then I heard +her exclaiming: "Why--why--what?" I turned quickly. Mr. Ellsler was +coming slowly into the room. He is a very dark man, but he was perfectly +livid then, his lips even were blanched to the whiteness of his cheeks. +His eyes were dreadful, they were so glassy and seemed so unseeing. He +was devoted to his children, and all I could think of as likely to bring +such a look upon his face was disaster to one of them, and I cried, as I +drew a chair to him, "What is it? Oh, what has happened to them?" + +He sank down, he wiped his brow, he looked almost stupidly at me, then, +very faintly, he said: "You--haven't--heard--anything?" + +Like a flash Hattie's eyes and mine met; we thought of the supposed +ill-timed jest of the stranger--my lips moved wordlessly. Hattie +stammered: "A man, he lied though, said that Wilkes Booth--but he did +lie--didn't he?" and in the same faint voice Mr. Ellsler answered, +slowly: "No--no! he did not lie--it's too true!" + +Down fell our heads and the waves of shame and sorrow seemed fairly to +o'erwhelm us, and while our sobs filled the little room, Mr. Ellsler rose +and laid two playbooks on the table. Then, while standing there, staring +into space, I heard his far, faint voice, saying: "So great, so good a +man destroyed, and by the hand of that unhappy boy! my God! my God!" He +wiped his brow again and slowly left the house, apparently unconscious of +our presence. + +When we resumed our work--the theatre had closed because of the national +calamity--many a painted cheek showed runnels made by bitter tears, and +one old actress, with quivering lips, exclaimed: "One woe doth tread upon +another's heel, so fast they follow!" but with no thought of quoting, and +God knows the words expressed the situation perfectly. + +Mrs. Ellsler, whom I never saw shed a tear for any sickness, sorrow, or +trouble of her own, shed tears for the mad boy who had suddenly become +the assassin of God's anointed--the great, the blameless Lincoln! + +We crept about, quietly, everyone winced at the sound of the overture; it +was as if one dead lay within the walls, one who belonged to us. + +When the rumors about Booth being the murderer proved to be authentic, +the police feared a possible outbreak of mob-feeling, and a +demonstration against the theatre building, or against the actors +individually; but we had been a decent, law-abiding, well-behaved people, +liked and respected, so we were not made to suffer for the awful act of +one of our number. Still, when the mass-meeting was held in front of the +Capitol, there was much anxiety on the subject, and Mr. Ellsler urged all +the company to keep away from it, lest their presence might arouse some +ill-feeling. The crowd was immense; the sun had gloomed over, and the +Capitol building, draped in black, loomed up with stern severity and that +massive dignity only obtained by heavily columned buildings. The people +surged like waves about the speakers' stand, and the policemen glanced +anxiously toward the new theatre, not far away, and prayed that some +bombastic, revengeful ruffian might not crop up from this mixed crowd of +excited humanity to stir them to violence. + +Three speakers, however, in their addresses had confined themselves to +eulogizing the great dead. In life, Mr. Lincoln had been abused by many; +in death, he was worshipped by all, and these speakers found their words +of love and sorrow eagerly listened to, and made no harsh allusions to +the profession from which the assassin sprang. And then an unknown man +clambered up from the crowd to the portico platform and began to speak, +without asking anyone's permission. He had a far-reaching voice--he had +fire and "go." + +"Here's the fellow to look out for!" said the policeman, and, sure +enough, suddenly the dread word "theatre" was tossed into the air, and +everyone was still in a moment, waiting for--what? I don't know what they +hoped for, I do know what many feared; but this is what he said: "Yes, +look over at our theatre and think of the little body of men and women +there, who are to-day sore-hearted and cast down, who feel that they are +looked at askant, because one of their number has committed that hideous +crime! Think of what they have to bear of shame and horror, and spare +for them, too, a little pity!" + +He paused; it had been a bold thing to do--to appeal for consideration +for actors at such a time. The crowd swayed for a moment to and fro, a +curious growling came from it, and then all heads turned toward the +theatre. A faint cheer was given, and after that there was not the +slightest allusion made to us--and verily we were grateful. + +That the homely, tender-hearted "Father Abraham," rare combination of +courage, justice, and humanity, died at an actor's hand will be a grief, +a horror, and a shame to the profession forever--yet I cannot believe +that John Wilkes Booth was "the leader of a band of bloody conspirators!" + +Who shall draw a line and say: here genius ends and madness begins? There +was that touch of "strangeness." In Edwin Booth it was a profound +melancholy; in John it was an exaggeration of spirit, almost a wildness. +There was the natural vanity of the actor, too, who craves a dramatic +situation in real life. There was his passionate love and sympathy for +the South--why, he was "easier to be played on than a pipe!" + +Undoubtedly he conspired to kidnap the President--that would appeal to +him, but after that I truly believe he was a tool, certainly he was no +leader. Those who led him knew his courage, his belief in fate, his +loyalty to his friends; and because they knew these things, he drew the +lot, as it was meant he should from the first. Then, half mad, he +accepted the part Fate cast him for--committed the monstrous crime and +paid the awful price. + +And since, + + "God moves in a mysterious way + His wonders to perform," + +we venture to pray for His mercy upon the guilty soul! who may have +repented and confessed his manifold sins and offences during those awful +hours of suffering before the end came. + +And "God shutteth not up His mercies forever in displeasure!" We can only +shiver and turn our thoughts away from the bright light that went out in +such utter darkness. Poor, guilty, unhappy John Wilkes Booth! + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEENTH + + Mr. R. E. J. Miles--His two Horses, and our Woful Experience with the + Substitute "Wild Horse of Tartary." + + +But there, just as I start to speak of my third season, I seem to look +into a pair of big, mild eyes that say: "Can it be that you mean to pass +me by? Do you forget that 'twas I who turned the great sensation scene of +a play into a side-splitting farce?" And I shake my head and answer, +truthfully: "I cannot forget, I shall never forget your work that night +in Columbus, when you appeared as the 'fiery, untamed steed' (may Heaven +forgive you) in 'Mazeppa.'" + +Mr. Robert E. J. Miles, or "All the Alphabet Miles," as he was frequently +called, was starring at that time in the Horse Drama, doing such plays as +"The Cataract of the Ganges," "Mazeppa," "Sixteen-String Jack," etc. +"Mazeppa" was the favorite in Columbus, and both the star and manager +regretted they had billed the other plays in advance, as there would have +been more money in "Mazeppa" alone. Mr. Miles carried with him two +horses; the one for the "Wild Horse of Tartary" was an exquisitely +formed, satin-coated creature, who looked wickedly at you from the tail +of her blazing eye, who bared her teeth savagely, and struck out with her +fore-feet, as well as lashed out with the hind ones. When she came +rearing, plunging, biting, snapping, whirling, and kicking her way on to +the stage, the scarlet lining of her dilating nostrils and the foam +flying from her mouth made our screams very natural ones, and the women +in front used to huddle close to their companions, or even cover their +faces. + +One creature only did this beautiful vixen love--R. E. J. Miles. She +fawned upon him like a dog; she did tricks like a dog for him, but she +was a terror to the rest of mankind, and really it was a thrilling scene +when _Mazeppa_ was stripped and bound, his head tail-ward, his feet +mane-ward, to the back of that maddened beast. She seemed to bite and +tear at him, and when set free she stood straight up for a dreadful +moment, in which she really endangered his life, then, with a wild neigh, +she tore up the "runs," as if fiends pursued her, with the man stretched +helplessly along her inky back. The curtain used to go up again and +again--it was so very effective. + +For a horse to get from the level stage clear above the "flies," under +the very roof, the platforms or runs he mounts on have to zig-zag across +the mountain background. + +At each angle, out of sight of the audience, there is a railed platform, +large enough for the horse to turn upon and make the next upward rush. + +The other horse travelling with Mr. Miles was an entirely different +proposition. He would have been described, according to the State he +happened to be in, as a pie-bald, a skew-bald, a pinto, or a calico +horse. He was very large, mostly of a satiny white, with big, absurdly +shaped markings of bright bay. He was one of the breed of horses that in +livery stables are always known as "Doctor" or "Judge." Benevolence +beamed from his large, clear eyes, and he looked so mildly wise, one half +expected to see him put on spectacles. The boy at the stable said one +day, as he fed him: "I wouldn't wunder if this ol' parson of 'er a hoss +asked a blessin' on them there oats--I wouldn't!" + +I don't know whether old Bob--as he was called--had any speed or not, but +if he had it was useless to him, for, alas! he was never allowed to reach +the goal under any circumstances. He was always ridden by the villain, +and therefore had to be overtaken, and besides that he generally had to +carry double, as the desperado usually fled holding the fainting heroine +before him. Though old Bob successfully leaped chasms thus heavily +handicapped--for truly he was a mighty jumper--nevertheless he was +compelled to accept defeat, as Mr. Miles always came rushing up on the +black horse to the rescue. He was very lucky indeed, if he didn't have to +roll about and die, and he was a very impatient dead horse, often amusing +the audience by lifting his head to see if the curtain was not down yet, +and then dropping dead again with a sigh the whole house could hear. + +By the way, "the house" is a theatrical term, meaning, on an actor's +lips, "the audience." "The house did thus or so," "the house is behaving +beautifully," "it's the most refined house you ever saw," "what a cold +house"; and so on. I have but rarely heard either actor or actress refer +to the "audience"--and after steadily using any term for years it is very +hard to lay it aside, and I shall long remember the grim moment that +followed on my remarking to my rector, "What a good house you had +yesterday--it must have been a pleasure to pla--to, to--er, er, to +address such an audi--er, that is, I mean congregation!" There was a +moment of icy silence, then, being a human being as well as a wearer of +the priestly collar, he set back his head and laughed a laugh that was +good to hear. + +Anyway, being continually pushed back into second place and compelled to +listen to the unearned applause bestowed upon the beautiful black seemed +to rob old Bob of all ambition professionally, and he simply became a +_gourmet_ and a glutton. He lived to eat. A woman in his eyes was a sort +of perambulating store-house of cake, crackers, apples, sugar, etc.; only +his love for children was disinterested. The moment he was loose he went +off in search for children, no matter whose, so long as he found some; +then down he would go on his knees, and wait to be pulled and patted. His +silvery tail provided hundreds of horse-hair rings--and his habit of +gathering very small people up by their back breadths and carrying them a +little way before dropping them, only filled the air with wild shrieks of +laughter. In the theatre he walked sedately about before rehearsal began, +and though we knew his attentions were entirely selfish, he was so +urbane, so complaisant in his manner of going through us, that we could +not resist his advances, and each day and night we packed our pockets and +our muffs with such provender as women seldom carry about in their +clothes. All our gloves smelled as though we worked at a cider-mill. +While the play was going on old Bob spent a great part of his time +standing on the first of those railed platforms, and as he was on the +same side of the stage that the ladies' dressing-rooms were on, everyone +of us had to pass him on our way to dress, and he demanded toll of all. +Fruits, domestic or foreign, were received with gentle eagerness. Cake, +crackers, and sugar, the velvety nose snuffed at them approvingly, and if +a girl, believing herself late, tried to pass him swiftly by, his look of +amazement was comical to behold, and in an instant his iron-shod foot was +playing a veritable devil's tattoo on the resounding board platform, and +if that failed to win attention, following her with his eyes, he lifted +up his voice in a full-chested "neigh--hay--hay--_ha-ay_!" that brought +her back in a hurry with her toll of sugar. And that pie-bald hypocrite +would scrunch it with such a piteously ravenous air that the girl quite +forgot the basilisk glare and satirical words the landlady directed +against her recently-acquired sweet-tooth. My own landlady had, as early +as Wednesday, covered the sugar-bowl and locked the pantry, but she left +the salt-bag open, and I took on a full cargo of it twice a day, and old +Bob showed such an absolute carnality of enjoyment in the eating of it +that Mr. Miles became convinced that it had long been denied to him at +the stables. + +Then, late in the week, there came that dreadful night of disaster. I +don't recall the name of the play, but in that one piece the beautiful, +high-spirited black mare had to carry double up the runs. John Carroll +and Miss Lucy Cutler were the riders. Mr. Carroll claimed he could ride a +little, and though he was afraid he was ashamed to say so. Mr. Miles said +in the morning: "Now, if you are the least bit timid, Mr. Carroll, say +so, and I will fasten the bridle-reins to the saddle-pommel and the Queen +will carry you up as true as a die and as safe as a rock of her own +accord; but if you are going to hold the bridle, for God's sake be +careful! If it was old Bob, you could saw him as much as you liked and he +would pay no attention, and hug the run for dear life; but the Queen, who +has a tender mouth, is besides half mad with excitement at night, and a +very slight pressure on the wrong rein will mean a forty or fifty-foot +fall for you all!" + +Miss Cutler expressed great fear, when Mr. Miles, surprisedly, said: +"Why, you have ridden with me twice this week without a sign of fear?" +"Oh, yes," she answered, "but _you_ know what you are doing--you are a +horseman." + +It was an unfortunate speech, and in face of it Mr. Carroll's vanity +would not allow him to admit his anxiety. "He could ride well enough--and +he would handle the reins himself," he declared. + +During the day his fears grew upon him. Foolishly and wickedly he +resorted to spirits to try to build up some Dutch courage; and then, when +the scene came on, half blind with fear and the liquor, which he was not +used to, as he felt the fierce creature beneath them rushing furiously up +the steep incline, a sort of madness came upon him. Without rhyme or +reason he pulled desperately at the nigh rein and in the same breath +their three bodies were hurling downward, like thunderbolts. + +It was an awful sight! I looked at them as they descended, and for the +fraction of a second they seemed to be suspended in the air. They were +all upside down. They all, without turning or twisting, fell straight as +plummets--the horse, the same as the man and woman, had its feet straight +in the air. Ugh! the striking--ugh!--never mind details! The curtain had +been rushed down. Miss Cutler had been picked up, dazed, stunned, but +without a mark. Mr. Carroll had crept away unaided amid the confusion, +the sorrow, and tears, for the splendid Queen was doomed and done for! +Though Mr. Miles had risked his own life in an awful leap to save her +from falling through a trap, he could not save her life, and the almost +human groan with which she dropped her lovely head upon her master's +shoulder, and his streaming eyes as he tenderly wiped the blood from her +velvety nostrils, made even the scene-shifters rub their eyes upon the +backs of their hands. While the Queen was half carried and half crept to +the fire-engine house next door (her stable was so far away), someone was +going before the curtain, assuring the audience that the accident was +very slight, and the lady and gentleman would both be before them +presently, and the audience applauded in a rather doubtful manner, for +several ladies had fainted, and the carrying out of a helpless person +from a place of amusement always has a depressing effect upon the +lookers-on. Meantime Mr. Carroll was getting his wrist bandaged and a cut +on his face strapped up, while a basket of sawdust was hurriedly procured +that certain cruel stains might be concealed. The orchestra played +briskly and the play went on. That's the one thing we can be sure of in +this world--that the play will go on. That night, late, the beautiful +Queen died with her head resting on her master's knee. + +Now "Mazeppa" was billed for the next night, and there were many +consultations held in the office and on the stage. "The wild horse of +Tartary" was gone. It was impossible to find a new horse in one day. + +"Change the bill!" said Mr. Miles. + +"And have an empty house," answered Mr. Ellsler. + +"But what can I do for a horse?" asked R. E. J. M. + +"Use old Bob," answered Mr. Ellsler. + +"Good Lord!" groaned Bob's master. They argued long, but neither wanted +to lose the good house, so the bill was allowed to stand, and "Mazeppa" +was performed with old white Bob as the "Wild Horse of Tartary." Think of +it, that ingratiating old Bob! That follower of women and playmate of +children! Why, even the great bay blotches on his white old hide made one +think of the circus, paper hoops, and _training_, rather than of +wildness. Meaning to make him at least impatient and restless, he had +been deprived of his supper, and the result was a settled gloom, an air +of melancholy that made Mr. Miles swear under his breath every time he +looked at him. There was a ring, known I believe as a Spanish ring, made +with a sharp little spike attachment, and used sometimes by circus-men to +stir up horses to a show of violence or of high spirits, and when a whip +was not permissible. It could be resorted to without arousing any +suspicion of cruelty, since the spike was on the under side and so out of +sight. The man with the ring on his finger would stand by a horse, and +resting his hand on the animal's neck, just at the most sensitive spot of +his whole anatomy--the root or end of his mane--would close the hand +suddenly, thus driving the spike into the flesh. It must have caused +exquisite pain, and naturally the tormented animal rears and plunges. +Sometimes they get effect enough by pricking the creatures on the +shoulder only. On that night, Mr. Miles, after gazing at the mild and +melancholy features of his new "Wild Horse of Tartary," went to his room +and dug up from some trunk a Spanish ring. Calling one of the men who +used to be dragged and thrashed about the stage by the black wild horse, +he explained to him its use, ending with: "I hate to hurt the old fellow, +so try him on the shoulder first, and if he dances about pretty lively, +as I think he will, you need not prick his mane at all." + +The play moved along nicely, the house was large, and seemed pleased. +_Mazeppa_ fell into his enemy's hands, the sentence was pronounced, and +the order followed: "Bring forth the fiery, untamed steed!" + +The women began to draw close to their escorts; many of them remembered +the biting, kicking entrance of the black, and were frightened +beforehand. The orchestra responded with incidental creepy music, +but--that was all. Over in the entrance, old Bob, surrounded by the four +men who were supposed to restrain him, stood calmly. But those who sat in +the left box heard "get-ups!" and "go-ons!" and the cluckings of many +tongues. The mighty Khan of Tartary (who could not see that entrance) +thought he had not been heard, and roared again: "Bring forth the fiery, +untamed steed!" Another pause, the house tittered, then some one hit old +Bob a crack across the rump with a whip, at which he gave a switch of his +tail and gently ambled on the stage, stopping of his own accord at +centre, and, lowering his head, he stretched his neck and sniffed at the +leader of the orchestra, precisely as a dog sniffs at a stranger. It was +deliciously ridiculous. We girls were supposed to scream with terror at +the "wild horse," and, alas! we were only too obedient, crowding down at +right, clinging together in attitudes of extremest fright, we shrieked +and screeched until old Bob cocked up his ears and looked so astonished +at our conduct that the audience simply rocked back and forth with +laughter, and all the time _Mazeppa_ was saying things that did not seem +to be like prayers. Finally he gave orders for the men to surround Bob, +which they did, and then the ring was used--the ring that was to make him +dance about pretty lively. It pricked him on the shoulder, and the "wild +horse" stood and switched his tail. It pricked him again--he switched his +tail again. The men had by that time grown careless, and when the ring +was finally used at his mane, he suddenly kicked one of them clear off +the stage, and then resumed his unruffled calm. The public thought it was +having fun all this time, but pretty soon it knew it. Nothing under +heaven could disturb the gentle serenity of that dog-like old horse. But +when _Mazeppa_ was brought forward to be bound upon his back, instead of +pulling away, rearing, and fighting against the burden, his one and only +quick movement was his violent effort to break away from his tormentors +to welcome _Mazeppa_ joyously. + +"Oh!" groaned Miles, "kill him, somebody, before he kills me!" + +While he was being bound on the wild horse's back, our instructions were +to scream, therefore we screamed as before, and being on the verge of +insanity, _Mazeppa_ lifted his head from the horse's back, and said: "Oh, +shut up--do!" The audience heard, and--well, it laughed some more, and +then it discovered, when the men sprang away and left the horse free to +dash madly up the mountain, that _Mazeppa_ had kept one foot unbound to +kick his horse with--and truly it did seem that the audience was going +into convulsions. Such laughter, pierced every now and then by the shrill +scream of hysteria. Then old Bob ambled up the first run all right, but, +alas! for poor _Mazeppa_, as he reached the first turn-table, a woman +passed on the way to her room, and hungry Bob instantly stopped to +negotiate a loan in sugar. Oh, it was dreadful, the wait, and when +finally he reappeared, trotting--yes, trotting up the next run, Mr. +Miles's foot could be plainly seen, kicking with the regularity of a +piston-rod, while his remarks were--well, they were irregular in the +extreme. + +Of course the play was hopelessly ruined; the audience laughed at the +slightest mention of the "wild horse," and when, broken and exhausted, +the shepherds find them both lying at the foot of the mountain, the house +seemed to shake with laughter. + +When the play was at last over, old white Bob walked over to his master +and mumbled his hand. Mr. Miles pushed him away with pretended anger, +crying: "You infernal old idiot, I'd sell you for a three-cent stamp with +gum on it!" + +Bob looked hard at him a moment, then he calmly crossed behind him and +mumbled his other hand, and Mr. Miles pulled his ears, and said that "he +himself was the idiot for expecting an untrained, unrehearsed horse to +play such a part," and old Bob agreeing with him perfectly, they were, as +always, at peace with each other. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEENTH + + I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study _King Charles_ in One Afternoon + and Play Without a Rehearsal--Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd Revelation. + + +Already in that third season my position had become an anomalous one, +from that occasion when, because of sickness, I had in one afternoon +studied, letter perfect, the part of _King Charles_ in "Faint Heart Never +Won Fair Lady," and played it in borrowed clothes and without any +rehearsal whatever, other than finding the situations plainly marked in +the book. It was an astonishing thing to do, and nearly everyone had a +kind word for me. The stage manager, or rather the prompter, for Mr. +Ellsler was his own stage manager, patted me on the shoulder and said: +"'Pon my soul, girl, you're a wonder! I think pretty well of my own +study, but you can beat me. You never missed a word, and besides that +I've seen the part played worse many a time. I don't know what to say to +you, my dear, but a girl that can do that can do most anything." + +Ah, yes! and that was just what the powers that were seemed to +think--that I could do almost anything, for from that day I became a sort +of dramatic scape-goat, to play the parts of the sick, the halt, the +cross, the tricky, for whenever an actor or actress turns up with a +remarkable study--the ability to learn almost any part in a given +time--he or she is bound to be "put upon." Sickness will increase, +tempers will get shorter, airs of superiority will be assumed, all +because there is someone ready to play the obnoxious part, someone ready +to rush into the breach and prevent the changing of the "bill." + +So often was I playing parts, thus leaving only two in the ballet, that +another girl was engaged. Thus to Hattie, Annie, and Clara there was +added Mary. And lo! in this young woman I recognized a friend of my +youth. I had known her but two days, but I could never forget the only +child I had ever had a play with. She had parted from me in wrath +because, after playing house-keeping all morning in the yard, I had +refused to eat a clay dumpling she had made, with a nice green +clover-leaf in its middle. She threw the dumpling at me, roaring like a +little bull calf, and twisting a dirty small fist into each dry eye, she +waddled off home, leaving me, finger in mouth, gazing in pained amazement +after her, until my fat little legs suddenly gave way, as was their wont +in moments of great emotion, and sat me unwillingly but flatly down upon +the ground, where I remained, looking gravely at them and wondering what +they did it for--and now here we were together again. + +Of course this playing of many parts was, in a certain way, an advantage +to me, and I appreciated it; but there can be too much even of a good +thing. That I got little pay for all this work was nothing to me, I was +glad to do it for the experience it gave me, but when I was forced to +appear ridiculous through my inability to dress the parts correctly I +suffered cruelly. Once in a while, as in the case of _King Charles_, I +could get a costume from the theatre wardrobe, where the yellow plush +breeches lived when not engaged in desolating my young life, but, alas! +here, as everywhere, the man is the favored party, and the theatre +wardrobe contains only masculine garments; the women must provide +everything for themselves. Then, too, one is never too young or too +insignificant to feel an injustice. + +I recall, very distinctly, having to go on for _Lady Anne_ in "Richard +III.," with a rather unimportant star. Now had I "held a position," as +the term goes, that part would, out of courtesy, have belonged to me for +the rest of the season, unless I chose to offer it back to the woman I +had obliged; but being only a ballet-girl I did well enough for the _Lady +Anne_ of an unimportant star, but when a more popular _Richard_ appeared +upon the scene, _Lady Anne_ was immediately reclaimed, and I traipsed +again behind the coffin, and with the rest of the ballet was witness to +that most savage fling of Shakespeare against a vain, inconsequential +womanhood as personified in _Lady Anne_, who, standing by her coffined, +murdered dead, eagerly drinks in the flattery offered by the murderer's +self. It is a courtship all dagger-pierced and reeking with innocent +blood--monstrous and revolting! One would like to know who the woman was +whose incredible vanity and levity so worked upon the master's mind that +he produced this tragic caricature. Who was the woman who inspired great +Shakespeare's one unnatural scene? Come, antiquaries, _cherchez la +femme_! + +I suffered most when I had to play some lady of quality, for what, in +heaven's name, had I to dress a lady in? Five dollars a week to live on, +to dress myself on, and to provide stage wardrobe! Many a bitter tear I +shed. And then there was the surprise of the stars, when after playing an +important part one night, they suddenly recognized me the next standing +in the crowd of peasants or seated at _Macbeth's_ disheartening banquet. + +Their comments used to be very caustic sometimes, and they almost, +without exception, advised me to rebel, to go and demand freedom from the +ballet, or at least salary enough to dress the parts given me to play. +But those long years of childish thraldom had left their mark--I could +not assert myself, an overwhelming shame came upon me, even at the +thought of asking to be advanced. So I went on playing boys and second +old women, singing songs when forced to it, going on for poor leading +parts even, for the leading lady being the manager's wife rarely played +parts with women stars, and then between times dropping back into the +ballet and standing about in crowds or taking part in a village dance. + +It was a queer position and no mistake. Many stars had grown to know me, +and often on Monday morning he or she would come over to our group and +shake hands kindly, to my great pleasure. One morning, while we were +rehearsing "Lady Audley's Secret," Mrs. Bowers, whom I greatly admired, +came over to me, and remarked: "You hard-hearted little wretch! I've been +watching you; you are treating that boy shamefully! Don't you know +Murdoch is a gentleman?" + +I was surprised, and rather quickly answered: "Well, have I treated him +as if he were not a gentleman?" + +She was called just then, but when the act was over she came to me again, +and taking my hand in her right, she began beating it up and down upon +her left: "You are not vexed, are you?" she asked. "Don't be; I only +wonder how you can do it, and you are so young! Why," she sighed, from +her very soul it seemed to me, "Why," she went on, "ever since I was +fourteen years old I have been loving some man who has not loved me!" +Tears rose thickly into her eyes. "I am always laying my heart down for +some man to trample on!" She glanced toward Mr. McCollom (he who was six +feet tall and handsome), a little smile trembled on her lips. I caught +her fingers on a swift impulse and squeezed them, she squeezed back +answeringly; we understood each other, she was casting her heart down +again, unasked. Her eyes came back to me. "Yours is the best way, but I'm +too old to learn now, I shall have to go on seeking--always seeking!" + +"And finding, surely finding!" I answered, honestly, for I could not +imagine anyone resisting her. + +"Do you think so?" she said, eagerly; then, rather sadly, she added: +"Still it would be nice to be sought once, instead of always seeking." + +Poor woman! Charming actress as she was, she did not exaggerate in +declaring she was always casting her heart before someone. She married +Mr. McCollom, and lived with him in adoring affection till death took +him. + +The last time I saw her she was my guest here at "The Pines," and as I +fastened a great hibiscus flower above her ear, in Spanish fashion, she +remarked: + +"How little you have changed in all these years! I'll wager your heart is +without a scar, while if you could only see mine," she laughed, "it's +like an old bit of tinware--so battered, and bent, and dented!" + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH + + Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my Reputation--I Own a Baby + on Shares--Miss Western's Pathetic Speech. + + +I had at that time a friend--a rare possession that. "The ideal of +friendship," says Madame Switchine, "is to feel as one while remaining +two," which is a precise description of the condition of mind and feeling +of Mrs. Mollie Ogden and myself. She did not act, but her husband did, +and I saw her every night, nearly every morning, and when work permitted +we visited one another in the afternoons. There was but one kind of cake +on the market that I liked, and that cake, with coffee, was always +offered for my refreshment when I was her guest. When she was mine the +festal board was furnished forth with green tea, of which she was +inordinately fond, and oysters stewed in their own can and served in two +mugs; the one announcing, in ostentatious gold letters, that I was "a +good girl," was naturally at the service of my guest, while the plain +stone-china affair, from the toilet-table, answered my purposes. With +what happy eagerness we prepared for those absurd banquets, which we +heartily enjoyed, since we were boarders, and always hungry--and how we +talked! Of what? Why, good heaven! did I not hold a membership in the +library, and were we not both lightning-quick readers? Why, we had the +whole library to talk over; besides, there was the country to save! and +as Mollie didn't really know one party from the other, she felt herself +particularly fitted for the task of settling public questions. + +Then, suddenly, she began to expect another visitor--a _wee_ visitor, +whom we hoped would remain permanently, and, goodness mercy! I nearly +lost my reputation through the chambermaid finding in my work-basket some +half-embroidered, tiny, tiny jackets. Whereupon she announced to the +servants, in full assembly, that I had too soft a tongue, and was deeper +than the sea, but _she_ had her eyes open, and, judging from what she +found in my work-basket, I was either going to buy a monkey for a pet, or +I had thrown away my character completely. + +Mrs. Ogden was with me when the landlady, stony-eyed and rattling with +starch and rectitude, came to inquire into the contents of my +work-basket. Her call was brief, but satisfactory, and shortly after her +exit we heard her, at the top of her lungs, giving me a clean bill of +health--morally speaking--and denouncing the prying curiosity of the +maids. But we had had a scare, and Mollie implored me either not to help +her any more or to lock up my work-basket. + +"Oh, no," I said, "I'll rest my head upon the chambermaid's breast and +confide all my intentions to her, then surely my character will be safe." + +However, when the _wee_ stranger arrived, she might well have wondered +whom she belonged to. At all events she "goo-gooed and gurgled," and +smiled her funny three-cornered smile at me as readily as at her mother, +and my friendly rights in her were so far recognized by others that +questions about her were often put to me in her mother's very presence, +who laughingly declared that only in bed with the light out did she feel +absolutely sure that the baby was hers. + +Mollie used to say the only really foolish thing she ever caught me in +was "Protestantism." It was a great grief to us all that I could not be +godmother, but though baby had a Protestant father, the Church flatly +refused to wink at a godmother of that forsaken race. + +When, in God's good time, a tiny sister came to baby, she was called +Clara, but my friend had made a solemn vow before the altar, at the ripe +age of seven years, to name her first child Genevieve, and she, to quote +her husband, "being a Roman Catholic as well as a little idiot," +faithfully kept her vow, and our partnership's baby was loaded up with a +name that each year proved more unsuitable, for a more un-Genevieve-like +Genevieve never lived. All of which goes to prove how unwise it is to +assume family cares and duties before the arrival of the family. + +Miss Lucille Western was playing an engagement in Cleveland when "our +baby" was a few months old. My friend and I were both her ardent +admirers. I don't know why it has arisen, this fashion to sneer more or +less openly at Miss Western's work. If a woman who charms the eye can +also thrill you, repel you, touch you to tears, provoke you to laughter +by her acting, she surely merits the term "great actress." Well, now, who +can deny that she did all these things? Why else did the people pack her +houses season after season? It was not her looks, for if the perfect and +unblemished beauty of her lovely sister Helen could not draw a big house, +what could you expect from the inspired irregularity of Lucille's face? +How alive she was! She was not quite tall enough for the amount of fine +firm flesh her frame then carried--but she laced, and she was grace +personified. + +She was a born actress; she knew nothing else in all the world. There is +a certain tang of wildness in all things natural. Dear gods! Think what +the wild strawberry loses in cultivation! Half the fascination of the +adorable Jacqueminot rose comes from the wild scent of thorn and earth +plainly underlying the rose _attar_ above. And this actress, with all her +lack of polish, knew how to interpret a woman's heart, even if she missed +her best manner. For in all she did there was just a touch of +extravagance--a hint of lawless, unrestrained passion. There was +something tropical about her, she always suggested the scarlet tanager, +the jeweled dragon-fly, the pomegranate flower, or the scentless splendor +of our wild marshmallow. + +In "Lucretia Borgia" she presented the most perfect picture of opulent, +insolent beauty that I ever saw, while her "Leah, the Forsaken" was +absolutely Hebraic; and in the first scene, where she was pursued and +brought to bay by the Christian mob, her attitude, as she silently eyed +her foes, her face filled both with wild terror and fierce contempt, was +a thing to thrill any audience, and always received hearty applause. + +So far as looks went, she was seen to least advantage in her greatest +money-maker, "East Lynne." Oh, dear! oh, dear! the tears that were shed +over that dreadful play, and how many I contributed myself! I would stand +looking on from the entrance, after my short part was over, and when she +cried out: "Oh, why don't I die! My God! why _don't_ I die?" I would lay +my head against the nearest scene and simply howl like a broken-hearted +young puppy. I couldn't help it, neither could those in front help +weeping--more decorously perhaps, because they were older and had their +good clothes on. + +Now this brilliant and successful actress was not very happy--few are, +for one reason or another--but she worked much harder than most women, +and naturally liked to have some return for her work; therefore she must +have found it depressing, at least, when her husband formed the habit of +counting up the house by eye (he could come to within $5 of the money +contents of the house any night in this way), and then going out and +losing the full amount of her share in gambling. It was cruel, and it was +but one of the degradations put upon her. Lucille did not know how to +bear her troubles. She wept and used herself up. Then, to get through her +heavy night's work, she took a stimulant. Oh, poor soul! poor soul! +though the audience knew nothing, the people about her knew she was not +her best self; and she knew they knew it, and was made sore ashamed and +miserable. Her husband, on one occasion, had gambled away every cent of +three nights' work. On the fourth she had had resource to a stimulant, +and on the fifth she was cast down, silent, miserable, and humiliated. + +That night "our baby" came to the theatre. She was one of those +aggressively sociable infants, who will reach out and grasp a strange +whisker rather than remain unnoticed. She had pretty little, straight +features and small, bright eyes that were fairly purply blue. I had +her--of course in so public a place it was my right to have her--she was +over my shoulder. I was standing near the star-room. The door opened and +next moment I heard a long, low, "O-o-h!" and then again, "O-o-h! +a--baby, and awake! and the peace of heaven yet in its eyes!" + +I turned my head to look at Miss Western, and her face quickened my +heart. Her glowing eyes were fastened upon "baby," with just the rapt, +uplifted look one sees at times before some Roman Catholic altar. It was +beautiful! She gave a little start and exclaimed, as at a wonder: "Its +hand! oh, its tiny, tiny hand!" Just with the very tip of her forefinger +she touched it, and "baby" promptly grasped the finger and gurgled +cordially. Her face flushed red, she gave a gasp: "Good God!" she cried, +"it's touching me, me! It _is_, see--_see_!" Sudden tears slipped down +her cheeks. "Blessed God!" she cried, "if you had but sent me such a one, +all would have been different! I could never bring disgrace or shame on a +precious thing like this!" + +As she raised the tiny morsel of a hand to her lips the prompter sharply +called: "The stage waits, Miss Western!" and she was gone. + +Poor, ill-guided, unhappy woman! it was always and only the stage that +waited Miss Western. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH + + Mr. Charles W. Couldock--His Daughter Eliza and his Many Peculiarities. + + +There was one star who came to us every season with the regularity and +certainty of the equinoctial storm, and when they arrived together, as +they frequently did, we all felt the conjunction to be peculiarly +appropriate. He was neither young nor good-looking, yet no one could +truthfully assert that his engagements were lacking in interest--indeed, +some actors found him lively in the extreme. Charles W. Couldock was an +Englishman by birth, and had come to this country with the great Cushman. +He was a man of unquestionable integrity--honorable, truthful, +warm-hearted; but being of a naturally quick and irritable temper, +instead of trying to control it, he yielded himself up to every impulse +of vexation or annoyance, while with ever-growing violence he made +mountains out of mole-hills, and when he had just cause for anger he +burst into paroxysms of rage, even of ferocity, that, had they not been +half unconscious acting, must have landed him in a mad-house out of +consideration for the safety of others; while, worst of all, like too +many of his great nation, he was profane almost beyond belief; and +profanity, always painfully repellent and shocking, is doubly so when it +comes from the lips of one whose silvering hair shows his days have +already been long in the land of the God whom he is defying. And yet when +Mr. Couldock ceased to use plain, every-day oaths, and brought forth some +home-made ones, they were oaths of such intricate construction, such +grotesque termination, that they wrung a startled laugh from the most +unwilling lip. + +In personal appearance he was the beau-ideal wealthy farmer. He was +squarely, solidly built, of medium height--never fat. His square, +deeply-lined, even-furrowed face was clean shaven. His head, a little +bald on top, had a thin covering of curly gray hair, which he wore a +trifle long; while his suit of black cloth--always a size or two too +large for him--and his never-changing big hat of black felt were excuse +enough for any man's asking him about the state of the crops--which they +often did, and were generally urgently invited to go to the hottest Hades +for their pains. + +On his brow there was a deep and permanent scowl that seemed cut there to +the very bone. Two deep, heavy lines ran from the sides of his nose to +the corners of his lips, where they suddenly became deeper before +continuing down toward his chin, while a strong cast in one of his +steely-blue eyes gave a touch of malevolence to the severity of his face. + +The strong point of his acting was in the expression of intense +emotion--particularly grief or frenzied rage. He was utterly lacking in +dignity, courtliness, or subtlety. He was best as a rustic, and he was +the only creature I ever saw who could "snuffle" without being absurd or +offensive. + +Generally, if anything went wrong, Mr. Couldock's rage broke forth on the +instant, but he had been known to keep a rod in pickle for a day or more, +as in the case of a friend of mine--at least it was the husband of my +friend Mollie. He had played _Salanio_ in "The Merchant of Venice," and +in some way had offended the star, who cursed him _sotto voce_ at the +moment of the offence, and then seemed to forget all about the matter. +Next morning, at rehearsal, nothing was said till its close, when Mr. +Couldock quite quietly asked my friend to look in at his dressing-room +that evening before the play began. + +Poor John was uneasy all the afternoon, still he drew some comfort from +the calmness of Mr. Couldock's manner. Evening came, John was before the +bar. The star seemed particularly gentle--he removed his coat leisurely +and said: + +"You played _Salanio_ last night?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And your name is--er?" + +"Ogden, sir," replied John. + +"Ah, yes, Ogden. Well, how long have you been at it, Ogden?" + +"About three years," answered the now confident and composed prisoner at +the bar. + +"Three years? huh! Well, will you let me give you a bit of advice, +Ogden?" + +"Why, yes, sir, I shall be glad to listen to any advice from you," +earnestly protested the infatuated one. + +"Well," snapped the star, rather sharply, "I want you to _follow it_ as +well as to listen to it. Now you take some money--you _have_ some money +saved, I suppose?" + +"Oh, yes, sir!" answered John. + +"Well, then," he turned his queer eye on him, he took a long, full +breath, "well, then, you just get some of that money, and you go to a +hardware store," his rage was rising visibly, "and you buy a good sharp +hatchet, and then I want you to take it home and chop your d----d fool +head off!" and ripping off his vest he made a furious charge upon the +almost paralyzed Ogden, clouting him from the room, while roaring like a +bull. + +He had played one set of plays so long he had lost the power to study +quickly, and he was so ill-advised once as to attempt a new part, on +rather short notice. The play was a miserable jumble of impossible +situations and strained, high-flown language; and, of all absurd things, +Mr. Couldock attempted to play a young Irish hero, with a love-scene--in +fact he was supposed to represent the young Emmet. Dear heaven! what a +sight he was, in those buckskin riding breeches (his legs were not beyond +suspicion as to their straightness), that cutaway green coat, and the +dinky little conical hat, looking so maliciously "larky," perched over +his fiercest eye. He forgot all his lines, but he never forgot his +profanity, and that night it took on a wild originality that was simply +convulsing. In one scene he had to promise to save his beloved Ireland. +He quite forgot the speech, and being reminded of it by the prompter, he +roared at the top of his voice: "I don't care! what the devil's Ireland +to me! d----n Ireland! I wish it and the man that wrote this play were +both at the bottom of the sea, with cock-eyed sharks eatin' 'em!" Then he +suddenly pulled out his part and began to search wildly for his next +scene, that he might try to recall his lines; at this he continued till +he was called to go upon the stage, then he made a rush, and in a moment +the house was laughing. + +"Oh, dear! what was it?" Everyone ran to peep on the stage. Mr. Couldock +had discovered they were laughing at him, and was becoming recklessly +furious. Mr. Ellsler, fearing he would insult the people, hastily rang +down the curtain. Then Mr. Couldock, as _Emmet_, faced round to us, and +the laughter was explained. When he was reading over his part he had put +on a big pair of spectacles, and when he hurried on he simply pushed them +up and left them there. A young lover with big, old-fashioned spectacles +on his forehead and a perky little conical hat looking down on them was +certainly an unusual sight and an amusing one. + +One of Mr. Couldock's most marked characteristics was the amazingly high +pitch of his voice in speaking. Anyone who has heard two men trying to +converse across a large open field has had a good illustration of his +style of intonation, which anger raised to a perfect shriek. The most +shocking exhibition of rage I ever saw came from him during a performance +of "Louis XI." Annie and I, as pages, were standing each side of the +throne, holding large red cushions against our stomachs. My cushion +supported a big gilded key, until, in my fright, I actually shook it off, +for when Mr. Couldock's passion came upon him on the stage his violence +created sad havoc in the memories of the actors. The audience, too, +could hear many of his jibes and oaths, and Mr. Ellsler was very angry +about it, for in spite of his affection for the man, he drew the line at +the insulting of the audience; therefore, when the curtain fell, Mr. +Ellsler said: "Charley, this won't do! you _must_ control yourself in the +presence of the public!" + +The interference seemed to drive him mad. A volley of oaths, +inconceivably blasphemous, came from his lips, and then, with a bound, he +seized the manuscript (it was not a published play then, and the +manuscript was valuable) and tore it right down the centre. Mr. Ellsler +and the prompter caught his right hand, trying to save the play, but +while they held that he lifted the rest of the manuscript and tore it to +pieces with his teeth, growling and snarling like a savage animal. Then +he broke away and rushed frantically up-stairs to Mr. Ellsler's +dressing-room, where he locked himself in. When it was time to call the +next act he gave no answer to their knocking, though he could be heard +swearing and raving within. Mr. Ellsler finally burst open the door, and +there stood _Louis XI._ in his under-garments, and his clothing--where? +It was a tiny room, nevertheless no velvet costume could be found. The +window, a long French one, was nailed up for winter--the clothes had not +been thrown out. There was no stove yet, they had not been burned; where +then were they? Another overture was played. Some of Mr. Ellsler's +clothes were hastily brought--a nondescript covering for his royal +nakedness was found, and he went on to finish the performance somehow, +while the prompter guessed at the ringing down of the curtain, for there +was no manuscript to guide him. + +Truly it had been a most humiliating spectacle. Many weeks later, when +stoves were going up, the men discovered that someone had torn away the +tin protector from the stove-pipe hole in Mr. Ellsler's room, and when +they were replacing it they found, crammed tightly into a narrow space +between the lath and plastering of the two rooms, the velvet garments of +_Louis XI._, even to the cap with the leaden images. How he had +discovered the place no one knows, and when his rage had passed he could +not remember what he had done, but he could play _Louis_ no more that +season. + +We were always pleased when Mr. Couldock was accompanied by his daughter. +Eliza Couldock, bearing an absurdly marked resemblance to her father, of +course could not be pretty. The thin, curly hair, the fixed frown, the +deep lines of nose and mouth, the square, flat figure, all made of her a +slightly softened _replica_ of the old gentleman. Her teeth were pretty, +though, and her hazel eyes were very brilliant. She was well read, +clever, and witty, and her affectionate devotion to her father knew no +bounds; yet as she had a keen sense of the ridiculous, no eccentricity, +no _grotesquerie_ of his escaped her laughing, hawk-keen eye, and +sometimes when talking to old friends, like Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler, she +would tell tales of "poor pa" that were exceedingly funny. + +They went to California--a great undertaking then, as the Pacific +Railroad was not completed, and they were most unsuccessful during their +entire stay here. Eliza told one day of how a certain school-principal in +'Frisco had met her father after a performance to a miserable house, and +with frightful bad taste had asked Mr. Couldock how he accounted for the +failure of his engagement, and that gentleman snarled out: "I don't try +to account for it at all! I leave that work for the people who ask fool +questions. If I only have one d----n cent in my pocket I don't try to +account for not having another d----n cent to rub against it!" And Eliza +added, in pained tones: "that principal had meant to ask 'poor pa' to +come and speak to the dear little boys in his school, but after that he +didn't--wasn't it odd?" + +As Mr. Couldock was heard approaching that morning, his daughter quickly +whispered to Mrs. Ellsler: "Ask pa how he liked California?" + +And after "good-mornings" were exchanged, the question was put, and +incidentally the red rag brought the mad bull into action. + +"I wouldn't give a d----n for the whole d----d State!" roared Mr. +Couldock, while his daughter pushed his hair behind his ears, and mildly +said: "Pa's always so emphatic about California." + +"Yes!" shouted the old man, "and so would you be if you wore breeches +and dared to speak the truth! You see," he went on, "no one ever gave me +even a hint, and it was just my cursed luck to go overland, risking my +own d----n skin and Eliza's too, and it seems that those God-forsaken +duffers look upon anyone coming to them by the overland route as a sort +of outcast tramp. In fact, that's entering by the back-kitchen door to +San Francisco. You ought to go by sea, and come in at the front door of +their blasted, stuck-up little city if you're to put any of their money +in your purse or be allowed to keep any of your own." + +One morning we girls were boasting among ourselves of our abilities as +packers. Hattie, my room-mate, thought she could pack a trunk the +quickest, while I claimed I could pack one with the least injury to the +contents. Miss Couldock, hearing us, exclaimed, laughingly: "Oh, girls, +poor pa could give you all points at that work, while his manner of +_un_packing is so original, so swift, and so thorough, I think I should +explain it to you. First, I must tell you, that that slight bow to pa's +legs is an annoyance to him on every occasion of life, save that of +unpacking his trunks, then it is of great convenience. You see, the +trunks are brought up and dumped in the room. They don't have any locks, +because 'poor pa,' always losing the keys, has to kick the locks off +during the first week that he owns them. Next they are unstrapped and +opened, then pa yanks off the top spread from the bed and lays it open on +the middle of the floor; then he takes his place before the first trunk, +straddles his feet well apart (see, now, how useful that bow becomes), +and fires every single garment the trunk contains between his legs and +on to the quilt. Having emptied the trunks with lightning swiftness, he +claps down their covers for the rest of the week. Whenever he wants +anything for the theatre, he straddles the pile on the quilt, and paws it +wildly, but rapidly over, pulling out a shoulder-cape here, a doublet +yonder, one boot from the top and its mate from the bottom--all these he +pitches into the theatre-basket, and is happy for _that_ day. When the +week is over, pa dumps into the nearest trunk all it will hold, and +what's left over is pitched _en masse_ into the next one. If there is any +difficulty in closing the trunks he don't waste time in trying to +re-arrange the things. There is such beautiful simplicity in all pa's +actions, he just gets up and walks--well, perhaps stamps a little on the +contents, until the lid closes quite nicely, for he is a very quick +packer, is pa, though it's just possible that his method in some degree +may explain his generally rumpled appearance on the stage. What should +_you_ think about it, girls?" + +The old gentleman was always very kind to me and had the oddest pet name +for me I ever heard. He used to hail me with: "Where's my crummie girl? +Well, Crummy, how are you?" + +In answer to my amazed look, he explained one day that it was a Yorkshire +term, and meant "plump or round faced." The only time he ever cursed me +was when he gave me the cue in the wrong place, as he openly admitted, +and I went on too soon in consequence. Aside, he swore so the air seemed +blue--my legs shook under me. I did not know whether to speak or not. He +rose, and putting his arm about me, he led me off the stage (I was +playing his daughter), and as we crossed the stage, this is what he +said--the words in parentheses being asides to me, the other words being +aloud for the audience: + +"(What in h--ll!) My little one! (you double d----n fool!) My bird, what +brings you here? (Yes, what the blankety, blankety, blanknation does +bring you here, crummie girl?) Get back to your nest, dearie! (and stay +there, d----n you!)" as he gently pushed me off the stage. Next day when +the prompter showed him his error he admitted it at once. + +He knew much sorrow and trouble, and before that last long streak of good +fortune came to him, in New York, in "Hazel Kirke," he knew a time of +bitter poverty. Eliza had died--a sweet and noble woman--and the loss was +terrible to him. I was just winning success in the East when I was +dumfounded one day at seeing Mr. Couldock standing, bowed and broken, +before me, asking me for help. + +A star--dear God! could such things happen to a star? I was so hurt for +him, for his broken pride. When I could speak, I simply told him my +salary, and that two (my mother and myself) were trying to live on it. +"Oh!" he cried, "crummie girl, why don't you demand your rights; your +name is on everyone's lips, yet you are hungry! Shall I speak for you?" + +Poor old gentleman, I could not let him go empty away. I took one-half of +my rent-money and handed it to him. I dared not ask my landlady to favor +me further than that. His face lighted up radiantly--it might have been +hundreds from his look. "Dearie!" he said, "I'll pay this back to the +penny. You can ill spare it, I see that, crummie girl, but, oh, my lass, +it's worse to see another hungry than it is to hunger yourself. I'll pay +it back!" His eyes filled, he paused long, then he said, pathetically: +"Some time, crummie girl, some time!" + +My landlady granted me grace. Months passed away--many of them--waves +went over me sometimes, but they receded before my breath was quite gone. +Things were bettering a little, and then one day, when I came home from +work, a man had called in my absence--an old man, who had left this +little packet, and, oh! he had been so anxious for its safety! + +I opened it to find $25, all in bills of ones and twos. Such a pathetic +story those small bills told--they were for the crummie girl, "With the +thanks of the obliged, Charles W. Couldock." + +He had kept his word; he was the only man in this profession who ever +repaid me one dollar of borrowed money. Mr. Couldock was like some +late-ripening fruit that requires a touch of frost for its sweetening. In +his old age he mellowed, he became chaste of speech, his acting of +strong, lovable old men was admirable. He was honored by his profession +in life and honestly mourned in death--he would not have asked more. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEENTH + + I Come to a Turning-Point in my Dramatic Life--I play my First Crying + Part with Miss Sallie St. Clair. + + +We were in Columbus; things were moving along smoothly and quietly, when +suddenly that incident occurred which had the power to change completely +my dramatic prospects, while at the same time it convinced the people +about me, in theatrical parlance, my head was "well screwed on," meaning +it was not to be turned by praise. + +Miss Sallie St. Clair was the star of the week, and she was billed to +appear on Friday and Saturday nights in an adaptation of "La Maison +Rouge." I am not certain as to the title she gave it, but I think it was +"The Lone House on the Bridge." She was to play the dual characters--a +count and a gypsy boy. The leading female part Mrs. Ellsler declined, +because she would not play second to a woman. The young lady who had been +engaged for the juvenile business (which comes between leading parts and +walking ladies) had a very poor study, and tearfully declared she simply +_could_ not study the part in time--"No--no! she co--co--could not, so +now!" + +There, then, was Blanche's chance. The part was sentimental, tearful, and +declamatory at the last, a good part--indeed, what is vulgarly known +to-day as a "fat" part, "fat" meaning lines sure to provoke applause. + +Mrs. Bradshaw, who was herself ever ready to oblige her manager, could +not serve him in this instance, as the part was that of a very young +heroine, but she gladly offered her daughter's services in the emergency. +So sending for her to come to the theatre, the mother awaited her +arrival. She was very ambitious for Blanche, who had absolutely no +ambition for herself, outside of music, and here was the double +opportunity of playing a leading part, next to the star, and of obliging +the manager just at the time when contracts for the next season were in +order of consideration. No girl could help grasping at it eagerly, and +while Blanche studied the part, she, the mother, would baste up some +breadths of satin she had by her into a court dress. As she thus happily +planned it all Blanche sauntered in to inform her mother and her manager +that she would not do the part. _Would_ not, mind you; she did not +condescend to claim she _could_ not. Poor Mrs. Bradshaw drew her heavy +veil over her face with a shaking hand and moved silently away, only +waiting to reach the friendly privacy of her own room before yielding to +the tears caused by this cruel indifference to her wishes and to their +mutual welfare. + +Mr. Ellsler then tried, in vain, to induce Blanche to undertake the part. +He tried to bribe her, promising certain gifts. He tried to arouse her +pride--he absolutely commanded her to take the part. + +"Oh, very well, if you like," she answered, "but I'll spoil the play if I +do, you know!" And indeed he did "know" what she was capable of in the +line of mischief; and, knowing, gave her up in angry despair. There was +then but one chance left for the production of the play, to give the part +to one of the ballet-girls. + +And Mr. Ellsler, who felt a strong friendship for the brave, +hard-working, much-enduring Miss St. Clair and her devoted if eccentric +husband, said, gently: "I'm sorry, Sallie, but it's no fault of mine; you +know I can't give memories to these two women, who say they can't study +the part. The girl I want to offer it to now will speak the words +perfectly to the last letter, and that's all we can expect of her, but +that's better than changing the bill." + +Then I was called. I adored Miss St. Clair, as everyone else did. I +heard, I saw the long part, but instead of the instant smiling assent Mr. +Ellsler expected, I shook my head silently. Miss St. Clair groaned, Mr. +Barras snuffled loudly, and stammered: "W--what did you expect, if the +others can't study it, how can she?" + +"Oh," I answered, "I can study the lines, Mr. Barras, but," big tears +came into my eyes, I was so sorry to disappoint the lovely blond star, +"it's--it's a crying part--a great lady and a crying part! I--I--oh, if +you please, I can't cry. I can laugh and dance and sing and scold, but I +don't know how to cry; and look here," I caught up the part and fluttered +over the leaves and pointed to the oft-repeated word "weeps--weeps," +"and, Miss St. Clair," I excitedly finished, "I can't weep, and I won't +have a stitch of clothes for her back either!" + +All three hearers burst out laughing. Miss St. Clair was in radiant +good-humor in an instant. She dried my eyes, and said: "Child, if you +really can study that long part, and just walk through it after only one +rehearsal, you will be a very clever little girl. You need not try to +act, just give me the lines and hold a handkerchief to your eyes when +tears are called for. You shall have one of my prettiest dresses for the +court scene, and I guess you have a white muslin of your own for the +garden scene, have not you?" + +I had, yes, and so I went home, heavy-hearted, to undertake the study of +my first crying part. + +Good heavens! In spite of this memory, I catch myself wondering was there +ever a _first one_--did I ever do anything else. For it seems to me I +have cried steadily through all the years of my dramatic life. Tears +gentle, regretful; tears petulant, fretful; tears stormy, passionate; +tears slow, despairing; with a light patter, now and then, of my own +particular brand, kept for the expression of my own personal +troubles--very bitter, briny tears they are, and I find that a very few +answer my purpose nicely. + +Miss St. Clair, who was tall as well as fair, had measured the length of +my skirt in front, so that she might have one of her dresses shortened +for me during the afternoon, thus leaving me all the time possible for +study. After I had learned the words by heart, I began to study out the +character. It was an excellent acting part, very sweet and tenderly +pathetic in the first act, very passionate and fierce in the second, and +the better I understood the requirements of the part, the greater became +my terror of it. My room-mate tried to comfort me. "Think," she cried, +"of wearing one of Miss St. Clair's own dresses! I'll wager it will be an +awful nice one, too, since you are obliging her, and she is always kind, +anyway." + +But that leaden weight at my heart was too great for gratified vanity to +lift. "Bother the tears," she added; "I heard Mr. Barras say the tears of +all actresses were in their handkerchiefs." + +"Oh, yes, I heard him, too," I answered, "but he was just talking for +effect. There must be something else, something more. You can't move +anyone's heart by showing a handkerchief." + +"Well," she exclaimed, a bit impatiently, "what do you _want_ to do? You +don't expect to shed real tears, do you?" + +"N-n-no!" I hesitated, "not exactly that, but there's a tone--a--Hattie, +last Wednesday, when you quarrelled with young Fleming--I was not +present, you know--but that night, a half-hour after our light was out, +you spoke to me in the darkness, and I instantly asked you why you were +crying and if you had been quarrelling, though you had not even reached +the sobbing stage yet. Now how did I know you were crying?" + +"I don't know--anyway I had no handkerchief," she laughed; "you heard it +maybe in my voice." + +"Yes," I answered, eagerly, "that was it. That curious veiling of the +voice. Oh, Hattie, if I could only get that tone, but I can't, I've tried +and tried!" + +"Why," she exclaimed, "you've got it now--this very moment!" + +"Yes," I broke in impatiently, and turning to her a pair of reproachful, +tear-filled eyes, "yes, but why? because I'm really crying, with the +worry and the disappointment, and, oh, Hattie, the fright!" + +And the landlady, a person who always lost one shoe when coming +up-stairs, announced dinner, and I shuddered and turned my face away. +Hattie went down, however, and bringing all her blandishments to bear +upon the head of the establishment, secured for me a cup of coffee--that +being my staff in all times of trouble or of need, and then we were off +to the theatre, Hattie kindly keeping at my side for companionship or +help, as need might be. + +I did not appear in the first act, so I had plenty of time to receive my +borrowed finery--to try it on, and then to dress in my own white muslin, +ready for my first attempt at a crying part. It was a moonlit scene. Miss +St. Clair, tall, slender, elegant, looked the young French gallant to the +life in her black velvet court dress. I had to enter down some steps from +a great stone doorway. I stood, ready to go on. I wore a mantilla with my +muslin. I held a closed fan in my hand. My heart seemed to suffocate +me--I thought, stupidly, "Why don't I pray?" but I could not think of a +single word. I heard the faint music that preceded my entrance--a mad +panic seized me. I turned and dashed toward the street-door. Mr. Ellsler, +who had just made his exit, caught me by the skirts. "Are you mad, girl?" +he cried; "go back--quick--quick! I tell you--there's your cue!" + +Next moment, tremulous but smiling, I was descending the steps to meet +the counterfeit lover awaiting me. My head was on his breast and my arm +stealing slowly about his neck before I knew that the closed fan in my +hand was crushed into fragments and marks of blood showing between my +clinched fingers. My first lines were simply recited, without meaning, +then the tender words and courtly manners aroused my imagination. The +glamour of the stage was upon me. The frightened actress ceased to +exist--I was the Spanish girl whose long-mourned lover had returned to +her; and there was something lacking in the greeting, some tone of the +voice, some glance of the eye seemed strange, alien. There was more of +ardor, less of tenderness than before. My lips trembled; suddenly I heard +the veiled, pathetic tone I had all day striven for in vain, and +curiously enough it never struck me that it was my voice--no! it was the +Spanish girl who spoke. My heart leaped up in my throat with a great +pity, tears rushed to my eyes, fell upon my cheeks. There was +applause--of course, was not Miss St. Clair there? Suspicion arose in my +mind--grew. I bethought me of the saving of my life on that stolen day +passed in the forest long ago. I took my lover's hand and with pretty +wiles drew him into the moonlight. Then swiftly stripping up the lace +ruffles, showed his arm smooth and unblemished by any scar, and with the +cry: "You are not Pascal de la Garde!" stood horror-stricken. + +The moment the curtain fell Miss St. Clair sprang to me, and taking my +face between her hands, she cried: "You would move a heart of stone!" She +wiped her eyes, and turning to her husband, said: "Good God! she's a +marvel!" + +"No, no!" he snuffled, "not yet, Sallie; but she's a marvel in embryo!" +He patted me on the shoulder. "You have a fortune somewhere between your +throat and your eyes, my girl--you have, indeed!" + +And then I rushed to don my borrowed robes for the next act, and stared +stupidly when Hattie said: "What lovely applause you got, Clara, and you +so frightened; you shook all over when you went on, we could see you." + +But I was too excited over what was yet to be done really to comprehend +her words. When I saw myself in the glass I was delighted. The open robe +of pale blue satin, brocaded with silver, was lifted at the sides with +big bunches of blush and deep-pink roses over a white satin petticoat. I +wore a high Spanish comb, a white mantilla, a pink rose over the ear, +after the national fashion, and a great cluster of roses at my breast, +and for the first time I felt the subtle joy that emanates from beautiful +and becoming garments. The fine softness of the rich fabric was pleasant +to my touch--its silken rustle was music to my ear. Miss St. Clair had +lent me of her best, and as I saw it all reflected there, I thought how +easy it must be for the rich to be good and happy, never dreaming that +the wealthy, who to escape _ennui_ and absolute idleness sometimes did +wrong simply because there was nothing else to do, might think in turn, +ah! how easy it must be for the poor to be good and happy. + +But the overture ended abruptly. I gathered up my precious draperies and +ran to the entrance to be ready for my cue. The first speeches were cold, +haughty, and satirical. The gypsy who was personating my dead lover had +deceived everyone else, even the half-blind old mother had accepted him +as her son, though declaring him greatly changed in temper and in manner. +But I, the sweetheart, was not convinced, and ignoring the advice of the +highest at the court, was fighting the adventurer with the courage of +despair. + +As the scene went on, the stage hands (carpenters, gas-men, +scene-shifters, etc.) began to gather in the entrances, always a sign of +something unusual going on. I saw them--an ugly thought sprang up in my +mind. Ah, yes, they are there waiting to see the ballet-girl fail in a +leading part! An unworthy suspicion, I am sure, but it acted as a spur +would have done upon an already excited horse, and with the same result, +loss of self-control. + +In the denunciation of the adventurer as a murderer and a personator of +his own victim my passion rose to a perfect fury. I swept the stage, +storming, raging, fearing nothing under heaven but the possible escape of +the wretch I hated! Vaguely I noted the manager reaching far over a +balcony to see me--I didn't care even for the manager. The audience burst +into tremendous applause; I didn't care for that either, I only wanted +to see a rapier through the heart of the pale, sneering man before me. It +was momentary madness. People were startled--the star twice forgot her +lines. It was not correct, it was not artistic work. She, the part, was a +great lady, and even her passion should have been partially restrained; +but I, who played her, a ballet-girl, earning $5 a week, what could you +expect, pray, for the price? Certainly not polish or refinement. But the +genuine feeling, the absolute sincerity, and the crude power lavished +upon the scene delighted the audience and created a very real sensation. + +The curtain fell. Miss St. Clair took me into her kind arms and, without +a word, kissed me heartily. The applause went on and on. She caught my +hand and said, "Come!" As she led me to the curtain, I suddenly realized +her intention, and a very agony of bashfulness seized upon me. I +struggled frantically. "Oh, don't!" I begged. "Oh, please, I'm nobody, +they won't like it, Miss St. Clair." + +She motioned the men to pull back the curtain, and she dragged me out +before it with her. The applause redoubled. Shamed and stupid, I stood +there, my chin on my breast. Then I heard the laugh I so admired (Miss +St. Clair had a laugh that the word merry describes perfectly), her arm +went about my neck, while her fingers beneath my chin lifted my face till +I met her smiling glance and smiled back at her. Then the audience burst +into a great laugh, and bowing awkwardly to them and to her, I backed +off, out of sight, as quickly as I could; she, bowing like a young +prince, followed me. But again they called, and again the generous woman +took me with her. + +And that was the first time I ever experienced the honor of going before +the curtain with a star. I supposed I had received the highest possible +reward for my night's work; I forgot there were such things as newspapers +in the town, but I was reminded of their existence the next day. + +Never, never was I so astonished. Such notices as were given of the +performance, and what was particularly dwelt upon, think you? Why, the +tears. "Real tears--tears that left streaks on the girl's cheeks!" said +one paper. "Who is she--have you seen her--the wonderful Columbus +ballet-girl, who wins tears with tears, real ones, too?" asked another. + +I was ashamed. I was afraid people would make fun of me at the theatre. +At the box-office window that day many people were asking: "That girl +that made the hit last night, is she really one of the ballet, or is it +just a story, for effect?" + +Some women asked, anxiously: "Will that girl cry to-night, do you think?" + +It was very strange. One paper had a quieter article; it spoke of a rough +diamond--of an earnest, honest method of addressing speeches directly to +the character, instead of to the audience, as did many of the older +actors. It claimed a future, a fair, bright future for the girl who could +so thoroughly put herself in another's place, and declared it would watch +with interest the movements of so remarkable a ballet-girl. + +Now see how oddly we human dice are shaken about, and in what groups we +fall, again and again. Among the honorable gentlemen sitting at that time +in the Ohio Legislature was Colonel Donn Piatt, with the fever of the +Southern marshes yet in his blood as a souvenir of his services through +the war. He had gone languidly enough to the theatre that night, because +there was nothing else for him to do--unless he swapped stories of the +war in the hotel corridor with other ex-soldiers, and he was sick to +death of that, and he was so surprised by what he saw that he was moved +to write the article from which the last quotation is taken. Stopping in +the same hotel, but quite unknown to him, was a young man, hardly out of +boyhood, whose only lie, I honestly believe, was the one he told and +swore to in order to raise his age to the proper military height that +would admit him into the army. Bright, energetic, almost attaining +perpetual motion in his own person, ambitious John A. Cockerill just then +served in the double capacity of a messenger in the House and reporter on +a paper. Diphtheria, which was almost epidemic that winter, visited the +staff of the paper he was on, and in consequence he was temporarily +assigned to its dramatic work--thus he wrote another of the notices of my +first venture in the tearful drama. Every day these two men were in the +State-house--every day I walked through its grounds on my way to and from +the theater--each quite unconscious of the others. + +But old Time shakes the box and casts the dice so many, many times, +groupings must repeat themselves now and again, so it came about that +after years filled with hard work and fair dreams, another shake of the +box cast us down upon the table of Life, grouped together again--but each +man knew and served me now faithfully, loyally; each giving me a hand to +pull me up a step higher. They hated each other bitterly, vindictively, +as journalists have been known to do occasionally; and as I knew the +noble qualities of both, what better reward could I give for their +goodness to me than to clasp their hands together and make them friends? +It was not an easy task, it required _finesse_ as well as courage, but +that was the kind of task a woman loves--if she succeeds, and I +succeeded. + +They became friends, strong, earnest friends for the rest of their lives. +Death severed the bond, if it is severed; I do not know, and they may not +return to tell me--I only know that in the years that were to come, when +each man headed a famous paper, Colonel John A. Cockerill, of the New +York _World_, who wrote many a high word of praise for me when victory +had at last perched on my banner, and Colonel Piatt, who with his +brilliant wife made me known to many famous men and women in their +hospitable Washington home, loved to recall that night in Columbus when, +all unconsciously, we three came so near to each other, only to drift +apart for years and come together again. + +And once I said, "like motes," and Donn Piatt swiftly added, "and a +sunbeam," and both men lifted their glasses and, nodding laughingly at +me, cried: "To the sunbeam!" while Mrs. Piatt declared, "That's a very +pretty compliment," but to me the unanimity of thought between those +erstwhile enemies was the prettiest thing about it. + +But even so small a success as that had its attendant shadows, as I soon +found. Though I was then boarding, with Hattie McKee for my room-mate, I +felt I still owed a certain duty and respect to Mrs. Bradshaw. Therefore, +when this wonderful thing happened to me, I thought I ought to go and +tell her all about it. I went; she gave me a polite, unsmiling +good-morning and pointed to a chair. I felt chilled. Presently she +remarked, with a small, forced laugh: "You have become so great a person, +I scarcely expected to see you here to-day." + +I looked reproachfully at her, as I quietly answered: "But you see I am +here;" then added, "I did not think you would make fun of me, Mrs. +Bradshaw, I only tried to do my best." + +"Oh," she replied, "one does not make fun of very successful people." + +I turned away to hide my filling eyes, as I remarked: "Perhaps I'd better +go away now." + +I moved toward the door, wounded to the heart. I had thought she would be +so pleased--you see, I was young yet, and sometimes very stupid--I forgot +she had a daughter. But suddenly she called to me in the old, kindly +voice I was so used to: "Come back Clara," she cried, "come back! It's +mean to punish you for another's fault. My dear, I congratulate you; you +have only proved what I have long believed, that you have in you the +making of a fine actress. But when I think who had that same chance, and +that it was deliberately thrown away," her lips trembled, "I--well, it's +hard to bear. Even all this to-do about you in the part does not make +her regret what she has done." + +Poor mother! I felt so sorry for her. I wished to go away then, I thought +my presence was unpleasant, but she made me tell her all about the +evening, and describe Miss St. Clair's dress, and what everyone said and +did. Loyal soul! I think that was a self-inflicted penance for a +momentary unkindness. + +Blanche gave me her usual kind greeting, and added the words: "Say, if I +hadn't given you the chance, you couldn't have been a big gun to-day. You +know Mr. Ellsler won't dare to give you anything, but he would have given +me a nice present if I had done the part for him. So after all I've lost, +I think you might give me a new piece of chewing-gum, mine won't snap or +squeak or stretch out or do anything, it's just in its crumbly old age." + +I gave the new gum; so, now, if that success seems not quite square, if +you think I made an unfair use of my funds in obtaining promotion, do +please remember that I was only an accessory _after_ the act--not before +it. I am the more anxious this should be impressed upon your mind because +that penny was the only one I ever spent in paying for advancement +professionally. + +The second night of the "Lone House" was also the last night of Miss St. +Clair's engagement, and when I carried her blue-brocade gown back to her, +eagerly calling attention to its spotless condition, she stood with her +hand high against the wall and her head resting heavily upon her +outstretched arm. It was an attitude of such utter collapse, there was +such a wanness on her white face that the commonplace words ceased to +bubble over my lips, and, startled, I turned toward her husband. Charles +Barras, gentleman as he was by birth and breeding, and one time officer +in the American navy, was nevertheless in manner and appearance so odd +that the sight or the sound of him provoked instant smiles, but that +night his eyes were a tragedy, filled as they were with an anguish of +helpless love. + +For a sad moment he gazed at her silently--then he was counting drops +from a bottle, holding smelling-salts to her pinched nostrils, removing +her riding-boots, indeed, deftly filling the place not only of nurse, but +dressing-maid, and as the wanness gradually faded from her weary face, +bravely ignoring her own feelings, she made a little joke or two, then +gave me hearty thanks for coming to her rescue, as she called it, praised +my effort at acting, and asked me how I liked a crying part. + +"Oh, I don't like it at all," I answered. + +"Ah," she sighed, "we never like what we do best; that's why I can never +be contented in elegant light comedy, but must strain and fret after +dramatic, tragic, and pathetic parts--and to think that a young, +untrained girl should step out of obscurity and without an effort do what +I have failed in all these years!" + +I stood aghast. "Why--why, Miss St. Clair!" I exclaimed, "you have +applause and applause every night of your life!" + +"Oh," she laughed, "you foolish child, it's not the applause I'm thinking +of, but something finer, rarer. You have won tears, my dear, a thing I +have never done in all my life, and never shall, no, never, I see that +now!" + +"I wish I had not!" I answered, remorsefully and quite honestly, because +I was quite young and unselfish yet, and I loved her, and she understood +and leaned over and kissed my cheek, and told me not to bury my talent, +but to make good use of it by and by when I was older and free to choose +a line of business. "Though," she added, "even here I'll wager it's few +comedy parts that will come your way after to-night, young lady." And +then I left her. + +That same night I heard that a dread disease already abode with her, and +slept and waked and went and came with her, and would not be shaken off, +but clung ever closer and closer; and, oh! poor Charles Barras! money +might have saved her then--money right then might have saved this woman +of his love, and God only knows how desperately he struggled, but the +money came not. Then, worse still, Sallie was herself the bread-winner, +and though Mr. Barras worked hard, doing writing and translating, acting +as agent, as nurse, as maid, playing, too, in a two-act comedy, "The +Hypochondriac," he still felt the sting of living on his wife's earnings, +and she had, too, a mother and an elder sister to support; therefore she +worked on and disease worked with her. + +Charles Barras said, with bitter sarcasm in his voice: "I-I-I always see +m-my wife Sallie with a helpless woman over each shoulder, a-a-and myself +on her back, like the 'old man of the sea,' a-a-a pretty heavy burden +that for a sick woman to carry, my girl! a-a-and a mighty pleasant +picture for a man to have of his wife! A-a-and money--great God, money, +right now, might save her--might save her!" He turned suddenly from me +and walked on to the pitch-dark stage. + +Poor Mr. Barras, I could laugh no more at his heelless boots, his funny +half-stammer, and his ancient wig, not even when I recall the memory of +that blazing Sunday in a Cincinnati Episcopal church, when, the stately +liturgy over, the Reverend Doctor ascended the pulpit and, regardless of +the suffering of his sweltering hearers, droned on endlessly, and Mr. +Barras leaned forward, and drawing a large palm fan from the next pew's +rack, calmly lifted his wig off with one hand while with the other he +alternately fanned his ivory bald head and the steaming interior of his +wig. The action had an electrical effect. In a moment even the sleepers +were alert, awake, a fact which so startled the preacher that he lost +his place--hemmed--h-h-med, and ran down, found the place again, +started, saw Barras fanning his wig, though paying still most decorous +attention to the pulpit, and before they knew it they were all +scrambling to their feet at "Might, Majesty, and Power!"--were +scrabbling for their pockets at "Let your light so shine," for Mr. +Barras had shortened the service with a vengeance; hence the forgiving +glances cast upon him as he carefully replaced his wig and sauntered +forth. + +Several years after that night in Columbus, when I had reached New York +and was rehearsing for my first appearance there, I one morning heard +hasty, shuffling steps following me, and before I could enter the +stage-door, a familiar "Er-er-er Clara, Clara!" stopped me, and I turned +to face the wealthy author of the "Black Crook"--Mr. Charles Barras. +There he stood in apparently the same heelless cloth gaiters, the same +empty-looking black alpaca suit, the clumsy turned-over collar that was +an integral part of the shirt and not separate from it, the big black +satin handkerchief-tie that he had worn years ago, but the face, how +bloodless, shrunken, lined, and sorrowful it looked beneath the +adamantine youthfulness of that chestnut wig! + +"D-d-don't you know me?" he asked. + +"Yes, of course I do," I answered as I took his hand. + +"W-w-well then don't run away--er-er it's against law, r-religion, or +decency to turn your back on a rich man. D-d-dodge the poor, Clara, my +girl! but never turn your back on a man with money!" + +I was pained; probably I looked so. He went on: "I-I-I'm rich now, Clara. +I've got a fine marine villa, and in it are an old, old dog and a dying +old woman. They both belonged to my Sallie, and so I'll keep hold of 'em +as long as I can, for her sake. A-a-after they go!" he turned his head +away, he looked up at the beautiful blue indifference of the sky, his +face seemed to tremble all over, his eyes came back, and he muttered: +"W-w-we'll see--w-w-we'll see what will happen then. But, Clara, you +remember that time when money could have saved her? The money I receive +in one week now, if I could have had it then, she, Sallie, might be over +there on Broadway now buying the frills and furbelows she loved and +needed, too, and couldn't have. The little boots and slippers--you +remember Sallie's instep? Had to have her shoes to order always," he +stopped, he pressed his lips tight together for a moment, then suddenly +he burst out: "By God, when a man struggles hard all his life, it's a +damn rough reward to give him a handsome coffin for his wife!" + +Oh, poor rich man! how my heart ached for him. A tear slipped down my +cheek; he saw it. "D-d-don't!" he said, "d-don't, my girl, she can't come +back, and it hurts her to have anyone grieve. I want you to come and see +me, when you get settled here, a-a-and I wish you a great big success. My +Sallie liked you, she spoke often of you. I-I-I'll let you know how to +get out there, and I-I-I'll show you her dog--old Belle, and you can +stroke her, and er-er sit in Sallie's chair a little while perhaps--and +er--don't, my girl, don't cry, she can't come back, you know," and +shaking my hands he left me, thinking I was crying for Sallie, who was +safe at rest and had no need of tears, while instead they were for +himself--so old, so sad, so lonely, such a poor rich man! Did he know +then how near Death was to him? Some who knew him well believe unto this +day that the fatal fall from the cars was no fall, but a leap--only God +knows. + +I never paid the promised visit--could find no opportunity--and I never +saw him again, that eccentric man, devoted husband, and honest gentleman, +Charles Barras. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTIETH + + I Have to Pass through Bitter Humiliation to Win High Encomiums from + Herr Bandmann; while Edwin Booth's Kindness Fills the Theatre with Pink + Clouds, and I Float Thereon. + + +Occasionally one person united two "lines of business," as in the case of +Mrs. Bradshaw, who played "old women" and "heavy business" both, and when +anything happened to disqualify such a person for work the inconvenience +was of course very great. Mrs. Bradshaw, as I have said before, was very +stout, but her frame was delicate in the extreme, and her slender ankles +were unable to bear her great weight, and one of them broke. Of course +that meant a long lying up in dry-dock for her, and any amount of worry +for ever so many other people. Right in the middle of her imprisonment +came the engagement of the German actor, Herr Daniel Bandmann. He was to +open with "Hamlet," and, gracious Heaven! I was cast for the +_Queen-mother_. It took a good deal in the way of being asked to do +strange parts to startle me, but the _Queen-mother_ did it. I was just +nicely past sixteen, but even I dared not yet lay claim to seventeen, and +I was to go on the stage for the serious Shakespearian mother of a star. + +"Oh, I couldn't!" + +"Can't be helped--no one else," growled Mr. Ellsler. "Just study your +lines, right away, and do the best you can." + +I had been brought up to obey, and I obeyed. We had heard much of Mr. +Bandmann, of his originality, his impetuosity, and I had been very +anxious to see him. After that cast, however, I would gladly have +deferred the pleasure. The dreaded morning came. Mr. Bandmann, a very big +man, to my frightened eyes looked gigantic. He was dark-skinned, he had +crinkly, flowing hair, his eyes were of the curious red-brown color of a +ripe chestnut. He was large of voice, and large of gesture. There was a +greeting, a few introductions, and then rehearsal was on, and soon, oh! +so soon, there came the call for the _Queen_. I came forward. He glanced +down at me, half smiled, waved his arm, and said: "Not you, not the +_Player-Queen_, but _Gertrude_." + +I faintly answered: "I'm sorry, sir, but I have to play _Gertrude_." + +"Oh, no you won't!" he cried, "not with me!" He was furious, he stamped +his feet, he turned to the manager: "What's all this infernal nonsense? I +want a woman for this part! What kind of witches' broth are you serving +me, with an old woman for my _Ophelia_, and an apple-cheeked girl for my +mother! She can't speak these lines! she, dumpling face!" + +Mr. Ellsler said, quietly: "There is sickness in my company. The heavy +woman cannot act; this young girl will not look the part, of course, but +you need have no fear about the lines, she never loses a word." + +"Curse the _words_! It is, that that little girl shall not read with the +sense one line, no, not one line of the Shakespeare!" his English was +fast going in his rage. + +Mr. Ellsler answered: "She will read the part as well as you ever heard +it in your life, Mr. Bandmann." And Mr. Bandmann gave a jeering laugh, +and snapped his fingers loudly. + +It was most insulting, and I felt overwhelmed with humiliation. Mr. +Ellsler said, angrily: "Very well, as I have no one else to offer you, we +will close the theatre for the night!" + +But Mr. Bandmann did not want to close--not he. So, after swearing in +German for a time, he resumed rehearsal, and when my time came to speak I +could scarcely lift my drooping head or conquer the lump in my throat, +but, somehow, I got out the entreating words: + + "Good Hamlet, cast thy Knighted color off, + And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark." + +He lifted his head suddenly--I went on: + + "Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids + Seek for thy noble father in the dust." + +He exclaimed, surprisedly: "So! so!" as I continued my speech. Now in +this country, "So--so!" is a term applied to restless cows at +milking-time, and the devil of ridicule, never long at rest in my mind, +suddenly wakened, so that when I had to say: + + "Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: + I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg." + +and Mr. Bandmann smilingly cried: "So! so!" and I swiftly added the word +"Bossy," and every soul on the stage broke into laughter. He saw he was +laughed at, and it took a whole week's time and an elaborate explanation, +to enable him to grasp the jest--but when he got a good hold of it, he +so! so! bossied and stamped and laughed at a great rate. + +During the rehearsal--which was difficult in the extreme, as his business +(_i.e._, actions or poses accompanying certain words) was very different +from that we were used to--he never found one single fault with my +reading, and made just one suggestion, which I was most careful to +follow--for one taste of his temper had been enough. + +Then came the night--a big house, too, I remember. I wore long and loose +garments to make me look more matronly; but, alas! the drapery _Queen +Gertrude_ wears, passed under her jaws from ear to ear, was particularly +becoming to me, and brought me uncommonly near to prettiness. Mr. +Ellsler groaned, but said nothing, while Mr. Bandmann sneered out an "Ach +Himmel!" shrugged his shoulders, and made me feel real nice and happy. +And when one considers that without me the theatre must have closed or +changed its bill, even while one pities him for the infliction, one feels +he was unnecessarily unkind. + +Well, all went quietly until the closet scene--between _Hamlet_, the +_Queen_, and the _Ghost_. It is a great scene, and he had some very +effective business. I forgot Bandmann in _Hamlet_. I tried hard to show +shame, pride, and terror. The applause was rapturous. The curtain fell, +and--why, what, in the name of heaven, was happening to me? + +I was caught by the arms and lifted high in air; when I came down I was +crushed to _Hamlet's_ bosom, with a crackling sound of breaking +Roman-pearl beads, and in a whirlwind of "Himmels!" "Gotts!" and things, +I was kissed with frenzied wet kisses on either cheek--on my brow--my +eyes. Then disjointed English came forth: "Oh, you so great, you kleine +apple-cheeked girl! you maker of the fraud--you so great nobody! ach! you +are fire--you have pride--you are a _Gertrude_ who have shame!" More +kisses, then suddenly he realized the audience was still +applauding--loudly and heartily. He grasped my hand, he dragged me before +the curtain, he bowed, he waved his hands, he threw one arm about my +shoulders. + +"Good Lord!" I thought, "he isn't going to do it all over again--out +here, is he?" and I began backing out of sight as quickly as possible. + +It was a very comforting plaster to apply to my wounds--such a success as +that, but it would have been so much pleasanter not to have received the +wound in the first place. + +Mr. Bandmann's best work, I think, was done in "Narcisse." His _Hamlet_ +seemed to me too melodramatic--if I may say so. If _Hamlet_ had had all +that tremendous fund of energy, all that love of action, the _Ghost_ +need never have returned to "whet his almost blunted purpose." Nor could +I like his scene with his guilty mother. There was not even a _forced_ +show of respect for her. There was no grief for her wrong-doing--rather, +his whole tone was that of a triumphant detective. And his speeches, +"Such an act!" and "Look upon this picture!" were given with such +unction--such a sneeringly, perfect comprehension of her lust, as to +become themselves lustful. + +His _Shylock_ was much admired, I believe, but _Narcisse_ was a most +artistic piece of work. His appearance was superb; his philosophical +flippancy anent his poverty, his biting contempt of the powerful +_Pompadour_; his passion and madness on discovering his lost wife in the +person of the dying favorite, and his own death, were really great. + +And just one little month after the departure of the impetuous German, +who should be announced but Mr. Edwin Booth. I felt my eyes growing +wider as I read in the cast, "_Queen Gertrude--Miss Morris_." Uncle +Dick, behind me, said: "Would you like me to d----n poor Brad's bones +for you, Clara? It's hard lines on you, and that's a fact!" + +"Oh!" I thought, "why won't her blessed old bones mend themselves! she is +not lazy, but they are! oh, dear! oh, dear!" and miserable tears slid +down my cheeks all the way home, and moistened saltily my supper of +crackers after I got there. + +I had succeeded before, oh, yes; but I could not help recalling just how +hot the ploughshares were over which I had walked to reach that success. +Then, too, all girls have their gods--some have many of them. Some girls +change them often. My gods were few. Sometimes I cast one down, but I +never changed them, and on the highest, whitest pedestal of all, grave +and gentle, stood the god of my professional idolatry--Edwin Booth. I +wiped off cracker-crumbs with one hand and tears with the other. + +It was so humiliating to be forced upon anyone, as I should be forced +upon Mr. Booth, since there was still no one but my "apple-cheeked" self +to go on for the _Queen_; and though I dreaded indignant complaint or +disparaging remarks from him, I was honestly more unhappy over the +annoyance this blemish on the cast would cause him. Well, it could not be +helped, I should have to bear a second cruel mortification, that was all. +I put my four remaining crackers back in their box, brushed up the +crumbs, wiped my eyes, repeated my childish little old-time "Now I lay +me," and went to sleep; only to dream of Mr. Booth holding out a hideous +mask, and pressing me to have the decency to put it on before going on +the stage for _Gertrude_. + +When the dreaded Monday came, lo! a blizzard came with it. The trains +were all late, or stalled entirely. We rehearsed, but there was no Mr. +Booth present. He was held in a drift somewhere on the line, and at +night, therefore, we all went early to the theatre, so that if he came we +would have time to go over the important scenes--or if he did not come +that we might prepare for another play. + +He came. Oh, how my heart sank! This would be worse for him even than it +had been for Mr. Bandmann, for the latter knew of his disappointing +_Queen_ in the morning, and had time to get over the shock, but poor Mr. +Booth was to receive his blow only a few minutes before going on the +stage. At last it came--the call. + +"Mr. Booth would like to see you for a few moments in his room." + +I went, I was cold all over. He was so tired, he would be so angry. I +tapped. I went in. He was dressed for _Hamlet_, but he was adding a touch +to his brows, and snipping a little at his nails--hurriedly. He looked +up, said "Good-evening!" rather absently, then stopped, looked again, +smiled, and waving his hand slightly, said, just in Bandmann's very +words: "No, not you--not the _Player-Queen_--but _Gertrude_." + +Tears rushed to my eyes, my whole heart was in my voice as I gasped: "I'm +so sorry, sir, but _I_ have to do _Queen Gertrude_. You see," I rushed +on, "our heavy woman has a broken leg and can't act." + +A whimsical look, half smile, half frown, came over his face. "That's bad +for the _heavy_ woman," he remarked. + +"Yes," I acquiesced, "but, if you please, I had to do this part with Mr. +Bandmann too, and--and--I'll only worry you with my looks, sir, not about +the words or business." + +He rested his dark, unspeakably melancholy eyes on my face, his brows +raised and then knit themselves in such troubled wise as made me long to +put an arm about his shoulders and assure him I wouldn't be so awfully +bad. + +Then he sighed and said: "Well, it was the closet-scene I wanted to speak +to you about. When the _Ghost_ appears, you are to be--" He stopped, a +faint smile touched his lips, even reached his eyes; he laid down his +scissors, and remarked, "There's no denying it, my girl, I look a great +deal more like your father than you look like my mother--but," he went on +with his directions, and, considerate gentleman that he was, spoke no +single unkind word to me, though my playing of that part must have been a +great annoyance to him, when added to hunger and fatigue. + +When the closet-scene was over, the curtain down, I caught up my petticoats +and made a rapid flight roomward. The applause was filling the theatre. +Mr. Booth, turning, called after me: "You--er--_Gertrude_--er--_Queen_! Oh, +somebody call that child back here," and someone roared: "Clara--Mr. Booth +is calling you!" + +I turned, but stood still. He beckoned, then came to me, took my hand, +and saying: "My dear, we must not keep them waiting _too_ long!" led me +before the curtain with him. I very slightly bent my head to the +audience, whom I felt were applauding _Hamlet_ only, but turned and bowed +myself to the ground to him whose courtesy had brought me there. + +When we came off he smiled amusedly, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: +"My Gertrude, you are very young, but you know how to pay a pretty +compliment--thank you, child!" + +So, whenever you see pictures of nymphs or goddesses floating on pink +clouds, and looking idiotically happy, you can say to yourself: "That's +just how Clara Morris felt when Edwin Booth said she had paid him a +compliment." + +Yes, I floated, and I'll take a solemn oath, if necessary, that the whole +theatre was filled with pink clouds the rest of that night--for girls are +made that way, and they can't help it. + +In after years I knew him better, and I treasure still the little note he +sent me in answer to my congratulation on his escape from the bullet +fired at him from the gallery of the theatre in Chicago. A note that +expressed as much gentle surprise at my "kind thought for him," as though +I only, and not the whole country, was rejoicing at his safety. + +He had a wonderful power to win love from other men--yes, I use the word +advisedly. It was not mere good-fellowship or even affection, but there +was something so fine and true, so strong and sweet in his nature, that +it won the love of those who knew him best. + +It would seem like presumption for me to try to add one little leaf to +the tight-woven laurel crown he wore. Everyone knows the agony of his +"Fool's Revenge," the damnable malice of his _Iago_, the beauty and fire +of _Antony_, and the pure perfection of his _Hamlet_--but how many knew +the slow, cruel martyrdom of his private life! which he bore with such +mute patience that in my heart there is an altar raised to the memory of +that Saint Edwin of many sorrows, who was known and envied by the world +at large--as the great actor, Edwin Booth. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST + + I Digress, but I Return to the Columbus Engagement of Mr. and Mrs. + Charles Kean--Their Peculiarities and Their Work. + + +Before one has "arrived," it is astonishing how precious the simplest +word of encouragement or of praise becomes, if given by one who has +"arrived." Not long ago a lady came up to me and said: "I am Mrs. D----, +which is, of course, Greek to you; but I want to thank you now for your +great goodness to me years ago. I was in the ballet in a Chicago theatre. +You were playing 'Camille.' One day the actress who played _Olympe_ was +sick, and as I was, you said, the tallest and the handsomest of the +girls, you gave the part to me. I was wild with delight until the +nervousness got hold of me. I was not strong--my stomach failed me; the +girls thought that very funny, and guyed me unmercifully. I was surely +breaking down. You came along, ready to go on, and heard them. I could +scarcely stand. You said: 'What's the matter--are you nervous?' I tried +to speak, but only nodded. You took my hand and, stroking it, gently +said, 'Isn't it awful?' then, glancing at my tormentors, added, 'but it's +nothing to be ashamed of, and just as soon as you face the footlights all +your courage will come back to you, and, my dear, comfort yourself with +the knowledge that the perfectly collected, self-satisfied beginner +rarely attains a very high position on the stage.' Oh, if you only knew +how my heart jumped at your words. My fingers grew warmer, my nerves +steadier, and I really did succeed in getting the lines over my lips some +way. But you saved me, you made an actress of me. Ah, don't laugh! don't +shake your head, please! Had I failed that night, don't you see, I should +never have had a chance given me again; while, having got through safely, +it was not long before I was pointed out as the girl who had played +_Olympe_ with Miss Morris, and on the strength of that I was trusted with +another part, and so crept on gradually; and now I want to thank you for +the sympathy and kindness you showed me so long ago"--and though her warm +gratitude touched me deeply, I had then--have now--no recollection +whatever of the incident she referred to, nor of ever having seen before +her very handsome face. And so, no doubt, many of whom I write, who from +their abundance cast _me_ a word of praise or of advice now and again, +will have no memory of the _largesse_ which I have cherished all these +years. + +Among my most treasured memories I find the gentle words and astonishing +prophecy of Mr. Charles Kean. That was the last visit to this country of +Mr. and Mrs. Kean, and his memory was failing him grievously. He had with +him two English actors, each of whom knew every line of all his parts, +and their duty was, when on the stage or off, so long as Mr. Kean was +before the house, to keep their eyes on him, and at the first sign of +hesitancy on his part one of them gave him the needed word. Once or +twice, when he seemed quite bewildered, Mr. Cathcart, turning his back to +the audience, spoke Mr. Kean's entire speech, imitating his nasal tones +to the life. + +But it was off the stage that the ancient couple were most delightful. +Ellen and Charles were like a pair of old, old love-birds--a little dull +of eye, nor quite perfect in the preening of their somewhat rumpled +plumage, but billing and cooing with all the persistency and satisfaction +of their first caging. Their appearance upon the street provoked +amusement--sometimes even excitement. I often saw drivers of drays and +wagons pull up their horses and stop in the crowded street to stare at +them as they made their way toward the theatre. Mrs. Kean lived inside +of the most astounding hoop woman ever carried. Its size, its weight, its +tilting power were awful. Entrances had to be cleared of all chairs or +tables to accommodate Mrs. Kean's hoop. People scrambled or slid sideways +about her on the stage, swearing mentally all the time, while a sudden +gasp from the front row or a groan from Mr. Cathcart announced a tilt and +a revelation of heelless slippers and dead-white stockings, and in spite +of his dignity Charles was not above a joke on Ellen's hoop, for one +rainy day, as she strove to enter a carriage door she stuck fast, and the +hoop--mercy! It was well Mr. Kean was there to hold it down; but as a +troubled voice from within said: "I'm caught somehow--don't you see, +Charles?" With a twinkling eye Charles replied: "Yes, Ellen, my dear, I +do see--and--and I'm trying to keep everyone else from seeing, too!" a +speech verging so closely upon impropriety that, with antique coquetry, +Mrs. Kean punished him by tweaking his ear when he squeezed in beside +her. + +The Kean bonnet was the wonder of the town. It was a large coal-scuttle +of white leghorn and at the back there was a sort of flounce of ribbon +which she called her "bonnet-cape"; draped over it she wore a great, +bright-green barege veil. But she was not half so funny as was her +husband on the street. His short little person buttoned up tightly in a +regular bottle-green "Mantellini" sort of overcoat, loaded with frogs of +heavy cord, and lined, cuffed, and collared with fur of such remarkable +color, quality, and marking as would have puzzled the most experienced +student of natural history to name; while vicious little street boys at +sight of it always put searching questions as to the cost of cat-skins in +London. + +As they came down the street together, Mrs. Kean, majestically towering +above her lord and master, looked like an old-time frigate with every +inch of canvas spread, while at her side Charles puffed and fretted like +a small tug. The street boys were a continual torment to him, but Mrs. +Kean appeared serenely unconscious of their existence, even when her +husband made short rushes at them with his gold-headed cane, and crying: +"Go a-way--you irreverent little brutes--go a-way!" and then puffed +laboriously back to her again as she sailed calmly on. + +One day a citizen caught one of the small savages, and after boxing his +ears soundly, pitched him into the alley-way, when the seemingly enraged +little Englishman said, deprecatingly: "I--I wouldn't hurt the little +beast--he--he hasn't anyone to teach him any better, you know--poor +little beggar!" and then he dropped behind for a moment to pitch a +handful of coppers into the alley before hurrying up to his wife's side +to boast of the jolly good drubbing the little monster had received--from +which I gathered the idea that in a rage Charles would be as fierce as +seething new milk. + +Everyone who knew anything at all of this actor knew of his passionate +love and reverence for his great father. He used always to carry his +miniature in _Hamlet_, using it in the "Look here, upon this picture, +then on this," scene; but I knew nothing of all that when he first +arrived to play engagements both in Cleveland and Columbus, but being +very eager to see all I could of him, I came very early to the theatre, +and as I walked up and down behind the scenes I caught two or three times +a glint of something on the floor, which might have been a bit of tinsel; +but finally I went over to it, touched it with my foot, and then picked +up an oval gold case, with handsome frame enclosing a picture; a bit of +broken ribbon still hung from the ring on top of the frame. I ran with it +to the prompter, who knew nothing of it, but said there would soon be a +hue and cry for it from someone, as it was of value. "Perhaps you'd +better take it to Mr. Kean--it might be his." I hesitated, but the +prompter said he was busy and I was not, so I started toward the +dressing-room the Keans shared together, when suddenly the door was flung +open and Mr. Kean came out in evident excitement. He bumped against me +as he was crying: "I say there--you--have you seen--oh, I--er beg your +pardon!" + +I also apologized, and added: "If you please, sir, does this belong to +you? I found it behind the scenes." + +He caught it from my hand, bent to look at it in the dim light, then, +pressing it to his lips, exclaimed fervently: "Thank the good God!" He +held up a length of broken black ribbon, saying: "Hey, but you have +played me a nice trick!" I understood at once that he used the locket in +"Hamlet," and I ventured: "If you can't wear gold and your ribbon cuts, +could you not have a silver chain oxidized for your 'property' picture, +sir?" He chucked me under the chin, exclaiming: "A good idea +that--I--I'll tell Ellen of that; but, my dear, this is no 'property' +locket--this is one of my greatest earthly treasures--it's the picture +of----" + +He stopped--he looked at me for quite a moment, then he said: "You come +here to the light." I followed him obediently. "Now can you tell me who +that is a miniature of?" and he placed the oval case in my hands. I gave +a glance at the curled hair, the beautiful profile, the broad turned-down +collar, and smilingly exclaimed: "It's Lord Byron!" + +Good gracious, what was the matter with the little old gentleman! "Ha! +ha!" he cried. "Ha! ha! listen to the girl!" He fairly pranced about; he +got clear out on the dark stage and, holding out his hands to the +emptiness, cried again: "Listen to the girl--Lord Byron, says she--at one +glance!" + +"Well," I replied resentfully, "it _does_ look like Byron!" And he "Ha! +ha'd!" some more, and wiped his eyes and said, "I must tell Ellen this. +Come here, my dear, come here!" He took my hand and led me to the +dressing-room, crying: "It's Charles, my dear--it's Charles--and oh, my +dear, my dear, I--I have it--see now!" he held up the locket. + +"Oh, how glad I am! And now, Charles, perhaps you'll give up that +miserable ribbon," and she kissed his cheek in congratulation. + +But on the old gentleman went: "And, Ellen, my dear, look at this girl +here--just look at her. She found him for me, and I said, who is he--and +she up and said--Ellen, are you listening?--said she, 'It's Lord Byron!'" + +"Did she now?" exclaimed Mrs. Kean, with pleased eyes. + +But I was getting mad, and I snapped a bit, I'm afraid, when I said: +"Well, I don't know who it is, but it does look like Byron--I'll leave it +to anyone in the company if it doesn't!" + +"Listen to her, Ellen! Hang me if she's not getting hot about it, too!" +Then he came over to me, and in the gravest, gentlest tone said, "It _is_ +like Byron, my girl, but it is not him--you found the picture of my +beloved and great father, Edmund Kean," and he kissed me gently on the +forehead, and said, "Thank you--thank you!" and as Mrs. Kean came over +and put her arm about me and repeated the kiss and thanks, Charles +snuffled most distinctly from the corner where he was folding his +precious miniature within a silk handkerchief. + +They were both at their very best in the tragedy of "Henry VIII." Mr. +Kean's _Wolsey_ was an impressive piece of work, and to the eye he was as +true a Cardinal as ever shared in an Ecumenical Council in Catholic Rome, +or hastened to private audience at the Vatican with the Pope himself; and +his superb robes, his priestly splendor had nothing about them that was +imitation. Everything was real--the silks, the jewelled cross and ring, +and as to the lace, I gasped for breath with sheer astonishment. Never +had I seen, even in a picture, anything to suggest the exquisite beauty +of that ancient web. Full thirty inches deep, the yellowing wonder fell +over the glowing cardinal-red beneath it. I cannot remember how many +thousands of dollars they had gladly given for it to the sisters of the +tottering old convent in the hills, where it had been created long ago; +and though it seemed so fragily frail and useless a thing, yet had it +proved strong enough to prop up the leaning walls of its old home, and +spread a sound roof above the blessed altar there--so strong sometimes is +beauty's weakness. + +And Mrs. Kean, what a _Catherine_ she was! Surely nothing could have been +taken from the part, nothing added to it, without marring its perfection. +In the earlier acts one seemed to catch a glimpse of that Ellen Tree who +had been a beauty as well as a popular actress when Charles Kean had come +a-wooing. Her clear, strong features, her stately bearing were +beautifully suited to the part of _Queen Catherine_. Her performance of +the court scene was a liberal education for any young actress. Her regal +dignity, her pride, her passion of hatred for _Wolsey_ held in strong +leash, yet now and again springing up fiercely. Her address to the _King_ +was a delight to the ear, even while it moved one to the heart, and +through the deep humility of her speech one saw, as through a veil, the +stupendous pride of the Spanish princess, who knew herself the daughter +of a king, if she were not the wife to one. With most pathetic dignity +she gave her speech beginning: + + "Sir, I desire you do me right and justice;" + +maintaining perfect self-control, until she came to the words: + + "----Sir, call to mind + That I have been your wife in this obedience + Upward of twenty years and,----" + +Her voice faltered, the words trembled on her lips: + + "----have been blest + With many children by you." + +In that painful pause one remembered with a pang that all those babes +were dead in infancy, save only the Princess Mary. Then, controlling her +emotion and lifting her head high, she went on to the challenge--if aught +could be reported against her honor. It was a great act, her passionate +cry to _Wolsey_: + + "----Lord cardinal, + To _you_ I speak." + +thrilled the audience, while to his: + + "----Be patient yet," + +her sarcastic: + + "I will, when you are humble!" + +cut like a knife, and brought quick applause. But best, greatest, +queenliest of all was her exit, when refusing to obey the King's command: + + "----Call her again." + +for years one might remember those ringing words: + + "I will not tarry: no, nor ever more, + Upon this business, my appearance make + In any of their courts." + +It was a noble performance. Mr. Kean's mannerisms were less noticeable +in _Wolsey_ than in other parts, and the scenes between the Queen and +Cardinal were a joy to lovers of Shakespeare. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND + + I Hear Mrs. Kean's Story of Wolsey's Robe--I Laugh at an Extravagantly + Kind Prophecy. + + +From the time I found the miniature and by accident fed Mr. Kean's +innocent vanity in his father's likeness to Byron, he made much of me. +Evening after evening, in Columbus, he would have me come to their +dressing-room, for after the habit of the old-time actor, they came very +early, dressed without flurry, and were ready before the overture was on. +There they would tell me stories, and when Charles had a teasing fit on +him, he would relate with great gusto the awful disaster that once +overtook Ellen in a theatre in Scotland, "when she played a Swiss boy, my +girl--and--and her breeches----" + +"Now, Charles!" remonstrated Mrs. Kean. + +"Knee breeches, you know, my dear----" + +"Charles!" pleadingly. + +"Were of black velvet--yes, black velvet, I remember because, when they +broke from----" + +"C-h-a-r-l-e-s!" and then the stately Mrs. Kean would turn her head away +and give a small sob--when Charles would wink a knowing wink and trot +over and pat the broad shoulder and kiss the rouged cheek, saying: "Why, +why, Ellen, my dear, what a great baby! now, now, but you know those +black breeches did break up before you got across the bridge." + +Then Mrs. Kean turned and drove him into his own corner or out of the +door, after which she would exclaim: "It's just one of his larks, my +dear. I _did_ have an accident, the seam of one leg of my breeches broke +and showed the white lining a bit; but if you'll believe me, I've known +that man to declare that--that--they fell off, my dear; but generally +that's on Christmas or his birthday, when only friends are by." + +Mr. Kean had been the first man to wear an absolutely correct cardinal's +robe on the stage, and very proud he was of that fact, and never failed +in giving his Ellen all the credit of it. Until this time actors had worn +a scarlet "something," that seemed a cross between a king's mantle or a +woman's wrapper. Mr. Kean had been quite carried away with enthusiasm +over his coming production of "Henry VIII.," and his wife, seeing his +disappointment and dissatisfaction over the costumer's best efforts in +the direction of a cardinal's robe, determined, some way or somehow, to +obtain for him an exact copy of the genuine article. + +One night, while "Louis XI." was going on, Mrs. Kean herself told me how +she had at last succeeded. They were in Rome for their holiday; they had +many letters, some to very important personages. In her story Mrs. Kean +gave names and dates and amounts of money expended, but they have passed +from my memory, while the dramatic incident remains. + +From the first she had made known to her most powerful Roman friend her +desire to see the robe of a cardinal--to obtain measurements from it, and +had been treated at first to a great showing of uplifted hands and eyes +and many "impossibles," but later on had received positive promises of +help. Yet days, even weeks passed, and always there was some +excuse--nothing came of the fine promises. + +One day, in her anxiety and disappointment, she mentioned to an English +friend, who had long resided in Rome, her trouble over the +procrastination of her Italian acquaintance, when the Englishwoman asked: +"What have you paid him?" "Paid him?" cried Mrs. Kean. "Do you know you +are speaking of F----, whose high official as well as social position is +such----" + +"Oh," laughed the visitor, "his position has nothing to do with it--his +being your friend has nothing to do with it. The Italian palm is an +itching palm--no wonder time is being wasted. Soothe that palm the next +time he calls, and mention the day on which you are compelled to leave +for home, and he will act quickly enough, though you really are asking +for next to an impossibility, when you, a woman, ask to see and handle a +cardinal's robe." + +"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Kean, "when that stately, gray-haired gentleman +next came, I almost fainted at the thought of putting such an insult upon +him as to offer him money. Indeed I could barely whisper, when clasping +his hand I left some broad gold pieces there, murmuring, 'For the poor, +sir!'--and if you'll believe me, he brightened up and instantly said: +'Keep to the house to-morrow, Madame, and I will notify you what you are +to do, and the effort to get a robe to you here having failed, you will +have to come to the general "audience" his Holiness will grant day after +to-morrow, and, and, hem! you will do well to have some loose _lire_ in +your pouch, and be sure, sure, you carry a smelling-bottle. I suppose, of +course, so famous an actress as yourself can faint at command, if need +be? Then the tailor, an usher or two, possibly even a guard may require a +fee, for they will run great risk in serving you, Madame. A woman within +those sacred passages and chambers!' + +"He held up his hands in horror, but nevertheless he was doing directly +what he had been promising to do for weeks, and all for a few broad +pieces of gold. After he left me I was fairly sick with feverish +excitement. I dared not tell Charles of the arrangement; he would have +left Rome instantly, and here was I preparing to bribe tailor, ushers, +guard--and beyond them, to be still armed with loose _lire_. Oh, to what +depth was I falling! + +"Next day I received a card of admission for the 'audience,' and orders: +'To keep my eyes open--to show no surprise, but to follow _silently_ +wherever a hand beckoned with a single finger. To bring all things +needful for my use--not forgetting the loose _lire_ and the +smelling-bottle.' + +"When I entered the carriage to go to the Vatican, I was so weak with +hope and fear and fright that Charles was quite upset about me, and was +all for going with me; so I had to brace up and pretend the air was +already doing me good. As I looked back at him, I wondered if he would +divorce me, if in my effort to secure the pattern of a cardinal's gown I +should create a tremendous scandal? I wore the regulation black silk, +with black veil, demanded for the occasion, but besides the little pouch +of silk depending from my belt with _lire_, salts, and 'kerchief, I had +beneath my gown a pocket in which were some white Swiss muslin, pins, +pencil, and tablets, and small scissors. + +"There were many carriages--many people. I saw them all as in a dream. In +a magnificent room the ladies were formed in line, waiting to be admitted +to the Holy Father's presence. I was forgetting to keep my eyes +open--there was a stir. A great door was opening down its centre. I heard +a faint, low 'Hem!' The line began to move forward--a little louder that +'Hem!' Suddenly my eyes cleared--I looked. A pair of curtains, a little +ahead, trembled. I drew my smelling-bottle and held it to my nostrils, as +if ill, but no one noticed me--all were intent upon the opening of the +great door. As I came on a line with the curtains, a hand, dream-like, +beckoned. I stepped sidewise between the curtains, that parted, then fell +thick and soft behind me. Another white beckoning hand appeared at the +far side of this chamber. Swiftly I crossed toward it. A whisper of +'Quick! quick!' just reached me--a door opened, and I was in a +passage-way, and for the first time saw a guide. + +"At the foot of the stairs he paused--yet the voice had said 'Quick! +quick!' I thought of the loose _lire_--yes, that was it. I gave him +three, and saw him glide up the stairs with cat-like stealth. Here were +bare walls and floors, and all that cold cleanliness that makes a woman +shrink and shiver. + +"At last I was in a small, bare room, with brick-paved floor. A table +stood in its centre, and a small and wizened man, red-eyed and old, +glided in and laid upon the table--oh, joy--oh, triumph almost +reached!--a glowing-red cardinal's robe. As I laid my hand upon it the +ferret-like custodian gave a sort of whispered groan, 'Oh, the sacrilege! +and the danger! his whole life's occupation risked!' + +"I remembered the 'itching palm,' and as my hand went toward my pocket, +his brown claw was extended, and the glint of gold so warmed his heart +that smiles came about his toothless mouth, and seeing me, woman fashion, +measuring by finger-lengths, he offered me a dirty old tape-measure--then +stole to the second door 'to watch for me.' Oh, yes--to watch like the +cat--while with all the haste possible the good and most high lady would +gain such knowledge as she could, and after all the robe was but an old +one, etc., etc. + +"All whispered, while I with the deft fingers of a skilled seamstress and +the comprehending eye of the actress, well used to strange costumes, was +measuring here and putting down notes, swiftly pinning on a bit of muslin +there, and cutting an exact pattern. And, lo! the piece that crosses the +chest, cape-like, yet without visible opening, came near undoing me. +Tears began to blind me, but--but, ah well, my dear, I thought of +Charles, and it is astonishing what love can do to sharpen the eyes and +clear the brain. Suddenly the thing seemed quite plain to me. I then +turned the hem, and ripping it open an inch or so, I took a few +ravellings of the silk, where it was clean and bright, for a sample for +the dyers to go by--since the silk would have to be prepared especially +if it was to be absolutely correct. + +"I rearranged my veil, crept to the door, and agreeably surprised the +watchers by telling them I was through. The ferrety old man had the robe +in his arms, and was gliding swiftly out of the room in the merest +instant. I followed as softly as possible the other watcher. Once an +unseen man cleared his throat as we passed, and I thought my guide would +have fallen from sheer terror, but we reached in safety the frescoed +corridor again and stood at the door waiting. The guide scratched gently +with his nails on the lower panel--a pause, then the door began to move, +and he disappeared as a ghost might have done. Across the room a hand +appeared between the hangings, beckoning me; I moved swiftly toward it. I +could hear a hum of voices, low and restrained. There was but one room +now between me and the great chamber in which we had waited in line for +'audience.' No further signal came, what should I do? I was nearly +fainting. Then another hand, a hand I knew by the splendid ring on its +middle finger, appeared. I almost staggered to it. A whisper like a +breath came to me, 'smelling-salts,' in an instant the bottle was in my +hand, I was through the curtains, my Italian friend was asking me, was I +not wrong to remain in Rome so late? He hoped my faintness was quite +past, but he must himself see me to my carriage, and so he swept me +forth, under cover of his courteous chatter, and the next day I sent him +money for those who had to be rewarded. + +"And for fear of Charles's rage about the infamy of bribing, said +nothing, till he, in great anxiety about my feverish state, removed me +from Rome. And then, my dear! I threw my arms about his neck and told him +he should have a true and veritable cardinal's robe for his _Wolsey_, and +in outrageous pride I cried: '_Ego hoc feci!_'" At which _I_ gravely +said: "That sounds like 'I have done something,' anyway it's I; but that +'_fetchy_' word bothers me." + +And she laughed and laughed, and said: "It means _I_ did this! And I am +ashamed to have used a Latin term to you, child. You must forgive me for +it, but I _must_ tell Charles that 'fetchy' word that bothered you--I +must indeed, because he does so love his laugh!" + +Then came the night when by chance I played an important part in one of +their plays. My scenes were mostly with Mr. Cathcart, and I only came in +contact with Mr. Kean for a moment in one act. I was as usual frightened +half out of my life, and as I stood in the entrance ready to go on, Mr. +Kean smilingly caught my fingers as he was passing me, but their icy +coldness brought him to a stand-still. "Why, why! bless my soul, what's +the matter? this--this is not nervousness, is it?" he stammered. + +I nodded my head. "Oh, good Lord!" he cried. "I say, Cathcart, here's a +go--this poor child can't even open her mouth now----" + +I tried to tell him I should be all right soon, but there was no time. +The word of entrance came, and a _cue_ takes the _pas_ even in presence +of a star. I went on, and as my lines were delivered clearly and +distinctly, I saw the relieved face of Mr. Kean peering at us, and when +Mr. Cathcart (who enacted my soldierly lover) gave me a sounding kiss +upon the cheek as he embraced me in farewell, we plainly heard the old +gentleman exclaim: "Well, well, really now, James, upon my word, you +_are_ coming on!" and Mr. Cathcart's broad shoulders shook with laughter +rather than grief as he rushed from me. + +When, later on, Mr. Kean took my hand to give it in betrothal to my +lover, he found it so burning hot as to attract his attention. + +Next night I did not play at all, but came to look on, and being invited +to the dressing-room, Mr. Kean suddenly asked me: "Who are you, child?" + +"No one," I promptly answered. + +He laughed a little and nudged his Ellen, then went on: "I mean--who are +your people?" + +"I have none," I said, then quickly corrected, "except my mother." + +"Ah, yes, yes, that's what we want to get at--who is that mother? for I +recognize an inherited talent here--a natural grace and ease, impossible +for one so young to acquire by any amount of effort." + +I was a bit confused--I hesitated. Mrs. Kean asked: "Were both of your +parents actors, child?" + +Suddenly I broke into laughter. The thought of my mother as an actress +filled me with amusement. "Oh, I beg your pardon," I cried, "I have no +father, and my mother just works at sewing or nursing or housekeeping or +anything she can get to do that's honest." + +They looked disappointedly at each other, then Mrs. Kean brightened up +and exclaimed: "Then it's foreign blood, Charles--you can see it in her +use of her hands." + +They turned expectantly to me. I thought of the big, smiling +French-Canadian father, who had been the _bete noire_ of my babyhood. My +head drooped. "He, my father, was bad," I said, "his father and mother +were from the south of France, but he was a horrid Canadian--my mother, +though, is a true American," I proudly ended. + +"That's it!" they exclaimed together, "the French blood!" and Mr. Kean +nodded his head and tapped his brow and said: "You remember, Ellen, what +I told you last night--I said 'temperament'--here it is in this small +nobody; no offence to you, my girl. Here's our dear niece, who can't act +at all, God bless her! our 'blood,' but no temperament. Now listen to me, +you bright child!" + +He pushed my hair back from my forehead, so that I must have looked quite +wild, and went on: "I have seen you watch that dear woman over there, +night after night; you admire her, I know." (I nodded hard.) "You think +her a great, great way from you?" (More nods.) "A lifetime almost?" +(Another nod.) "Then listen to what an old man, but a most experienced +actor, prophesies for you. Without interest in high places, without help +from anyone, except from the Great Helper of us all, you, little girl, +daughter of the true American mother and the bad French father, will, +inside of five years, be acting my wife's parts--and acting them well." + +I could not help it, it seemed so utterly absurd, I laughed aloud. He +smiled indulgently, and said: "It seems so funny--does it? Wait a bit, my +dear, when my prophecy comes true you will no longer laugh, and you will +remember us." + +He gave me his hand in farewell, so did his gracious wife, then with +tears in my eyes I said: "I was only laughing at my own insignificance, +sir, and I shall remember your kindness always, whether I succeed or not, +just as I shall remember your great acting." + +Simultaneously they patted me on the shoulder, and I left them. Then Mr. +Kean put his arm about his wife and kissed her, I know he did, because I +looked back and saw them thus reflected in the looking-glass. But did I +not say they were love-birds? + +Four years from that month I stood trembling and happy before the +audience who generously applauded my "sleep-walking scene" in "Macbeth," +and suddenly I seemed to hear the kind old voice making the astonishing +prophecy, and joyed to think of its fulfilment, with a whole year to the +good. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD + + Mr. E. L. Davenport, his Interference, his Lecture on Stage Business, + his Error of Memory or too Powerful Imagination--Why I Remain a + Dramatic Old Slipper--Contemptuous Words Arouse in Me a Dogged + Determination to Become a Leading Woman before Leaving Cleveland. + + +Just what was the occult power of the ballet over the manager's mind no +one ever explained to me. I found my companions very every-day, +good-natured, kind-hearted girls--pretty to look at, pleasant to be with, +but to Mr. Ellsler they must have been a rare and radiant lot, utterly +unmatchable in this world, or else he knew they had awful powers for evil +and dared not provoke their "hoodoo." Whatever the reason, the fact +remained, he was _afraid_ to advance me one little step in name, even to +utility woman; while, in fact, I was advanced to playing other people's +parts nearly half the time, and the reason for this continued holding +back was "fear of offending the other ballet-girls." Truly a novel +position for a manager. One feels at once there must have been something +unusually precious about such a ballet, and he feared to break the set. +Anyway, before I got out, clear out, this happened: + +A number of stars had spoken to me about my folly in remaining in the +ballet, and when I told them Mr. Ellsler was afraid to advance me for +fear of offending the other girls, they answered variously, and many +advised me to break the "set" myself, saying if I left he would soon be +after me and glad to engage me for first walking lady. But my crushed +childhood had its effect, I shall always lack self-assertion--I stayed +on and this happened. + +There was no regular heavy actress that season, and the old woman was a +tiny little rag of a creature, not bigger than a doll. Mr. E. L. +Davenport was to open in "Othello." Mrs. Effie Ellsler was to play the +young _Desdemona_ and I was to go on for _Emilia_. Mr. Davenport was a +man of most reckless speech, but he was, too, an old friend of the +Ellslers, calling them by their first names and meeting them with hearty +greetings and many jests. So, when in the middle of a story to Mrs. +Ellsler at rehearsal, the call came for _Othello_, _Desdemona_, and +_Iago_, she exclaimed: "Excuse me, Ned, they are calling us," but he held +her sleeve and answered, "Not you--it's me," and glancing hurriedly +about, his eye met mine, and he added pleasantly, "You, my dear; they're +calling _Desdemona_." + +I stood still. Mrs. Ellsler's round, black eyes snapped, but this man who +blundered was a star and a friend. She tossed her head and petulantly +pushed him from her toward the stage. He went on, and at the end of his +speech: + + "This only is the witchcraft I have used; + Here comes the lady, let her witness it." + +he turned to face Mrs. Ellsler entering with _Iago_ and her attendants. +Looking utterly bewildered, he exclaimed: "Why, for God's sake, Effie, +you are not going on for _Desdemona_, are you?" + +Perhaps his dissatisfaction may be better understood if I mention that a +young man twenty-three years old, who took tickets at the dress-circle +door, called Mrs. Ellsler mother, and that middle-aged prosperity +expressed itself in a startling number of inches about the waist of her +short little body. Though her feet and hands were small in the extreme, +they could not counteract the effect of that betraying stodginess of +figure. Mrs. Ellsler, in answer to that rude question, laughed, and said: +"Well, I believe the leading woman generally does play _Desdemona_?" + +"But," cried Mr. Davenport, "where's--w-who's _Emilia_?" + +Mr. Ellsler took him by the arm and led him a little to one side. Several +sharp exclamations escaped the star's lips, and at last, aloud and ending +the conference, he said: "Yes, yes, John, I know anyone may have to twist +about a bit now and then in a cast, but damn me if I can see why you +don't cast Effie for _Emilia_ and this girl for _Desdemona_--then they +would at least look something like the parts. As it is now, they are both +ridiculous!" + +It was an awful speech, and the truth that was in it made it cut deep. +There were those on the stage who momentarily expected the building to +fall, so great was their awe of Mrs. Ellsler. The odd part of the +unpleasant affair was that everyone was sorry for Mr. Ellsler, rather +than for his wife. + +Well, night came. I trailed about after _Desdemona_--picked up the fatal +handkerchief--spoke a line here and there as Shakespeare wills she +should, and bided my time as all _Emilias_ must. Now I had noticed that +many _Emilias_ when they gave the alarm--cried out their "Murder! +Murder!" against all the noise of the tolling bells, and came back upon +the stage spent, and without voice or breath to finish their big scene +with, and people thought them weak in consequence. A long hanging bar of +steel is generally used for the alarm, and blows struck upon it send +forth a vibrating clangor that completely fills a theatre. I made an +agreement with the prompter that he was not to strike the bar until I +held up my hand to him. Then he was to strike one blow each time I raised +my hand, and when I threw up both hands he was to raise Cain, until I was +on the stage again. So with throat trained by much shouting, when in the +last act I cried: + + "I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known, + Though I lost twenty lives." + +I turned, and crying: + + "Help! help, ho! help!" + +ran off shouting, + + "The Moor has killed my mistress!" + +then, taking breath, gave the long-sustained, ever-rising, blood-curdling +cry: + + "Murder! Murder! Murder!" + +One hand up, and one long clanging peal of a bell. + + "Murder! Murder! Murder!" + +One hand up and bell. + + "Murder! Murder! Murder!" + +Both hands up, and pandemonium broken loose--and, oh, joy! the audience +applauding furiously. + +"One--two--three--four," I counted with closed lips, then with a fresh +breath I burst upon the stage, followed by armed men, and with one last +long full-throated cry of "Murder! the Moor has killed my mistress!" +stood waiting for the applause to let me go on. A trick? yes, a small +trick--a mere pretence to more breath than I really had, but it aroused +the audience, it touched their imagination. They saw the horror-stricken +woman racing through the night--waking the empty streets to life by that +ever-thrilling cry of "Murder!" A trick if you like, but on the stage +"success" justifies the means, and that night, under cover of the +applause of the house, there came to me a soft clapping of hands and in +muffled tones the words: "Bravo--bravo!" from _Othello_. + +When the curtain had fallen and Mr. Davenport had been before it, he +came to me and holding out his hands, said: "You splendid-lunged +creature--I want to apologize to you for the thoughts I harbored against +you this morning." I smiled and glanced uneasily at the clock--he went +on: + +"I have always fancied my wife in _Emilia_, but, my girl, your readings +are absolutely new sometimes, and your strength is--what's the matter? a +farce yet? well, what of it? you, _you_ have to go on in a farce after +playing Shakespeare's _Emilia_ with E. L. Davenport? I'm damned if I +believe you!" + +And I gathered up my cotton-velvet gown and hurried to my room to don +calico dress, white cap and apron, and then rush down to the +"property-room" for the perambulator I had to shove on, wondering what +the star would think if he knew that his _Emilia_ was merely walking on +in the farce of "Jones's Baby," without one line to speak, the second and +speaking nursemaid having very justly been given to one of the other +girls. But the needless sending of me on, right after the noble part of +_Emilia_, was evidently a sop thrown by my boldly independent manager to +his ballet--Cerberus. + +Heretofore stars had advised or chided me privately, but, oh, dear, oh, +dear! next morning Mr. Davenport attacked Mr. Ellsler for +"mismanagement," as he termed it, right before everybody. Among other +things, he declared that it was a wound to his personal dignity as a star +to have a girl who had supported him, "not acceptably, but brilliantly," +in a Shakespearian tragedy, sent on afterward in a vulgar farce. Then he +added: "Aside from artistic reasons and from justice to her--good Lord! +John, are you such a fool you don't understand her commercial value? Here +you have a girl, young and pretty" (always make allowances for the warmth +of argument), "with rare gifts and qualifications, who handles her +audience like a magician, and you cheapen her like this? Placing her in +the highest position only to cast her down again to the lowest. If she is +only fit for the ballet, you insult your public by offering her in a +leading part; if she's fit for the leading part, you insult her by +lowering her to the ballet; but anyway I'm damned if I ever saw a +merchant before who deliberately cheapened his own wares!" + +If the floor could have opened I would have been its willing victim, and +I am sure if Mr. Davenport had known that I would have to pay for every +sharp word spoken, he would have restrained his too free speech for my +sake--even though he was never able to do so for his own. + +And what a pity it was, for he not only often wounded his friends, but +worse still, he injured himself by flinging the most boomerang-like +speeches at the public whenever he felt it was not properly appreciating +him. He was wonderfully versatile, but though versatility is a requisite +for any really good actor, yet for some mysterious reason it never meets +with great success outside of a foreign theatre. The American public +demands specialists--one man to devote himself solely to tragedy, another +to romantic drama and duels, another to dress-suit satire. One woman to +tears, another to laughter, and woe betide the star who, able to act both +comedy and tragedy, ventures to do so; there will be no packed house to +bear witness to the appreciation felt for such skill and variety of +talent. + +Mr. Davenport's vogue was probably waning when I first knew him. He had a +certain intellectual following who delighted in the beautiful precision +and distinctness of his reading of the royal Dane. He always seemed to me +a _Hamlet_ cut in crystal--so clear and pure, so cold and hard he was. +The tender heart, the dread imaginings, the wounded pride and love, the +fits and starts, the pain and passion that tortures _Hamlet_ each in +turn, were utterly incompatible with the fair, highbrowed, princely +philosopher Mr. Davenport presented to his followers. And after that +performance I think he was most proud of his "horn-pipe" in the play of +"Black-Eyed Susan"; and he danced it with a swiftness, a lightness, and a +limberness of joint that were truly astonishing in a man of his years. +Legend said that in London it had been a great "go," had drawn--oh, +fabulous shillings, not to mention pounds--but I never saw him play +_William_ to a good house, never--neither did I ever see the dance +_encored_. The people did not appreciate versatility, and one night, +while before the curtain in responding to a call, he began a bitter +tirade against the taste of the public--offering to stand there and count +how many there were in the house, and telling them that next week that +same house would not hold all who would wish to enter, for there would be +a banjo played by a woman, and such an intellectual treat was not often +to be had, but they must not spend all their money, he was even now +learning to swallow swords _and_ play the _banjo_; he was an old dog now, +but if they would have a little patience he would learn their favorite +tricks for them, even though he could not heartily congratulate them on +their intelligence, etc., etc. Oh, it was dreadful taste and so unjust, +too, to abuse those who were there for the fault of those who remained +away. + +However, during the week's engagement of which I have been speaking, I +had two nights in the ballet, then again I was cast for an important +part. It was a white-letter day for me, professionally, for, thanks to +Mr. Davenport, I learned for the first time the immense value of +"business" alone, an action unsustained perhaps by a single word. I am +not positive, but I believe the play was "A Soldier of Fortune" or "The +Lion of St. Mark"--anyway it was a romantic drama. My part was not very +long, but it had one most important scene with the hero. It was one of +those parts that are talked about so much during the play that they gain +a sort of fictitious value. At rehearsal I could not help noticing how +fixedly Mr. Davenport kept gazing at me. His frown grew deeper and deeper +as I read my lines, and I was growing most desperately frightened, when +he suddenly exclaimed: "Wait a minute!" I stopped; he went on roughly, +still staring hard at me, "I don't know whether you are worth breaking a +vow for or not." + +Naturally I had nothing to say. He walked up the stage; as he came down, +he said: "I've kept that promise for ten years, but you seem such an +honest little soul about your work--I've a good mind, yes, I have a +mind----" + +He sat down on the edge of the prompt-table, and though he addressed +himself seemingly to me alone, the whole company were listening +attentively. + +"When I first started out starring I honestly believed I had a mission to +teach other less experienced actors how to act. I had made a close study +of the plays I was to present, as well as of my own especial parts in +them, and I actually thought it was my duty to impart my knowledge to +those actors who were strange in them. Yes, that's the kind of a fool I +was. I used to explain and describe, and show how, and work and sweat, +and for my pains I received behind my back curses for keeping them so +long at rehearsals, and before my face stolid indifference or a thinly +veiled implication that I was grossly insulting them by my minute +directions. Both myself and my voice were pretty well used up before I +realized that my work had been wasted, my good intentions damned, that I +had not been the leaven that could lighten the lump of stupid +self-satisfaction we call the 'profession'; and I took solemn oath to +myself never again to volunteer any advice, any suggestion, any hint as +to reading, or business, or make-up to man or woman in any play of mine. +If they acted well, all right; if they acted ill, all right too. If I +found them infernal sticks, I'd leave them sticks. I'd demand just one +thing, my _cue_. As long as I got the word to speak on, all the rest +might go to the devil! Rehearsals shortened, actors had plenty of time +for beer and pretzels; and as I ceased to try to improve their work, they +soon called me a good fellow. And now you come along, willing to work, +knowing more than some of your elders, yet actually believing there is +still something for you to learn. Ambitious, keenly observant, you tempt +me to teach you some business for this part, and yet if I do I suppose +what goes in at one ear will go out of the other!" + +Embarrassed silence on my part. + +"Well," he went on, whimsically, "I see this is not your day for making +protestations, but I'm going to give you the business, and if you choose +to ignore it at night--why, that will serve me right for breaking my +promise." + +"Mr. Davenport," I said, "I always try to remember what is told me, and I +don't see why I should not remember what you say; goodness knows you +speak plainly enough," at which, to my troubled surprise, everyone, star +and all, burst out laughing, but presently he returned to the play. + +"See here," he said, "you, the adventuress, are worsted in this scene. +You sit at the table. I have forced you to sign this paper, yet you say +to me: 'You are a fool!' Now, how are you going to say it?" + +"I don't know yet," I answered, "I have not heard the whole play +through." + +"What's that got to do with it?" he asked, sharply. + +"Why," I said, "I don't know the story--I don't know whether she is +really your enemy, or only injures you on impulse; whether she truly +loves anyone, or only makes believe love." + +"Good!" he cried, "good! that is sound reasoning. Well, you _are_ my +enemy, you love no one, so you see your 'fool' is given with genuine +feeling. It's years since the line has drawn fire, but you do this +business, and see. You sit, I stand at the opposite side of the table. +You write your name--you are supposed to be crushed. I believe it and +tower triumphantly over you. The audience believes it too. Now you lay +down your pen--but carefully, mind you, carefully; then close the +inkstand, and with very evident caution place it out of danger of a fall. +Be sure you take your time, there are places where deliberation is as +effective as ever rush and hurry can be. Then with your cheek upon your +hand, or your chin on your clasped hands--any attitude you fancy will +do--look at me good and long, and _then_ speak your line. Have you +thought yet how to deliver it?" + +"Well," I answered, hesitatingly, "to call you a fool in a colloquial +tone would make people laugh, I think, and--and the words don't fit a +declamatory style. I should think a rather low tone of sneering contempt +would be best," and he shouted loudly: "You've hit it square on the head! +Now let's see you do it to-night. Don't look so frightened, my girl, only +take your time, don't hurry. I've got to stand there till you speak, if +you take all night. Be deliberate; you see, you have played all the rest +so fiercely fast, the contrast will tell." + +The night came. Cornered, check-mated, I slowly signed the paper, wiped +the pen, closed the inkstand, and set it aside. He stood like a statue. +The silence reached the house. I stretched out my arms and rested my +crossed hands lightly on the table. I met his glance a moment, then, with +a curling lip, let my eyes sweep slowly down length of body to boot-tip +and back again, rose slowly, made a little "pouf" with lips and wave of +hand, and contemptuously drawled: "My friend, you are a fool!" while, +swift and sharp, came the applause Mr. Davenport at least had +anticipated. The act ended almost immediately, and I hurried to him, +crying: "Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Davenport. I never, never could have +found applause in a speech like that." + +"Ah, it was the business, child, not the speech. Always try to find good +business." + +"Suit the action to the word?" I laughed. + +"Yes," he answered, "and remember, Miss, actions speak louder than words, +too! But, my dear, it's a comfort to teach you anything; and when I saw +you trying so carefully to follow directions to-night, I swear I almost +prayed for the applause you were so honestly earning. You are a brick, my +girl! oh, I don't mean one of those measly little common building +bricks--I mean a great lovely Roman tile!" + +And when, in God's good time, success came to me, as I entered the +green-room at the Fifth Avenue one evening, a tall man in a gray suit +released himself from a bevy of pretty women, and coming over to me, held +out his hands, saying: "Did I ever make any remarks to you about building +materials?" and, laughingly, I answered: "Yes, sir, you said something +about bricks some years ago." + +And while I ran away to change, he called after me: "Say, 'Jones's Baby' +isn't on to-night, is it?" and immediately began to tell about _Emilia_, +and such is the power of imagination that he declared "She raged up and +down behind the scenes crying 'Murder,' till the very house broke loose, +and _right through all the pealing of the bells high and clear, you heard +her voice topping everything_!" + +I was resting and getting breath while the bell clanged, remember, but so +much for human memory. + +It is strange how often the merest accident or the utterance of a chance +word may harden wavering intentions into a fixed resolve. Though I am not +aggressive, there is in me a trace of bull-dog tenacity, made up of +patient endurance and sustained effort. Rather slow to move, when I am +aroused I simply _cannot_ let go my hold while breath is in me, unless I +have had my will, have attained my object. + +Perhaps people may wonder why I retained my anomalous position in that +theatre--why I did not follow the advice of some of the lady stars, who +gave me a kindly thought and word now and then. And at the risk of giving +them a poor opinion of my wisdom, I present the reason that actuated me. +One day at rehearsal, while waiting for the stage to be reset, several of +the actresses gossiped about theatrical matters. One had a letter from a +friend who announced her advance to "first walking lady," which turned +the talk to promotion generally, and laughingly she asked me: "What line +of business shall you choose, Clara, when your turn comes?" but before I +could reply, the eldest woman present sneered: "Oh, she can save herself +the trouble of choosing; if she's ever advanced it will be in some other +city than this." + +I was astonished; I had just made one of my small hits, and had a nice +little notice in the paper, but it did not occur to me that _envy_ could +sustain itself, keeping warm and strong and bitter on such slight +nourishment as that. And then, she of the letter, answered: "Why, Clara's +getting along faster than anyone else in the company, and I shall expect +to see her playing leading business before so very many seasons pass by." + +"Leading business here?" cried the other, "I guess not!" + +"Oh," laughed the first, "I see, you mean that Mrs. Ellsler will claim +the leading parts as long as she lives? Well, then, I shall expect to see +Clara playing the leading juveniles." + +"Well, you go right on expecting, and your hair will be as gray as mine +is, when she gets into any line of business in this town!" + +Unspeakably wounded, I asked, timidly: "But if I work hard and learn to +act well, can't I hold a position as well as anyone else?" + +She looked contemptuously at me, and then answered: "No, you must be a +fool if you suppose that after standing about in the ballet for months on +end that Cleveland will ever accept you in a respectable line of +business. You've got to go to some other place, where you are not known, +and then come back as a stranger, if you want to be accepted here." + +A dull anger began to burn in me--there was something so suggestive of +shame in the words, "Some other place, where you are not known." I had +nothing to hide. I could work, and by and by I should be able to act as +well as any of them--better perhaps. I felt my teeth come together with a +snap, the bull-dog instinct was aroused. I looked very steadily at the +sneering speaker and said: "I shall never leave this theatre till I am +leading woman." And they all laughed, but it was a promise, and all these +provoking years I was by way of keeping it. The undertaking was hard, +perhaps it was foolish, but of the group of women who laughed at me that +day every one of them lived to see my promise kept to the letter. When I +left Cleveland it was to go as leading woman to Cincinnati, one season +before I entered New York. + +But after I had at last escaped the actual ballet, and was holding a +recognized position, I was still treated quite _en haut--en bas_ by the +management. Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler had acquired the old-shoe habit. I was +the easy old dramatic slipper, which it was pleasant to slip on so +easily, but doubly pleasant to be able to shake off without effort. + +That you may thoroughly understand, I will explain that I was an +excellent _Amelia_ in "The Robbers" when a rather insignificant star +played the piece, but when a Booth or some star of like magnitude +appeared as _Charles de Moor_, then the easy slipper was dropped off, and +Mrs. Ellsler herself played _Amelia_. Any part belonging to me by right +could be claimed by that lady, if she fancied it, and if she wearied of +it, it came back to me. When we acted in the country in the summer-time, +at Akron or Canton, where there were real theatres, she played +_Parthenia_ or _Pauline_ in the "Lady of Lyons," or any other big part; +but if the next town was smaller, I played _Parthenia_ or _Pauline_ or +what not. Because I had once been in the ballet I had become an old pair +of dramatic slippers, to be slipped on or kicked off at will--rather +humiliating to the spirit, but excellent training for the growing +actress, and I learned much from these queer "now-you're-in-it and now +you're-not-in-it" sort of casts, and having much respect and admiration +for Mr. Ellsler, I fortunately followed in his wake, rather than in that +of any woman. He was one of the most versatile of actors. _Polonius_ or +_Dutchy_ (the opposite to Chanfrau's _Mose_), crying old men or broad +farce-comedy old men. Often he doubled _King Duncan_ and _Hecate_ in +"Macbeth," singing any of the witches when a more suitable _Hecate_ was +on hand--acquainted with the whole range of the "legitimate," his +greatest pleasure was in acting some "bit" that he could elaborate into a +valuable character. I remember the "switch-man" in "Under the +Gaslight"--it could not have been twenty lines long, yet he made of him +so cheery, so jolly, so kindly an old soul, everyone was sorry when he +left the stage. He always had a good notice for the work, and a hearty +reception ever after the first night. It was from him I learned my +indifference to the length of my parts. The value of a character cannot +always be measured by the length and number of its speeches, but I think +the only word of instruction he ever gave me was: "Speak loud--speak +distinctly," which was certainly good as far as it went. He was the most +genial of men, devotedly fond of children, he was "Uncle John" to them +all, and while never famous for the size of the salaries he paid, he was +so good a friend to his people that he often had trouble in making +desirable changes, and the variegated and convoluted falsehoods he +invented in order to get rid of one excessively bad old actor with an +affectionate heart, who wished to stay at a reduced salary, must lay +heavy on his conscience to this hour. + +I used to wonder why he had never taken to starring, but he said he had +not had enough self-assertion. He was a hard-working man, but he seemed +to lack resolution. He had opinions--not convictions. He was always +second in his own theatre--often letting "I dare not wait upon I would." +After years of acquaintanceship, not to say friendship, when my ambition +had been aroused, and I turned hopeful eyes toward New York, Mr. Ellsler +opposed me bitterly, telling me I must be quite mad to think that the +metropolis would give me a hearing. He said many pleasant and encouraging +things, or wrote them, since I was in Cincinnati then. Among them I find: +"The idea of your acting in New York; why, better actresses than you are, +or can ever hope to be, have been driven broken-hearted from its stage. +Do you suppose you could tie the shoe of Eliza Logan, one of the greatest +actresses that ever lived--but yet not good enough for New York? How +about Julia Dean, too? Go East, and be rejected, and then see what +manager will want you in the West." + +Verily not an encouraging friend. Again I find: "Undoubtedly you are the +strongest, the most original, and the youngest leading lady in the +profession--but why take any risk? why venture into New York, where you +may fail? at any rate, wait _ten years_, till you are surer of yourself." + +Good heavens! If I was original and strong in the West, why should I wait +ten years before venturing into the East? + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH + + I recall the Popularity and too Early Death of Edwin Adams. + + +I hear many tales of the insolence of stars--of their overbearing +manners, and their injustice to "little people," as the term goes; but +personally I have seen almost nothing of it. In the old days stars were +generally patient and courteous in their manners to the supporting +companies. + +Among the stars whose coming was always hailed with joy was Edwin Adams, +he of the golden voice, he who should have prayed with fervor, both day +and night: "Oh, God! protect me from my friends!" He was so popular with +men, they sought him out, they followed him, and they generally expressed +their liking through the medium of food and drink. Like every other +sturdy man that's worth his salt, he could stand off an enemy, but he was +as weak as water in the hands of a friend, and thus it came about that he +often stood in slippery places, and though he fell again and again, yet +was he forgiven as often as he sinned, and heartily welcomed back the +next season, so great was his power to charm. + +He was not handsome, he was not heroic in form, but there was such dash +and go, such sincerity and naturalness in all his work, that whether he +was love-making or fighting, singing or dying, he convinced you he was +the character's self, whether that character was the demented victim of +the _Bastille_, young _Rover_ in "Wild Oats," or that most gallant +gentleman _Mercutio_, in which no greater ever strode than that of Edwin +Adams. His buoyancy of spirit, his unconquerable gayety made it seem but +natural his passion for jesting should go with him to the very grave. +Many a fine _Mercutio_ gives: + + "----a plague o' both your houses!" + +with a resentful bitterness that implies blame to _Romeo_ for his "taking +off," which would be a most cruel legacy of grief and remorse to leave to +his young friend--but Adams was that brave _Mercutio_: + + "That gallant spirit that aspired the clouds, + Which too untimely here did scorn the earth." + +and whose last quips, coming faintly across paling lips, expressed still +good-natured fun, and so: + + "----a plague o' both your houses!" + +but no blame at all. + +His grace of movement and his superb voice were his greatest gifts. Most +stars had one rather short play which they reserved for Saturday nights, +that they might be able to catch their night train _en route_ for the +next engagement; so it happened that Mr. Adams, having bravely held +temptation from him during the first five nights, generally yielded to +the endearments of his friends by the sixth, and was most anyone but +himself when he came to dress for the performance of a play most +suggestively named: "The Drunkard." It was a painful and a humiliating +sight to see him wavering uncertainly in the entrance. All brightness, +intelligence, and high endeavor extinguished by liquor's murky fog. His +apologies were humble and evidently sincere, but the sad memory was one +not to be forgotten. + +I had just married, and we were in San Francisco. I was rehearsing for my +engagement there. The papers said Mr. Adams had arrived from Australia +and had been carried on a stretcher to a hotel, where, with his devoted +wife by his side, he lay dying. A big lump rose in my throat, tears +filled my eyes. I asked my husband, who had greatly admired the actor, +and who was glad to pay him any courtesy or service possible, to call, +leave cards, and if he saw Mrs. Adams, which was improbable, to try to +coax her out for a drive, if but for half an hour, and to deliver a +message of remembrance and sympathy from me to her husband. To his +surprise, he was admitted by the dying man's desire to his room, where +the worn, weary, self-contained, ever gently smiling wife sat and, like +an automaton, fanned hour by hour, softly, steadily fanned breath between +those parched lips, that whispered a gracious message of congratulation +and thanks. + +Mrs. Adams never left him, scarce took her eyes from him. Poor wife! who +knew she could hold him but a few hours longer. + +My husband was deeply moved, and when he tried to describe to me that +wasted frame--those helpless hands, whose faintly twitching fingers could +no longer pluck at the folded sheet, my mind obstinately refused to +accept the picture, and instead, through a blur of tears, I saw him as on +that last morning, when in his prime, strong and gentle, at his rehearsal +of "Enoch Arden," he said to me: "I am disappointed to the very heart, +Clara, that you are not my _Annie Lee_." + +He took his hat off, he drew his hand across his eyes. "I can't find +her," he said, with that touch of pathos that made his voice +irresistible; "no, I have not found her yet--they are not innocent and +brave! They are bouncing, buxom creatures or they are whimpering little +milk-sops. They are never fisher-maidens, flower-pure, yet strong as the +salt of the sea! She loved them both, Clara, yet she was no more weak nor +bad than when, with childish lips, she innocently promised to be 'a +little wife to both' the angry lads--to Philip and young Enoch! Now your +eyes are sea-eyes, and your voice--oh, I am disappointed! I thought I +should find my _Annie_ here!" + +And so I see him now as I think with tender sorrow of the actor who was +so strong and yet so weak--dear Ned Adams! + +When Mr. Joseph Jefferson came to us I found his acting nothing less than +a revelation. Here, in full perfection, was the style I had feebly, +almost blindly been reaching for. This man, this poet of _comedy_, as he +seemed to me, had so perfectly wedded nature to art that they were indeed +one. Here again I found the immense value of "business" the most minute, +the worth of restraint, if you had power to restrain, and learned that +his perfect naturalness was the result of his exquisite art in cutting +back and training nature's too great exuberance. + +I was allowed to play _Meenie_, his daughter, in the play of "Rip Van +Winkle," and my delight knew no bounds. He was very gentle and kind, he +gave me pleasant words of praise for my work; he was very great, and--and +his eyes were fine, and I approved of his chin, too, and I was, in fact, +rapidly blending the actor and the man in one personality. In the last +act, when kneeling at his feet, during our long wait upon the stage, I +knelt and adored! and he--oh, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson, that I should +say it, but _did_ you not hold my fingers unnecessarily close when you +made some mild little remarks that were not in the play, but which filled +my breast with quite outrageous joy, and pride--indeed, my crop of young +affections, always rather a sparse growth, came very near being gathered +into a small sheaf and laid at your feet. + +Fortunately, I learned in time that there was an almost brand-new wife in +the hotel next door, and I looked at him with big, reproachful eyes and +kept my fingers to myself, and wisely put off the harvesting of my +affections until some distant day. + +Mind you, I was well within my rights in this matter. Girls always fall +in love with stars--some fall in love with all of them, but that must be +fatiguing; besides, as I said before, my affections were of such sparse +growth they could not go round. Yet since I could honor thus but one +star, I must say I look back with complete approval upon my early choice, +and the shock to my heart did not prevent me from treasuring up some +kindly words of advice from the artist-actor anent the making-up of eyes +for the stage. + +Said he to me one evening: "My girl, I want to speak to you about that +'make-up' you have on your eyes." + +"Yes, sir?" I answered, interrogatively, feeling very hot and +uncomfortable, "have I too much on?" + +"Well, yes," he said, "I think you have, though you have much less than +most women wear." + +"Oh, yes," I hurriedly interposed, "there was a French dancer here who +covered nearly a third of her eyelids with a broad blue-black band of +pomatum, and she said----" + +"Oh," he protested, "I know, she said it made the eyes large and +lustrous, and as you see yourself in the glass it does seem to have that +effect; but, by the way, what do you think of my eyes?" + +And with truth and promptness, I made answer: "I think they're lovely." + +My unexpected candor proved rather confusing, for for a moment he +"Er-er-erd," and finally said: "I meant as a feature of acting, they are +good acting eyes, aren't they? Well, you don't find _them_ made up, do +you? Now listen to me, child, always be guided as far as possible by +nature. When you make up your face, you get powder on your eyelashes, +nature made them dark, so you are free to touch the lashes themselves +with ink or pomade, but you should not paint a great band about your eye, +with a long line added at the corner to rob it of every bit of +expression. And now as to the beauty this lining is supposed to bring, +some night when you have time I want you to try a little experiment. Make +up your face carefully, darken your brows and the lashes of one eye; as +to the other eye, you must load the lashes with black pomade, then draw a +black line beneath the eye, and a broad line on its upper lid, and a +final line out from the corner. The result will be an added lustre to the +made-up eye, a seeming gain in brilliancy; but now, watching your +reflection all the time, move slowly backward from the glass, and an odd +thing will happen, that made-up eye will gradually grow smaller and +smaller, until, at a distance much less than that of the auditorium, it +will really look more like a round black hole than anything else, and +will be absolutely without expression. You have an admirable stage +eye--an actor's eye, sensitive, expressive, well opened, it's a pity to +spoil it with a load of blacking." + +And I said, gratefully: "I'll never do it again, sir," and I never have, +first from respect to a great actor's opinion, and gratitude for his +kindly interest, later having tried his experiment, from the conviction +that he was right, and finally because my tears would have sent inky +rivulets down my cheeks had I indulged in black-banded eyes. So in all +these years of work, just once, in playing a tricky, treacherous, +plotting female, that I felt should be a close-eyed, thin-lipped +creature, I have painted and elongated my eyes, otherwise I have kept my +promise "not to do it again." + +I met Mr. Jefferson in Paris at that dreadful time when he was threatened +with blindness, and I never shall forget his gentle patience, his +marvelous courage. That was a day of real rejoicing to me, when the news +came that his sight was saved. Blindness coming upon any man is a horror, +but to a man who can see nature as Joseph Jefferson sees her it would +have been an almost incredible cruelty. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH + + I See an Actress Dethroned--I Make Myself a Promise, for the World Does + Move. + + +To be discarded by the public, that is the _bete noire_, the +unconquerable dread and terror of the actor. To fail in the great +struggle for supremacy is nothing compared to the agony of falling after +the height has once been won. + +Few people can think of the infamous casting down of the great column +Vendome without a shiver of pain--the smashing of the memorial tablet, +the shattering of the statue, these are sights to shrink from, yet what +does such shrinking amount to when compared to the pain of seeing a human +being thrust from the sunlight of public popularity into the darkness of +obscurity? + +I was witness once to the discrowning of an actress, and if I could +forget the anguish of her eyes, the pallor beneath her rouge, I would be +a most grateful woman. + +She had been handsome in her prime, handsome in the regular-featured, +statuesque fashion so desirable for an actress of tragic parts; but Mrs. +P---- (for I shall call her only by that initial, as it seems to me that +naming her fully would be unkind) had reached, yes, had passed, middle +age and had wandered far into distant places, had known much sorrow, and, +alas, for her, had not noticed that her profession, like everything +alive, like the great God-made world itself, moved, moved, moved! So not +noticing, she, poor thing, stood still in her method of work, loyally +doing her best in the style of acting that had been so intensely admired +in her triumphant youth. + +She had most successfully starred in Cleveland years before, but at the +time I speak of she was returning from distant parts, widowed and poor, +yet quite, quite confident of her ability to please the public, and with +plans all made to star two, possibly three, years, long enough to secure +a little home and tiny income, when she would retire gracefully from the +sight of the regretful public. Meantime she entreated Mr. Ellsler, if +possible, to give her an engagement, that she might earn money enough to +carry her to New York and see the great agents there. + +By some unlooked-for chance the very next week was open, and rather +tremulously as manager, but kind-heartedly as man, Mr. Ellsler engaged +her for that week. + +The city was billed accordingly: "Mrs. P----, the Queen of +Tragedy!"--"The celebrated Mrs. P----, Cleveland's great +favorite!"--"Especial engagement of Mrs. P----!" etc., etc. + +I had a tiny part in the old Grecian tragedy she opened in. I came early, +as was my wont, and when dressed went out to look at the house--good +heavens! I gasped. Poor? it was worse than poor. Bad? it was worse than +bad. My heart sank for her as I recalled how, that morning, she had +asked, with a little nonchalant air of: "It doesn't really matter, of +course, but do the people here throw their flowers still, or do they send +them up over the footlights?" Flowers? Oh, poor Mrs. P----! + +The overture had ended before she came out of her dressing-room, so she +had no warning of what the house was like. She was all alight with +pleasant anticipation. At a little distance she looked remarkably well; +her Grecian robes hung gracefully, her hair was arranged and filleted +correctly and becomingly, her movements were assured; only looking at the +deeply drawn lines about her mouth, made one regret that her opening +speeches referred so distinctly to her "dewy youth"; but Cleveland was +well used to that sort of contradiction, and I might have taken heart of +grace for her if only she had not looked so very pleased and happy. + +The opening scene of the old-fashioned play was well on when the star +appeared, and smiling graciously--faced the almost empty house. She +halted--she gave the sort of sudden gasp that a dash of icy water in the +face might cause. The humiliating half-dozen involuntary hand-claps that +had greeted her fell into silence as she came fully into view, where she +stood dismayed, stricken--for she was an old actress and she read the +signs aright, she knew this was the great _taboo_. + +Her face whitened beneath her rouge, her lips moved silently. One moment +she turned her back squarely upon the audience, for she knew her face was +anguished, and moved by the same instinct that makes an Indian draw the +blanket across his dying face, or the wounded animal seek deepest +solitude, she sought to hide _her_ suffering from the coldly observant +few. + +With the light stricken from her eyes they looked dull and sunken, while +every nerve and muscle of her poor face seemed a-quiver. It was a +dreadful moment for us who looked on and understood. + +Presently she clinched her hands, drew a long breath, and facing about, +took up the burden of the play, and in cold, flat tones began her part. +She did her best in the old, stilted declamatory style, that was as dead +as many of the men and women were who used to applaud it. Once only the +audience warmed to her a trifle, and as she accepted their half-hearted +"call," her sad eyes roved over the empty spaces of the house, a faint, +tired smile touched her lips, while two great tears coursed down her +cheeks. It was the moment of renunciation! They denied her right to the +crown of popularity, and she, with that piteous smile, bowed to their +verdict, as an actress must. + +At the curtain's final fall her stardom was over. She went very quietly +to Mr. Ellsler and gave him back the engagement he had granted her, +saying, simply: "They do not want me any longer." + +A short time after that, she sat one evening in Mr. Ellsler's family box, +and with wide, astonished eyes gazed at the packed house which greeted +the jig, the clog, the song, the banjo of Miss Lotta, whose innocent +deviltries were bringing her a fortune, and when, in response to a +"call," instead of appearing, Miss Lotta thrust her foot and ankle out +beyond the curtain and wriggled them at the delighted crowd, poor Mrs. +P---- drew her hand across her forehead and said, in bewildered tones: +"But--I don't understand!" + +No, she could not understand, and Miss Lotta had not yet faced New York, +hence John Brougham, the witty, wise, and kindly Irish gentleman, had not +yet had his opportunity of summing up the brilliant and erratic star, as +he did later on in these words: "Act, acting, actress? what are you +thinking of? she's no actress, she's--why, she's a little dramatic +cocktail!" which was a delicious Broughamism and truthful withal. + +But that sad night, when Mrs. P---- first set her feet in the path of +obscurity, I took to myself a lesson, and said: "While I live, I will +move. I will not stand still in my satisfaction, should success ever come +to me--but will try to keep my harness bright by action, in at least an +effort to keep abreast with the world, for verily, verily, it does +move!" + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH + + Mr. Lawrence Barrett the Brilliant and his Brother Joseph the + Unfortunate. + + +There were few stars with whom I took greater pleasure in acting than +with Mr. Lawrence Barrett. I sometimes wonder if even now this profession +really knows what great reason it has to be proud of him. He was a man +respected by all, admired by many, and if loved but by few, theirs was a +love so profound and so tender it amply sufficed. + +We are a censorious people, and just as our greatest virtue is generosity +in giving, so our greatest fault is the eagerness with which we seek out +the mote in our neighbor's eye, without feeling the slightest desire for +the removal of the beam in our own eye. Thus one finds that the first and +clearest memory actors have of Mr. Barrett is of his irascible temper and +a certain air of superiority, not of his erudition, of the high position +he won socially as well as artistically, of the almost Titanic struggle +of his young manhood with adverse circumstances. + +Nor does that imply the slightest malice on their part. Actors, as a +family trait, have a touch of childishness about them which they come by +honestly enough. We all know the farther we get from infancy the weaker +the imagination grows. Now it is imagination that makes the man an actor, +so it is not wonderful if with the powerful creative fancy of childhood +he should also retain a touch of its petulance and self-consciousness. +Thus to many actors Mr. Barrett's greatness is lost sight of in the +memory of some dogmatic utterance or sharp reproval that wounded +self-love. + +It would seem like presumption for me to offer any word of praise for the +artistic work of his later years; the world remembers it; the world +knows, too, how high he climbed, how secure was his position; but twice I +have heard the stories of his earlier years--some from the lips of his +brave wife, once from the lips of that beloved brother Joe, who was yet +his dread and sorrow--and at each telling my throat ached at the pain of +it, while my nerves thrilled with admiration for such endurance, such +splendid determination. + +A paradox is, I believe, something seemingly absurd, yet true in fact. In +that case I was not so very far wrong, in spite of general laughter, +when, after my first rehearsal with him, I termed Mr. Barrett a man of +cold enthusiasm. "But," one cried to me, "you stupid--that's a paradox! +don't you see your words contradict each other?" + +"Well," I answered, with shame-faced obstinacy, "perhaps they do, but +they are not contradicted by _him_. You all call him icy-cold, and _I_ +know he is truly enthusiastic over the possibilities of this play, so +that makes what I call cold enthusiasm, however par-a-paradoxy (?) _it_ +sounds." + +And now, after all the years, I can approve that childish judgment. He +was a man whose intellectual enthusiasm was backed by a cold +determination that would never let him say "die" while he had breath in +his body and a stage to rehearse on. + +I have a miserable memory for names, and often in the middle of a remark +the name I intended to mention will pass from my remembrance utterly; so, +all my life, I have had the very bad habit of trying to make my hearers +understand whom I meant by imitating or mentioning some trait peculiar to +the nameless one, and I generally succeeded. + +As, for instance, when I wished to tell whom I had seen taking away a +certain book, I said: "It was Mr.--er--er, oh, you know, Mr.--er, why +this man," and I pulled in my head like a turtle and hitched up my +shoulders to my ears, and the anxious owner cried: "Oh, Thompson has it, +has he?" Thompson having, so far as _we_ could see, no neck at all--my +pantomime suggested his name. + +Everyone can recall the enormous brow of Mr. Barrett, and how beneath his +great, burning eyes his cheeks hollowed suddenly in, thinning down to his +sensitive mouth. I was on the stage in New Orleans, the first morning of +my engagement there (I was under Mr. Daly's management, but he had loaned +me for a fortnight), and I started out with: "Mr. Daly said to please ask +Mr.----," away went the name--goodness gracious, should I forget my own +name next! + +The stage manager suggested: "Mr. Rogers." + +"No, oh, no! I mean Mr.--er--er," and I trailed off helplessly. + +"Mr. Seymour?" offered a lady. + +"No, no! that's not it!" I cried; "why, goodness mercy me! you all know +whom I mean--the--the actor with the _hungry eyes_?" + +"Oh, Barrett!" they shouted, all save one voice, that with a mighty laugh +cried out: "That's my brother Larry, God bless him! no one could miss +that description, for sure he looks as hungry to-day as ever he did when +he felt hungry to his heart's core!" + +And so it was that I first met poor Joe Barrett, who worshipped the +brother whose sore torment he was. For this great, broad-shouldered, +ruddy-faced fellow with the boyish laugh had ever in his veins the +craving for liquor--that awful inherited appetite that can nullify prayer +and break down the most fixed determination. + +"Ah!" he cried to me, "no one, no one can ever know how good Larry has +been to me, for while he is fighting and struggling to rise, every little +while some lapse of mine drags him back a bit. Yet he never casts me +off--never disowns me. He has had to discharge me for the sake of +discipline here, but he has re-engaged me. He has sent me away, but he +has taken me back again. I promise, and fail to keep my promise. I fall, +and he picks me up. Through the cursed papers I have dragged my brother +through the mud, but the sweet Saviour could hardly forgive me more fully +than Larry does, for, look you, he never forgets that I am the son of my +father, who was accursed before me, while he is the son of our poor +mother--blessed be her name! It isn't that I don't try. I keep straight +until the agony of longing begins to turn into a mad desire to do bodily +harm to someone--anyone, and then, fearing worse, I drink my fill, and +the papers find me out, and are not content to tell of the disgraceful +condition of Joseph Barrett, but must add, always, 'the brother of the +prominent actor, Mr. Lawrence Barrett.' Poor Larry! poor little delicate +chap that he used to be, with his big, brainy head--too heavy for his +weak neck and frail body to carry." + +And then he told me of their sorrowful life, their poverty. The +often-idle father and his dislike for the delicate boy, whose only moment +of happiness was when the weary mother, the poor supper over, sat for a +little to breathe and rest, and held his heavy head upon her loving +breast, while Joe sang his songs or told all the happenings of the day. + +That happy Joe, who had no pride and was quite as satisfied without a +seat to his small trousers as with one! Then he told me how hard it was +for Lawrence to learn; how he had to grind and grind at the simplest +lesson, but once having acquired it, it was his for life. + +"Why, even now," said he, "in confidence I'm telling you, my brother is +studying like a little child at French, and it does seem that he cannot +learn it. He works so desperately over it, a doctor has warned him he +must choose between French and his many 'parts' or break down from +overwork. But he _will_ go on hammering at his _parlez-vous_ until he +learns them or dies trying." + +"If you were to live with your brother, might not that help to keep you +strong?" I asked. + +"Now, my dear little woman," he smiled, "Larry is human, in some +respects, if he is almost God-like toward me. Remember he has a young +family now, and though his wife is as good as gold and always patient +with me, I am not the kind of example a man would care to place before +his little ones, and as Lawrence is devoured with ambition for them and +their future, he rightly guards them from too close contact with the drag +and curse of his own life, in whom he, and he alone, can see the sturdy +tow-headed brother of the old boyish days, who saved him from many and +many a kick and thump his delicate body could ill have borne." + +Joe told me of his dead wife--Viola Crocker that was--the niece of Mrs. +Bowers and Mrs. Conway; of their happiness and their misery. Describing +himself as having been "in heaven or in hell--without any betwixts and +betweens." His devotion to me was very great. He was "hard-up" for money, +as the men express it, but he would manage to bring me a single rose or +one bunch of grapes or a half-dozen mushrooms or some such small offering +every day; and learning of his bitter mortification because he could not +hire a carriage to take me out to see the curious old French cemetery, I +made him supremely happy by expressing a desire to ride in one of those +funny bob-tailed, mule-drawn street-cars--the result being a trip by my +mother, Mr. Barrett, and myself to the famous cemetery. + +I don't know that I ever heard anyone sing Irish and Scottish ballads +more tenderly, more pathetically than did Joe Barrett, and as my mother +was very fond of old songs, he used to sit and sing one after another for +her. That day there was no one in the crawling little car but we three, +and presently he began to sing. But, oh, what was it that he sang? Irish, +unmistakably--a lament, rising toward its close into the _keen_ of some +clan. It wrung the very heart. + +"Don't!" I exclaimed. My mother's face was turned away, my throat ached, +even Joe's eyes had filled. "What is it?" I asked. + +"I don't know its name," he answered, "I have always put it on programmes +as 'A Lament.' I learned it from an Irish emigrant-lad, who was from the +North, and who was dying fast from consumption and home-hunger. Is not +that wail chilling? As he gave the song it seemed like a message from the +dying." + +At the end of our stroll among the flowers and trees and past those +strange stone structures that look so like serious-minded bake-ovens, +having to wait for a car, we sat on a stone bench, and in that quiet city +of the dead Joe's voice rose, tenderly reverent, in that simple air that +was yet an anguish of longing, followed by a wail for the dead. + +My mother wept silently. I said, softly: "It's a plaint and a farewell," +and Joe brought his eyes back from the great cross, blackly silhouetted +against the flaming sky, and slowly said: "Beloved among women, it is a +message--a message from the dying or the dead, believe that." + +And a time came when--well, when _almost_ I did believe that. + +Later on, when Mr. Barrett stood second only to Mr. Booth in his +profession, well established, well off, well dressed, polished and +refined of manner, aye, and genial, too, to those he liked, I came by +accident upon a most gracious act of his and, following it up, found him +deep in a conspiracy to deceive a stricken woman into receiving the aid +her piteous determination to stand alone made impossible to offer openly. +I looked at the generous, prosperous, intellectual, intensely active +gentleman, surrounded by clever wife and the pretty, thoroughly educated +daughters, who were chaperoned in all their walks to and from park or +music-lesson or shopping-trip, and I wondered at the distance little +"Larry," with the heavy head and frail body, had traveled, and bowed +respectfully to such magnificent energy. + +Even then there arose a cry from the profession that Mr. Barrett was +dictatorial, that he assumed airs of superiority. Mr. Barrett was +wrapped up, soul and body, in the proper production of the play in hand. +He was keenly observant and he was sensitive. When an actor had his mind +fixed upon a smoke or a glass of beer, and cared not one continental +dollar whether the play failed or succeeded, so long as he got his +"twenty dollars per--," Mr. Barrett knew it, and became "dictatorial" in +his effort to force the man into doing his work properly. I worked with +him, both as a nobody and as somebody, and I know that an honest effort +to comprehend and carry out his wishes was recognized and appreciated. + +As for his airs of superiority--well, the fact is he was superior to +many. He was intellectual and he was a student to the day of his death. +When work at the theatre was over he turned to study. He never was well +acquainted with Tom and Dick, nor yet with Harry. His back fitted a +lamp-post badly. He would not have known how "to jolly the crowd." He was +not a full, voluminous, and ready story-teller for the boys, who called +him cold and hard. God knows he had needed the coldness and the so-called +hardness, or how could he have endured the privations of the long journey +from his weary mother's side to this position of honor. + +Cold, hard, dictatorial, superior? Well, there is a weak lean-on-somebody +sort of woman, who will love any man who will feed and shelter her--she +doesn't count. But when a clear-minded, business-like, clever woman, a +wife for many years, loves her husband with the tenderest sentiment and +devotion, I'm ready to wager something that it was _tenderness_ and +_devotion_ in the husband that first aroused like sentiments in the wife. + +Mrs. Barrett was shrewd, far-seeing, business-like--a devoted and +watchful mother, but her love for her husband had still the freshness, +the delicate sentiment of young wifehood. When she thought fit, she +bullied him shamefully; when she thought fitter, she "guyed" him +unmercifully. Think of that! And it was delightful to see the great, +solemn-eyed personification of dignity smilingly accepting her buffets. + +But, oh, to hear that wife tell of the sorrows and trials they had faced +together, of their absurd makeshifts, of their small triumphs over +poverty, of Lawrence's steady advance in his profession, of that +beautiful day when they moved into a little house all by themselves, when +he became, as he laughingly boasted, "a householder, not a forlorn, +down-trodden boarder!" + +Their family, besides themselves, then consisted of one little girl and +Lawrence's beloved old mother, and he had a room to study in in peace, +and the two women talked and planned endlessly about curtains and +furniture, and--oh, well, about some more very small garments that would, +God willing, be needed before a very great while. And one day Lawrence +looked about his little table, and said: "It's too good, it can't last, +it can't!" and the women kissed him and laughed at him; yet all the time +he was right, it did not last. An awful bolt seemed to fall from the blue +sky. It was one of those pitiful disasters that sometimes come upon the +very old--particularly to those who have endured much, suffered much, as +had the elder Mrs. Barrett in the past. + +I wept as I heard the story of the devoted son's dry-eyed agony, of the +awful fears his condition aroused in the minds of those close to him, and +then suddenly she, the wife, had been stricken down, and her danger and +that of the tiny babe had brought him to his old self again. + +He worked on then for some months, grateful for the sparing of his dear +ones, when quite suddenly and painlessly the stricken old mother passed +from sleep to life everlasting. Then when Joseph was to be summoned--Joe +who worshipped the mother's footprint in the dust--he was not to be +found. He had fallen again into disgrace, had been discharged, had +disappeared, no one knew whither. + +"Oh, dear Father!" cried Mrs. Barrett, "what did not Lawrence suffer for +Joe! knowing what his agony would be when he knew all--but we could do no +more. The funeral took place. White as marble, Lawrence sent us all +home, and himself waited till the last clod of earth was piled upon the +grave; then waited till the men had gone, waited to kneel and pray a +moment before leaving the old mother there alone. And as he knelt he +noted how nearly dark it was, and thought he must not linger long or the +gates would be locked upon him. As he rose from his knees, he was +startled to see, through the dusk, a tall form coming toward him. It +would dodge behind a monument, and after a moment's pause would come a +little nearer. Suddenly the drooping, lurching figure became familiar to +him. With a groan he hid himself behind a tombstone and waited--waited +until suspicion became certainty, and he knew that the bent, weary +funeral guest was his brother, Joe! + +"He held his peace until the wanderer found his way along the darkening +path to that pathetic stretch of freshly broken earth, where, with an +exceeding bitter cry, he flung his arms above his head and fell all his +length along the grave that held the sweetest and the holiest thing God +had ever given him, an honest, loving mother, and clutched the damp clods +in his burning hands, and gasped out: 'Oh, mother! I have hungered and I +have tramped with the curse upon me, too; I have hungered and tramped so +far, so far, hoping just to be in time to see your dear face once more, +and now they've shut you away from me, from the bad boy you never turned +your patient eyes away from! Oh, mother! whatever can I do without you, +all alone! all alone!' + +"At that child-like cry from the broken man, prostrate on the grave, +Lawrence Barrett's heart turned to water, and kneeling down he lifted to +his breast the tear-blurred, drink-blemished face of his brother, and +kissed him as his mother might have done. Thus they prayed together for +the repose of the soul of their beloved, and then, with his arm about the +wanderer, to steady his failing steps, Lawrence led him to his little +home, and, as they entered, he turned and said: 'Joe, can't you take back +those words, "all alone," can't you?' and Joe nodded his head, and +throwing his arms about his brother's neck, answered: 'Never alone, while +my little brother Larry lives and forgives!'" + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH + + I play "Marie" to Oblige--Mr. Barrett's Remarkable Call--Did I Receive + a Message from the Dying or the Dead? + + +From the time when, as a ballet-girl, I was called forward and given the +part of _Marie_ in "The Marble Heart," a play Mr. Barrett was starring +in, to the then distant day of that really splendid combination with Mr. +Edwin Booth, I never saw the former when he was not burning with +excitement over some production he had in mind, if not yet in rehearsal. +Even in his sleep he saw perfect pictures of scenery not yet painted, +just as before "Ganalon" he used to dream of sharp lance and gay pennon +moving in serried ranks, of long lines of nobles and gentlemen who wore +the Cross of the Crusader. + +His friends were among the highest of God's Aristocracy of Brains--'twas +odd that sculptors, artists, poets, thinkers should strike hands with so +"cold" a man and call him friend! + +I remember well the dismayed look that came upon his face when I was +ordered from the ballet ranks to take the place of the lady--a hard, +high-voiced soubrette, who was to have played _Marie_, had not a sore +throat mercifully prevented her. But at my first "Thank you--I'd rather +go--yonder--," pointing to the distant convent, his eyes widened, +suddenly a sort of tremor came to his lips. He was at my side in an +instant, telling me to indicate my convent as on the opposite side, so +that my own attitude would be more picturesque to the audience. Between +the acts he said to me: "Have you any opinion of _Marie_, Miss er--er?" + +"My name's 'just Clara,'" I kindly interjected. + +"Well," he smiled, "'just Clara,' have you formed any idea of this +_Marie's_ character?" + +"Why," I answered, "to me she seems a perfect walking gratitude; in real +life she would be rather dog-like, I'm afraid; but in the play she is +just beautiful." + +He looked solemnly at me, and then he said: "And _you_ are just +beautiful, too, for you are a little thinking actress. Now if you have +the power of expressing what you think, do you know I am very honestly +interested, 'just Clara,' in your share of to-night's work." + +The play went well as a whole, and as _Marie_ is one of the most tenderly +pathetic creations conceivable, I sat and wept as I told her story; but +imagine my amazement when, as Mr. Barrett bent over my hand, a great hot +tear fell from his cheek upon it. + +"Oh, my girl," he said, when the play was over, "don't let anything on +God's footstool dishearten you. Work! work! you have such power, such +delicacy of expression with it--you _are Marie_, the little stupidly +religious, dog-like 'Marie the resigned,' that you have renamed for me +'Marie the grateful.'" + +When I was leading woman he wished to do that play for a single night. Of +course _Marco_ belonged to me, but the big, handsome, cold-voiced second +woman could well talk through _Marco_, while she would (artistically +speaking) damn _Marie_. Mr. Barrett was very hungry-eyed, there was +positive famine in them, as he mournfully said: "I would give a great +deal to hear you tell _Marie's_ story again--to see you and your little +bundle and bandaged foot. Such a clever touch that--that bandaged foot, +no other _Marie_ dares do that; but you have turned your back on the +'grateful one'; you can't afford to do her again." + +"Mr. Barrett," I asked, "do you wish me to play _Marie_ now?" + +"Do I wish it?" he echoed, "I wish it with all my heart, but I have no +right to ask a sacrifice from you even if it would benefit the whole +performance, as well as give me a personal pleasure." + +"If the manager does not object," I said, "I am quite willing to give up +the leading part and play _Marie_ again." + +He held my hands, he fairly stammered for a moment, then he said: "You +are an _artiste_ and a brave and generous girl. I shall remember this +action of yours, 'just Clara,' always." + +The amazed manager, after some objection, having consented, I once more +put on the rusty black gown, took my small bundle, and asked of the gay +ladies from Paris my way to the convent, yonder--finding in the tears of +the audience and the excellence of the general performance, full reward +for playing second fiddle that evening. + +In my early married days, when the great coffee-urn was still a menace to +my composure and dignity, at a little home-dinner, when Mr. William +Black, the famous writer of Scottish novels, honored me by his presence +on my right, Mr. Barrett on my left, moved, no one knows by what freak of +memory, lifted his glass, and, speaking low, said: "'Just Clara,' your +health!" + +I laughed a little, and was nodding back, when Mr. Black, who saw +everything through those glasses of his, cried out: "Favoritism, +favoritism! why, bless my heart, I drank your health ten minutes ago, and +you never blushed a blush for me! And I am chief guest, and on the right +hand of the hostess--explanations are now in order!" + +And Mr. Barrett said that he would explain on their way to the club, +whereupon Mr. Black wrinkled up his nose delightedly, and said he +"scented a story"--"and, oh," he cried, "it's the sweetest scent in the +world, the most fascinating trail to follow!" + +But I was thankful that he did not hunt down his quarry then and there, +for he could be as mischievous as a squirrel and as persistent as any +_enfant terrible_, if he thought you were depriving him of a story. + +Though tears creep into my eyes at the same moment, yet must I laugh +whenever I think of Mr. Barrett's last "call" upon me. We were +unknowingly stopping in the same hotel. On the way to the dining-room for +a bit of lunch, Mr. Harriott and Mr. Barrett met, exchanged greetings, +and when the latter found I was not going to luncheon, and was moreover +suffering from a most severe attack of neuralgia, he asked if he could +not call upon me for a few moments. + +Mr. Harriott looked doubtful, and while he hesitated, Mr. Barrett hastily +added: "Of course I shall merely say 'How do you do,' and express my +sympathy, since I know something about neuralgia myself--that's all." + +Upon which they turned back, and Mr. Harriott ushered the unexpected, the +spick-and-span caller into my presence, with the reassuring word: "Mr. +Barrett is sparing a moment or two of his time, Clara, to express his +sympathy for you." + +When a woman knows she is an "object," words of welcome for the +unexpected visitor are apt to come haltingly from the tongue, and that I +was an "object" no one can deny. A loose, pink dressing-gown was bad, a +knit white shawl huddled about the shoulders was worse, but, oh, worst of +all, my hair was all scrambled up to the top of my head (hair was dressed +low then), and a broad handkerchief bandage concealed from the eye, but +not from the nose, the presence of a remedial poultice of flour and +brandy. + +Truly it is such acts as this that brings many a well-meaning but +apparently demented husband into the divorce court. Now any friend, +relative, or servant would have bravely but politely prevaricated to the +last gasp rather than have admitted a caller to me in that state, but +husbands have no discretion, husbands have no--well, that's too large a +contract, so I'll keep to that call. + +I was aghast for a moment, but the warm pressure of Mr. Barrett's hand, +his brightening eye gave me such an impression of sincerity in his +pleased greeting that I forgot I was an "object," and asked him to sit +down for a chat, as eagerly as though I had had all my war-paint on. + +We were soon exchanging memories of the past, and Mr. Harriott, having a +business engagement ahead, excused himself and withdrew. Mr. Barrett, +calling after him: "I'll join you in a moment," resumed his conversation. +There still stood on the table a pot of tea and a plate holding two +pieces of toast. They had been meant for my lunch, but neuralgia had the +call, and lunch had been ignored; so, as we talked on and on, presently +Mr. Barrett, seeing my bandage sliding down over my eyes, rose, and, +without pausing in his rapid description of a certain picture he had seen +abroad in its creator's studio, he passed behind me, tightened the knot +of the handkerchief, put the sofa-pillow behind my head, a stool under my +feet, and resumed his seat. + +Then I talked and talked, and grew excited, then thirsty. I drew the tray +nearer and poured out a cup of tea. + +"Give me some," said Mr. Barrett, who was now telling me about a sitting +of Parliament in London. + +"Let me order some that's fresh," I replied. + +"No, no!" he cried, impatiently, "that will be such an interruption--no, +no!" + +I gave him then a cup of cold tea. Presently I broke off a bit of the +stiff and repellant toast, with its chilled, pale gleam of butter, and +nibbled it. His hand went forth and broke off a bit also. We were on a +new poem then, and Mr. Barrett seemed thrilling to his fingertips with +the delight of it. He repeated lines; I questioned his reading; we +experimented, placing emphasis first on this word, then on that. We +generally agreed, but we came an awful cropper over Gladstone. + +How fiercely we clashed over the grand old man those who knew Mr. Barrett +will guess from the fact that during the fray he excitedly undid two +buttons of his tight frock-coat. The ends of his white silk muffler now +hung down his back, fluttering when he moved like a small pair of white +wings. I have a recollection, too, of his rising, and, apparently +unconscious of his act, lighting the gas, while he passionately demanded +of me the reason why Dickens could not create a real woman. + +At last we came up hard and fast against _Hamlet_. The air was thick with +stories. Part of the time we talked together in our eagerness. Mr. +Barrett's coat was quite unbuttoned; the curl on his wide brow had grown +as frizzly as any common curl might grow. Two round, red spots spread +over his high cheek-bones, his eyes were hungrily glowing; he had just +taken a long breath and made a start on an audience with the Pope, when +Mr. Harriott entered and said: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrett, there's a +man outside who is very anxiously inquiring for you." + +"For me?" exclaimed Mr. Barrett, with astonishment, "that's rather +impertinent, it seems to me!" + +Suddenly he noticed the gas-light. He started violently, he pulled out +his watch, then sprang to his feet, crying: "Good God! Harriott, that's +my dresser looking for me--I ought to be in my dressing-room. What will +Mr. Booth think has become of me, and what, in heaven's name, do you +think of me?" + +He hastily buttoned himself into rigidity, rescued the flying ends of his +muffler, and holding my hands for a moment, he laughed: "You are not only +'just Clara,' but you are the only Clara that would make me so utterly +forgetful of all rules of etiquette. Forgive, and good-by!" and he made +an astonishingly hasty exit. + +That "call," that lasted from one till seven, with the accompanying +picture of the stately Lawrence Barrett drinking cold tea and eating +stiff cold toast, while he talked brilliantly of all things under heaven, +is one of my quaintest memories. + +One loves to think of those years of his close relations with Mr. Booth. +Artistically, the combination was an ideal one; commercially, it was a +most successful one; while it certainly brought out qualities of +gentleness and devotion in Mr. Barrett that the public had not +accredited him with. + +The position of manager and co-star was a difficult one, and only +Barrett's loving comprehension of Booth's peculiarities, as well as his +greatness, made that position tenable. Mr. Booth loathed business +details; he was sorrowful and weary; he had tasted all the sweets the +world had to offer, but only their under tang of bitterness was left upon +his lips. He had grown coldly indifferent to the call of the public, but +Mr. Barrett believed that under this ash of lassitude there still glowed +the clear fire of genius, and when they went forth to try their great +experiment, Mr. Booth found himself respected, honored, guarded as any +woman might have been. He was asked no questions about scene or scenery, +about play or percentage--his privacy and peace were ever of the first +consideration. Mr. Barrett was his agent, manager, stage-manager, friend, +co-worker, and dramatic guardian angel--all he asked of him in return was +to act. + +And how splendidly Mr. Booth responded the public can well remember. As +he said laughingly to a friend, at the end of the first season: "Good +work, eh? well, why should I not do good work, after all Barrett has done +for me. Why, I never knew what c-o-m-f-o-r-t spelled before. I +arrive--someone says: 'Here's your room, Mr. Booth.' I go in and smoke. +At night, someone says: 'Here's your dressing-room, sir,' and I go in and +dress, yes, and smoke, and then act. That's all, absolutely all that I +have to do, except to put out my hand and take my surprisingly big share +of the receipts now and then. Good work, eh? well, I'll give him the best +that's in me, he deserves it." + +And in the beautiful friendship that grew up between the melancholy, +gentle Booth and the nervously energetic Barrett I believe each gave to +the other the best that was in him. + +Before leaving the Barretts I should like to mention an odd happening +connected with Joe and my visit to New Orleans, where the theatre was +under the management of Lawrence Barrett and Mr. Rogers. The company had +taken for me one of those quick likings peculiar to our people; +principally, I think, because being a temporary star (by the grace of Mr. +Daly's will) they had expected me to be haughtily dictatorial, instead of +shy to the point of misery, and because of their mistake they treated me +like a long-sought sister, instead of the stranger I was. + +They publicly presented me with a gift on my last night, and almost in a +body saw my mother and myself off on our Sunday night start for home. +Everyone had left the car but big, hearty Joe Barrett--he still clung +silently to my hands, though my mother begged him to go before he met +with an injury. The train was out of the depot--the speed increasing +rapidly, before he dropped off, safely landing just beneath a light, high +above his head. His hat was off, his empty hand held out toward me, and +in that light his face was as the face of the sorrowful dead. It chilled +me, all my high spirits flattened down suddenly; I turned, and said: "Did +_you_ see, mother?" and she answered: "It was the light, and his +unhappiness, that made him look so like a--so sad," so I knew she had +seen him as I had. + +Our journey was saddened by an accident, and when the train backed to +take up the creature it had crushed, not knowing what had happened, by +chance, I glanced down from the window, full into the face of the victim +as they bore him past. He had been a large, broad-shouldered man, and the +still, white face was so like Barrett's that I almost fainted. Everyone +in the car seemed to feel some measure of culpability for the mishap; and +at every unusual jolt or jar we looked with frightened eyes from the +windows, dreading lest another stretcher might be borne into view. At +last we were at home, and in work I regained my usual spirits. + +A few weeks, three or four, had passed. One morning I awakened myself +from a dreamless sleep by my own singing. I faced the blank wall. I +smiled sleepily at the absurdity of the thing, then I grew more awake, +and as I sang on, I said to myself: "What is it--why, what can it be, +that I am singing?" + +There were no words to this mournful, heart-breaking air, that ended with +a wail, long and weird. + +"Mother," I called, the door being open between our rooms, "Mother, did +you hear me singing just now?" + +"Well, yes," she replied, "since I am not deaf, I heard you very +plainly." + +"Oh," I cried, "can you tell me what it was I sang?" + +My mother raised her head and looked in at me surprisedly: "Why, what is +the matter with you, child--aren't you awake, that you don't know what +you are doing? You were singing 'the lament' Joe Barrett sang in the +French cemetery." + +"Oh!" I cried, in late-coming recognition, "you are right." I scrambled +up, and thrusting back my hair from my face, started to sing it again, +and lo! not a note could I catch. Again and again I tried; I shut my eyes +and strove to recall that wail--no use. Then, remembering what a memory +my mother had for _airs_ heard but once or twice, I called: "Dear, can't +you start 'the lament' for me, I have lost it entirely?" + +She opened her lips, paused, looked surprised, then said, positively: "I +might never have heard it, I can't get either its beginning or ending." + +I sprang from the bed, and in bare, unslippered feet, ran to the piano in +the front room--no use; I never again heard, waking or sleeping, another +note of "the lament." + +Mother called out presently: "Do you know what time it is? Go back and +finish your sleep, it's not quite six o'clock." + +As I obediently returned to my room, I said, in a troubled voice: "What +do you suppose it means, mother?" and as she snuggled her head back upon +her pillow, she laughingly answered: "Oh, I suppose it's a sign you are +going to hear from Joe Barrett soon. If you do, I hope it won't be +anything bad, poor fellow!" for mother liked the "big Irish boy," as she +called him. + +I fell asleep again, but was up and ready at nine for our rather-foreign +breakfast of coffee, rolls, and salad. Now in our partnership mother was +mistress of the house, and I, doing the outside work, being the +wage-winner, was the _man_ of the house, and as such had the master's +inalienable right to the morning paper with my coffee. That the mistress +occasionally peeped at the headlines before the _master_ rose was a fact +judiciously ignored by both, so long as the paper was ever found neatly +folded beside the waiting coffee-cup. Imagine then my surprise when, +coming into the room, I found my mother sitting at table with the badge +of authority in her own hands, and my cup standing shorn of all its +dignity. She avoided my eye, and hastily pouring coffee, said: "Drink it +while it's hot, dear, and--and I'll just glance at the paper a moment." + +I sat back and stared, and I was just beginning to laugh at our small +comedy when I discovered that mother, she of the rock-steady nerves, was +trembling. Without looking up, she said again: "Drink your coffee--I'll +give you the paper presently." + +I sipped a little and watched. She was not reading a line. I put down the +cup. "Mother," said I, "is there anything in that paper that will +interest me?" + +She looked up hastily: "Drink your coffee, and I'll----" + +"Is there?" I broke in. + +Tears rose in her eyes. "Y-y-yes," she stammered, "there is something +here that will interest--rather that will grieve you, but if you would +please take your coffee!" + +I caught up the cup and emptied it at a draught, then held out my hand. +Mother gave me the paper and left the room; as her first sob reached my +ear, I read: "Sudden death of the actor, Joseph Barrett." I sat staring +stupidly, and before I saw another word there came to my ears the +shivering of leaves, and a grave voice, saying: "It is a message from the +dying or--the dead--believe that." + +"What," I asked, dully, "what is a message?" and then the blood chilled +at my heart as I recalled "the lament," Joe had said: "It is a message +from the dying--or the dead." + +After rehearsal, Mr. Daly wished to see me in his bit of a +staircase-office in front of the house. He desired help in deciding about +several scenes he meant to have built from old engravings. Suddenly he +came to a stand-still. "What's the matter with you?" he cried; "where are +your splendid spirits? you have been absent and heavy all morning--what's +the matter?" + +"Oh, nothing much," I began, when he angrily interrupted: "For heaven's +sake, spare me that senseless answer. If you won't tell me, say so. +Refuse me your confidence, if you choose, but don't treat me as though I +were a fool by saying _nothing_, when you look as if you'd seen a ghost!" + +"Oh, don't!" I cried, and astonished my irate manager by bursting into +tears. He instantly became gentle, and forcing a thimbleful of +_Chartreuse_ (which I loath) upon me, he once more asked what was the +matter. + +And then I told him of the dying emigrant--of Joe's feeling for me--of +the singing of "the lament," and at Joe's words: "It's a message from the +dying, or the dead." + +Mr. Daly's fingers trembled like aspen leaves, his eyes dilated to +perfect blackness, and almost he whispered the words: "Well, +child--well?" + +I told of the song, begun in sleep, continued in wakefulness to its +wailing end, and then lost--utterly lost! And leaning his pale face +eagerly toward me, Mr. Daly exclaimed: "He proved his words, good God! +don't you see that--that air was his message to you? a message from the +dying or the dead!" his fingers nervously sought the little amulet he +wore. + +"But," I objected, "he had been dead many hours before the song came to +me?" + +When, with the utmost conviction, he instantly answered: "Think how far +you were asunder--what a distance he had to come to you!" + +Being a very practical young person, a smile was rising to my lips, but a +glance into his earnest eyes, that had become strange and mystic, checked +it. + +"I shall tell Father D----y of this," he said, half to himself, then, +looking at me, he added: "The man loved you greatly, whatever he may +have been, for you have received his message--whether it came from the +man dying or the man dead. Go home, child; never mind about the scenes +to-day--go home!" + +And with that weird idea firmly fixed in his mind, he dismissed me. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH + + I accept an Engagement with Mr. Macaulay for Cincinnati as Leading + Lady--My Adieus to Cleveland--Mr. Ellsler Presents Me with a Watch. + + +After years of weary waiting, years of patient work, I had reached the +position of juvenile leads _de jure_, but of general lack _de facto_, and +then, lacking as my character was in the element of "push," even _I_ +could see plainly that I was throwing away myself and my chances in life +by remaining in a position where I faced the sign of "No thoroughfare." + +That Mrs. Ellsler would retain the leading business while her husband +retained a theatre was certain. I knew positively that some of +Cleveland's leading business men, sturdy supporters of the theatre, +finding that their mildly expressed dissatisfaction with the make-up of +the company was ignored, had written and plainly asked for a change, just +as Mr. Ellsler, every two years, changed the comedian, leading man, etc., +etc. They declared that his business would double in consequence; and +this was submitted with the kindliest intentions and no wish to wound +anyone, etc., and they were, with great respect--various business men. + +At all events, when the letter had produced embarrassed discomfort in one +quarter and fierce anger in another, it became inactive. I rightly judged +that the "No thoroughfare" sign was permanent--there was no further +advancement possible in that theatre; therefore I rejoiced greatly when I +had an engagement offered me, even though, for reasons touching the +reputation of the manager who wrote, I refused it--still an offer of +leading business heartened me, and I felt gratefully sure some star had +spoken a kind word in my behalf. There was so much hanging upon that +possible engagement, too; it meant more than advancement professionally, +more than gratified ambition. Never yet had I been able to go beyond the +taking care of myself and lending a helping hand in sickness to my +mother; while, to my unsleeping distress, my bitter mortification, she +had still to work. We were still apart, save for my regular weekly visit, +and such a small increase in salary would have made it possible for us to +live together, after a manner, in a very small way, but we would rather +have been half alive and together than have thrilled with superabundant +vitality while separated. + +As my services had never seemed to be regarded seriously by anyone but +the star of the especial occasion, I was not utterly taken aback when I +found my intention of stepping bravely out into the big world received +with surprise and cold disapproval. Really, I was almost convinced that I +had still the very a-b-abs of my business yet to learn, that I was rash +and headstrong and all puffed up with strange, unseemly vanity; but just +as I was sinking back to that "old-slipper" state of mind desired, a +letter came from the well-known, thoroughly established actor-manager, +Mr. Barney Macaulay, who offered me the leading business at Wood's +Museum, Cincinnati, O. + +The salary was very small, but I understood perfectly that any manager +would offer as small a salary to any actress whose _first_ season it was +as leading woman. + +Oh, my! oh, my! but there followed a period of scant sunshine, of hot +argument, of cold and cautious advice, of terrifying hints of lacking +qualities. Want of dignity, of power, of authority! The managerial forces +were winning all along the line of argument, when, like many another +combatant who faces annihilation, I took a desperate chance; I called up +every dissatisfied speech of my absent mother, every complaint, regret, +reproach, every word of disappointment, of vexation, of urging, of +goading, of stern command, and arming these words with parental authority +I mounted them upon a mother's fierce wrath, and thus, as cavalry, +recklessly hurled them at full charge upon the enemy's line. I had no +infantry of proof to support my cavalry's move, it was sheer desperation; +but Fortune is a fickle jade, she sprang suddenly to my side. The +managerial lines broke before the mother's charge, and before he had them +reformed I had written Mr. Macaulay that I was ready to consider to +accept the offered engagement, if, etc., etc., and then put on my hat and +jacket and went forth and cleverly showed, first the offered engagement +to arouse my victimized parent's hopes, then descanted upon the +opposition offered to my acceptance of it, and when _she_ was warmed with +indignation I confessed to using her as my principal weapon--even +admitted making up some speeches, and being hot and pleased, indignant +and proud, she forgave me, and I bit my lips hard to keep silence about a +great hope that she might possibly go with me to that new engagement; +but, to spare her a possible disappointment, I held my peace. + +Later, when everything was seemingly settled and only the contract left +to sign, came the amazing suggestion from Mr. Macaulay, that, because of +my youth, I would undoubtedly be perfectly willing to let him reserve a +few heavy _parts_ for his wife's acting. It is quite needless for me to +explain that the few _parts_ to be reserved were the choicest of the +legitimate drama. And then an amusing thing came to pass. I, who was so +lacking in self-confidence, so backward and retiring, so easily cast down +by a look of disapprobation, suddenly developed (on paper) an ability to +stand up for my rights that was startling. By return mail I informed Mr. +Macaulay that my youth did not affect me in the manner he anticipated; +that I was not willing to resign all those important parts to another--no +matter whose wife that other happened to be. + +A long, argumentative, soothing sort of letter came back to me, ending +with the positive conviction that I would yield two parts to his +wife--great pets of hers they were, too, and one of them being _Lady +Macbeth_, I would of course be grateful to have it taken off my hands, +while _Julia_, in "The Hunchback," had really come to be considered, in +Cincinnati, as Miss Johnson's special property--Miss Rachael Johnson +being the stage name of Mrs. Macaulay. + +Had he asked two _parts_ in the first place I would have granted them, +but now my blood was up (on paper, mind you), and with swift decision I +boldly threw the engagement up, declaring I would be the leading woman or +nothing. For, you see, I had been in the frying-pan of one family theatre +all my dramatic life, and I was not willing to throw myself at once into +the fire of another one. + +The next letter contained a great surprise: a couple of signed contracts +and a pleasant request for me too to sign both and return one +immediately. Then the writer quite gently regretted my inability to grant +his request, but closed by expressing his respect for my firmness in +demanding my rights; and straightway I signed my first contract; went out +and mailed one copy, and when I returned I had made up my mind to take +the great risk--I had decided that my mother should never again receive +commands from anyone. That my shoulders were strong enough to bear the +welcome burden, and so we would face the new life and its possible +sufferings together--_together_, that was the main thing. + +As I stood before the glass, smoothing my hair, I gravely bowed to my +reflection, and said: "Accept my congratulations and best wishes, 'Wood's +leading lady,'" and then fell upon the bed and sobbed, as foolish +nerve-strained women will; because, you see, the way had been so long and +sometimes so hard, dear Lord! so hard, but by His mercy I had won one +goal--I was a leading woman! + +And then began my good-by to the city that I loved. I had lived in so +many of its streets; I had attended so many of its schools, and still +more of its churches. There was the great lake, too. I had sailed on it, +had been wrecked on it, but against that I set the memory of those days +when, in night-gown bath-dress, I reveled in its blue waters on Fourth of +July family picnics. + +One church--old Bethel on Water Street--I hated, because the +Sunday-school superintendent had been a hypocrite, and we knew it, and +because in every one of its library books the good child died at the end, +which was very discouraging to youthful minds. + +Another church, on Prospect Street, I loved, because that Sunday-school +teacher had been so gentle and smiling and had worn such pretty pink +flowers in her bonnet. + +Then there was the fountain in the square. I laughed as I said good-by to +that, recalling the morning when, because of a bad throat, I had +unobservedly, as I supposed, swallowed a powder (homoeopathic), and +next moment heard hurrying footsteps behind me and felt a heavy hand on +my shoulder, while a rough voice cried: "Where's the paper? what did you +do it for? what's your name? say, answer up, now, before it gets hold of +you--what's your name?" + +Frightened and bewildered, 'twas with difficulty I convinced the +suspicious policeman that I was not attempting suicide by poison, but was +trying to cure a sore throat. A theatre bill-board was in fair view, and +my part in the _play_, which I luckily held rolled in my hand, induced +him to let me go to rehearsal instead of the station-house; and while the +policeman dispersed the crowd his own error had gathered, I resolved, as +I flew toward the theatre, to take no more powders in public parks--no +matter how empty they might seem to be. + +And then there was the _jail_, and as I nodded a good-by at its blackened +walls I saw again that sunny morning when, in greatest haste, I passed +that way and observed, coming toward me, three men walking very closely, +who showed no intention of making way for me--which made me look at them +surprisedly. And then the astonishing beauty of the tail, white-clothed +central figure brought me to a halt. His ruddy features were as severely +perfect as those stamped on an ancient coin. His glittering hair and +mustache were of that pale and precious gold most often seen crowning a +baby's head. His figure was tall, broad-shouldered, small-waisted, and +his hands, good God! I whispered, and stopped there, for he wore the +hand-cuffs, and on either side of him a strong and grimy hand gripped his +arm. That was why they made no room for me; and as I swerved swiftly out +into the middle of the street to pass them by, there came a glitter of +bold blue eyes, a flash of white teeth, and a deep voice cried back to +me: "I'm awfully sorry; I beg your pardon," and then they wheeled inside +the iron gates, and five minutes later I knew the physically splendid +creature I had seen was that Dr. Hughes who had just been taken for the +murder of his victim (of a mock marriage), poor little sixteen-year-old +Tamsie Parsons--she of the curly head, but steel-firm mouth, who loved +passionately this God-like devil, yet had the moral courage to resist him +to the death. + +And then the post-office was quite full of memories. One made my brow +grow moist, even after years had passed since the damp autumn day when, +as a child, I had let fall upon the stone floor a good large bottle of +benzine. The crushed thing, wrapped nicely in blue paper, lay there, +innocent to behold, while its escaping volatile contents got in some +really fine work. First, two ladies held their noses, then a fierce old +be-whiskered man looked about suspiciously, working his offended member +just as a dog would. Then two men hurrying in opposite directions, but +with their eyes turned up inquiringly toward the gas-fixture overhead, +collided violently, and instead of apologizing, each abused the other as +a blundering idiot, and wrinkling up their noses disgustedly, unlocked +their boxes, and still grumbling went their ways, one declaring that the +gas being wasted there was sufficient to illuminate the whole building. +Then doors began to open violently, and pale men in office coats of +alpaca darted out and ran about, frantically trying to turn off gas that +was not turned on; and there I stood, shivering over the innocent blue +package, very wet by that time, with my fear of a whipping for breaking +the bottle losing itself in the greater terror of some swift public +expiation of my fault. The unknown is always terrifying, and I strove in +vain to imagine what the punishment would be for creating evil odors in a +public building that brought postal clerks from their work in pursuit of +them. But the sight of a policeman advancing toward the delivery window +suddenly set me in motion, and with a bound I was out of the door and +running like mad for a (then) Kinsman Street car. I wonder yet if that +gas leak was ever properly located. + +Another day I had been sent for an advertised letter, and as several +grown-ups were ahead of me at the little window, I withdrew to lean +against the wall and rest a bit while waiting, for I had walked far and +was very tired. And then a very white-haired, white-whiskered, white-tied +old gentleman entered one of the many doors and looked nervously about +him; when, seeing me, he brightened up, and at once began to beckon me +toward him. Always respectfully obedient to the old, I at once approached +the pink and white chipper old man, who nodded, smiled, and patting my +head, asked, eagerly: "Er--er, do you--can you get letters from the +office-window yonder?" + +His restless eyes wandered all over the place. "Oh, yes, sir," I +answered, "I often get them for my mother, and for other people, too!" + +"Quite right, yes, yes, quite right, quite right!" responded the old +gentleman, then added, reflectively: "Yes, she's a female, but females +receive letters, though they don't vote, yes, yes! Well, my child, I want +you to help me in a great and good work. You know people are taught from +their earliest infancy the necessity of minding their P's and Q's, and +that they don't do it! Now you and I will mind the P's and Q's of this +great city, won't we, my dear? So, you just go to the window there and +get all the letters there are for Parker, Purley, Prentiss, and Porter, +and I'll come after you and get all the letters for Pixley, Pratt, +Prince, and Pettigrew, and to-morrow, my dear, we'll come down and get +all the Q's--the Quigley, Quinn, and Quiller crowd--and--and we'll take +all the letters over to the fountain and throw them in the basin of +water, and if they float we'll pitch bricks at 'em! Now, now's your time, +go ahead, and get all the P's you can--it's a great scheme, great!" and +then he stopped, for an almost breathless voice called out: "Here he is, +Hank! confound him!" And as two men hurried toward my chipper old +reformer, one said, reproachfully: "Now, look-a-here, Mr. Peiffer, if you +don't keep your word no better nor this, Hank and me'll have to keep hold +of you on your walks, and you won't like that!" + +"No," meekly murmured the old man, "I--er--I won't like that, I'm sure." + +Then Hank turned to me and asked, suspiciously: "Has he been filling you +full of P's and Q's?" + +I nodded. "Then," said the other man, "we'd better get him back quick, +that's the way he begins. Come on, now, Mr. Peiffer, come on!" and +between them they led away the poor white-haired old madman, who looked +back as he passed me, and whispered: "Pitch 'em in the fountain, I'll get +the Q's to-morrow!" + +There, too, was the old, old grave-yard that the city had crept up to, +cautiously at first, then finding them quite harmless--the quiet +dead--had stretched out brick and mortar arms and circled it about. A +network of streets had tangled about it, and turbulent life dashed +against its very gates on the outside, but inside there was a great green +silence. + +How well I knew the quiet place--the far, damp corner where, in lifting +bodies for removal to a new cemetery, one had been found petrified; the +giant sycamore-tree that guarded the grave of a mighty Indian chief, the +lonely hemlock blackened nook where a grave had been cruelly robbed, the +most expensive tomb, the most beautiful tomb, the oldest tomb, I knew +them all. But the special attraction for me was a plain white headstone +that happened to bear my own name. Whenever my mother boxed my ears, or +was too hasty in her judgment to be quite just, I went over to my silent +city and sat down and looked at the tombstone, and thought if it were +really mine how sorry my mother would feel for what she had done. And +when I had, in imagination, seen her tears and remorse, I would begin to +feel sorry for her and to think she was punished enough, especially if it +was rather late, and the shadows of tombstones and trees all fell long +upon the sunny walks, all pointing like warning black fingers toward the +gate. Then, indeed, I was apt to forgive my mother and flee to her--and +supper. + +And so, up and down, smiling and sighing, I went, taking _conge_ of the +city that had been home to me all my life, save just two years. I even +paused at the little old cottage whose gate was the only one I had ever +swung on, and I had hated the swinging, but I was six and was +passionately enamoured of a small person named Johnnie, who lived there +and who wore blue aprons; so I swung on the gate with him and to please +him, and then, being like most of his sex, fickle of fancy, he deserted +me for a new red dress worn by another. And when he spilled milk on it +(his mother sold milk) and spoiled its glory, she scratched his face, and +he wanted to return to me; but my love was dead, so dead I wouldn't even +accept sips of milk out of the little pails he had to carry around to +customers. And, so cruel is life, there I stood and laughed as I took +leave of the small gate. + +At last all was done, my trunks were gone, I sat in my empty room waiting +for the carriage. I had to make my journey quite alone, since my mother +was to join me only when I had found a place to settle in. I was very +sad. Mr. Ellsler was ill, for the first time since I had known him, and I +had been over to his home, three or four blocks away, and bade good-by +to Mrs. Ellsler and gentle little Annie--the other children were out. And +finding I had no fear of contagion from a bad throat, she showed me into +Mr. Ellsler's room. I was shocked to see him so wasted and so weak, and +not being used to sickness I was frightened about him. Judge, then, my +amazement, when, hearing a knock on my door and calling, "Come in," +instead of a bell-boy, there entered, pale and almost staggering, Mr. +Ellsler. A rim of red above his white muffler betrayed the bandaged +throat, and his poor voice was but a husky whisper. + +"I could not help it," he said; "you were placed under my care once by +your mother. You were a child then, and though you are pleased to +consider yourself a woman now, I could not bear to think of your leaving +the city, at this saddest hour of the day, to begin a lonely journey, +without some old friend being by for a parting God-speed." + +I was inexpressibly grateful, even through all my fright at his rashness; +but he had yet another surprise for me. He said: "I wanted, too, Clara, +to make you a little present, to give you a keepsake that would last long +and would remind you daily of--of--er the years you have passed in my +theatre." + +He drew a small box from his pocket. "A good girl and a good actress," he +said, "needs and ought to own a--" he touched a spring, the box flew +open--"a good watch," he finished. + +I gave a cry, I could not realize it was for me--I _could_ not! I clasped +my hands in admiration instead of taking it, so, with his thin, sick +man's fingers, he took it from its case and dropped it in my lap. I +caught it then, and "Oh!" and again "Oh!" was all that I could cry, while +I pressed it to my cheek and gloated over it. + +Literally, I could not speak, such an agony of delight in its beauty, of +pride in its possession, of satisfaction in a need supplied, of gratitude +tremendous and surprise immeasurable were more than I could find words +for. If you are inclined to think this exaggeration, remember how poor I +was--had always been; remember, too, there were no cheap watches then; +this was of the best make and had a chain attached as well; then think +how great was my need of it for the theatre, day and night, and for +traveling. By my utter inability to earn such a thing measure my joyful +surprise at receiving it, a gift. + +It was one of the red-letter days of my life, the day I owned a watch. My +thanks must have been sadly jumbled and broken, but my pride and pleasure +made Mr. Ellsler laugh, and then the carriage was there, and laughter +stilled into a silent, close hand-clasp. As I opened the door of the +dusty old hack, I glanced up and saw the first star prick brightly +through the evening sky. Then the hoarse voice said, "God bless you!" and +I had left my first manager. + +As I stepped out of the carriage at the depot, glancing up again I saw +the sky sown thick with stars, like a field of heavenly daisies. I smiled +a little at the thought, then suddenly _drew my watch_ to see the time, +and hurried to my train. Thus grateful for a kindly send-off, made happy +by a gift, I turned my back upon the old, safe life and brightly, +hopefully faced the new. For I was young, and therefore confident; and it +is surely for the old world's need that God has made youth so. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH + + My first Humiliating Experience in Cincinnati is Followed by a + Successful Appearance--I Make the Acquaintance of the Enthusiastic + Navoni. + + +It is a deep humiliation to relate my first experience in Cincinnati, but +for reasons I set it down. + +A friend of mine, who hailed from Cincinnati and who wished to serve me, +had said: "One thing I think I can do for you, friend Clara, I can save +you the weariness and annoyance of a long search in a strange city for +board. My wife and I were never so comfortable in our lives before as we +were at the house of a Mrs. Scott. She is a gentlewoman, therefore she +never pries, never gossips, never 'just runs in a moment,' when you want +to study a 'part.' Her charges are reasonable, the table a little close, +perhaps, but the cooking perfect. You and your mother would suit her +demands as to regularity of habits, quiet conduct, etc., completely, and +going there so early in September you will stand a good chance of +securing a room. Try for 'ours'--it was so sunny and bright." And I, +delighted at such a prospect, looked upon my letter of introduction as a +very valuable document--a sort of character from my last place, and early +on Monday morning went forth from my temporarily sheltering hotel to find +Mrs. Scott and beg her to take me in on the word of her boarders of a +year ago. + +I found the house easily, but, modest as was its exterior, its rich +interior sent my heart down rapidly--it was going to be away beyond my +salary I decided. Yet after a, to me, most bewildering interview, I found +myself inspecting the big sunny room, and shrinking at the thought of my +rough trunks coming in contact with such a handsome carpet. Mrs. Scott +had remarked, casually, that she had put her earnings back on the house, +as a pure matter of business, and I was radiant when she named her price +for the room, and hastily engaging it, I started out at once to order my +trunks taken there and to telegraph mother to come. + +As I descended the steps I could not help humming a little tune. A +policeman strolled across the street toward me, and I had a hazy notion +that he had been there when I went in. As I reached the pavement he +stepped up, and holding out to me a handkerchief, palpably his own, +asked, while looking at me closely, if it was mine. + +I was indignant, and I answered, sharply: "It is not mine--as you very +well know!" + +He laughed rather sheepishly, and said: "Well, you are not stupid, if you +are innocent," then asked: "Are you a stranger here?" + +I turned back toward the house I had just left, then paused as I said, +angrily: "I have a mind to go back and ask Mrs. Scott to come out with me +to protect me from the impertinence of the police!" + +"Who?" he asked, with wide-open, wondering eyes, "you will go back to +who?" + +"To Mrs. Scott," I snapped. + +"Why," said he, "there's no Mrs. Scott there." + +"No?" I questioned satirically. "No? Well, as I have just engaged board +from Mrs. Scott, I venture to differ with you." + +"Good Lord, Miss," the man said, "Mrs. William Scott's been dead these +nine months or more. That's no place for honest people now. Why--why, +we're watchin' the house this moment, hoping to catch that woman's +jail-bird son, who has broken jail in Louisville--don't look so white, +Miss!" + +"But--but," I whispered, "I--I was sent here by a friend--I--I have +engaged a room there! Oh, what shall I do?" + +"That's all right, Miss," reassuringly answered the policeman, "I'll give +up the room for you. You ain't the only one that has come here expecting +to find Mrs. Scott in the house. You don't need to go back to the door;" +and the theatre being in full view, in an agony of humiliation and +terror, I flung myself into its friendly, just-opened office, where Mr. +Macaulay presently found me shaking like a leaf and almost unable to make +plain my experience. + +He was furious, and finding my name was mentioned in the letter of +introduction to Mrs. Scott, and that "Mrs. Scott" had retained it, he +called the policeman and together they went to the house and demanded the +letter back. It was given up, but most unwillingly, as the woman, with +the superstition of all gambling people, looked upon it as a +luck-breeder, a mascot; and an hour later, by Mr. Macaulay's aid, I had +found two wee rooms, whose carpets would welcome my trunks as hiders of +holes--rooms that were dull, even dingy, but had nevertheless securely +sheltered honest poverty for long years past, and could do as much for +years to come. + +I mention this unpleasant incident simply to show how utterly unexpected +are some of the pitfalls that make dangerous the pathway of honest +girlhood. To show, too, that utter ignorance of evil is in itself a +danger. The interview that bewildered me would have been, for instance, a +danger signal to my mother, who would, too, having seen how the richness +of furniture contradicted outside shabbiness, have had her suspicions +aroused. I noted that fact, but not knowing of gambling being unlawful +and secretly carried on, my observation was of no service to me, as it +suggested nothing. Ignorance of the existence of evil may sometimes +become the active foe of innocence. + +No one learned of the unpleasant experience, so I was spared +disagreeable comment; and, sending for my mother to join me, I devoted +myself to preparations of my opening night. + +The meeting with strangers, which I had greatly dreaded, passed off so +easily, even so pleasantly, as to surprise me. Everyone offered a kind +word of greeting, and all the women expressed their sympathy because I +had to open in so poorly dressed a part. That troubled _me_ very little, +however. + +The character was that of a country girl (_Cicely_) in some old comedy, +whose name I have forgotten. She wore just one gown--a black and white +print, as she was in mourning for her old, farmer father. A rustic wench, +a milk-maid come up to "Lun'un-town," she had one speech that was a trial +for any woman to have to speak. It was not as brutally expressed as are +many of the speeches given to rustics in the old English comedies--but it +was the _double-entendre_ that made it coarse. + +Some of the ladies were speaking with me of the matter, and the "old +woman" suggested that I just mumble the words. I said I could not well do +that, as it was a part of the principal scene of the play. + +"Well," declared another, "I should hang my head and let the house see +that I was ashamed of the speech." + +I said nothing, but I thought that would be a most inartistic breaking +away from the part of the rustic _Cicely_, and a dragging in of +scandalized Miss Morris. + +The girl was supposed to make the speech through blundering ignorance, +she alone not seeing its significance; and to my idea there was but one +way to deliver it, and that certainly was not with a hanging head and +shamefaced manner, thus showing perfect, if disapproving, knowledge of +its double meaning. + +When the opening night came a pleasant little thing happened to me. As I +entered with straw hat tied under chin and bundle in hand, I received a +modest little reception, what would about equal the slight raising of a +hat in passing a woman in a corridor; but the moment I had spoken the +first insignificant speech the house gave me as hearty a greeting as any +leading woman could wish for. + +I was startled and much confused for a few moments, but very pleased and +grateful withal, yet when I came off, Mr. Macaulay's pleasure seemed +twice as great as mine, and as I laughingly told him so, he said: "Well, +now I'm going to make a confession. Your letters gave me an impression +of--of--well, you are entirely unlike your letters--you are smaller, and +you look even younger than you really are. There isn't the very faintest +suggestion of the actress in your manner, and--and--to be honest, I was a +bit frightened over the engagement I had made. Then your having to open +in this insignificant part was against you. But they are no fools out +_there_, my girl. They have found you out already. Your eyes and voice +alone won that welcome, and I'd not be afraid to wager something now that +the last curtain falls to-night upon a new favorite." + +I was greatly pleased, but those broad lines were still hanging over me, +still disturbing me. + +At last the scene arrived. I gave the inquiring speech, with its wretched +double meaning, clearly and plainly, looking squarely and honestly into +the eyes of the person I addressed--the result was described as follows +by a morning paper: + +"That one speech proved the newcomer an actress of superior quality. +Clearly and simply given, the great guffaw that instantly responded to +the _double-entendre_ had scarcely risen, when the girl's perfect +honesty, her wide-eyed innocence, so impressed the audience that applause +broke from every part of the house. It was the most dramatic moment of +the evening, for that outburst was not merely approbation for the +actress, it was homage to the woman." + +So it came to pass that Mr. Macaulay's words came true--the curtain fell +upon a favorite, by grace of the warm and kindly hearts of the +Cincinnatians, who were quick to see merits and ever ready to forgive +errors. + +The Hebrew citizens, who are enthusiastic and most generous patrons of +the theatre, became especially fond of me, so much so indeed that the +company christened me "Rebecca," in jesting allusion to their favor, of +which I was nevertheless very proud, for better judges of matters +theatrical it would be hard to find. + +When my mother arrived, we settled down in our little rooms, where my +trunks, which had to be opened every day for the nightly change of +costume, had to stand one on top of another in order to make room for an +old battle-scarred piano that I had hired. + +I do not know its maker's name--no one knows--which was well for that +person, because his act in constructing such a thing placed him in the +criminal classes. It seemed to be a cross between a coffin and a +billiard-table, and there was just enough left of its rubber cover to +make an evil smell in the room. + +Had it not been for the generosity of the leader of the orchestra (Mr. +Navoni) I could not have enjoyed the luxury of even a few music lessons, +but he saw my willingness to learn--to practise when possible, and loving +music rapturously himself, he took a generous delight in helping others +to the knowledge he had such a store of. Therefore, for a ridiculously +small price, just enough, he said, to properly mark our relations as +master and pupil, he introduced me to my notes and lines and +ledger-lines, too (confound them!), and accidentals and sharps (which I +hated) and flats (which I liked), and I developed a great affection for +_c_, because I could always find it, while I hate _a_ to this hour +because of the trouble it gave me so long ago. + +One thing I am sure of, had anyone awakened me suddenly from a deep sleep +at that time I would instantly have exclaimed: "One _and_ two _and_ three +_and_." Mr. Navoni and his wife had the room directly over ours; of +course I knew every loud sound we made must penetrate to his room, and as +I could conceive of nothing more maddening than to have to listen to a +beginner's _one_, two, three--_one_, two, three, I tried to practise when +he was out, which was difficult, as our hours were the same. Then one +day, knowing he was composing a march for a special occasion, I closed +the piano and determined I would not disturb him with any noise of mine. + +Upstairs, then, Mr. Navoni sat, rumpled as to hair, fiery as to eye, with +violin on table and pen in hand. He hummed a little, tried one or two +bars on the violin, then savagely threw a few notes of ink on to his +ruled paper. Then he hummed a little, and seemed to listen, jotted down a +note or two, listened attentively, and then burst out: "Do you hear a +sound of practice from Miss Morris's room?" + +"No, dear," gently replied Mrs. Navoni, "she doesn't want to disturb you +at your work, she----" + +But a burst of wrath stopped her. Mr. Navoni was clattering down-stairs +and pounding on our door: "What does this mean? Get you to that devilish +bad piano and do your scales--_scales_, mind you--let the exercises wait +till the last! Interrupt me? Love I not music! nothing is sweeter to me +than the '_one_, two, three' of the beginner--_if_ the beginner is not a +fool--_if_ the beginner counts the '_one_, two, three' correctly! Damn! +yes, I say _damn_! look at the time lost! afraid to disturb me? How the +devil am I to compose that march they want with this room still as the +dead? Now I go back, and if you don't do those scales, all smooth and +even, and the exercises rightly timed, you--well, you know what you'll +get! I can hear, even if I am composing. So you get to work, quick now! +before I get back to my table!" + +And he tore off again, while, with clammy fingers, I sat down to the +wretched old piano, that was showing its teeth at me in a senile grin, +and feebly and uncertainly began to wobble up and down the keyboard. + +Mrs. Navoni afterward told me that when her husband returned to his work +he hummed to himself a few moments, jotted down a few notes, listened to +the sound of the rattling old piano, and, smiling and nodding, remarked: +"_Now_ I can do something--_one_, two, three--_one_, two, three--that's +right. I couldn't compose a bar with her wasting a precious hour down +there. She keeps good time, eh, doesn't she? Now I'll give the boys +something that will move their feet for them!" and he returned to the +march. + +The thing which I was to get if I failed to practise correctly was so +unusual that I feel I must explain it. Mr. Navoni wore an artificial foot +and leg of the cumbrous type then offered to the afflicted, and in the +privacy of his own room he used to remove the burdensome thing and lay it +on a chair by the couch on which he rested or read or wrote, and when I, +down-stairs, made a first mistake in my practice, he growled and kicked +viciously with his "for-true" leg, while a second blunder would make him +seize his store-leg and pound the floor. Then when I began again he would +whack the correct time with it with such emphasis that bits of my ceiling +would come rattling down about me and the gas-fixture threatened not to +remain a fixture. + +Another trick of his was to bring down his violin with him. How my heart +sank when I saw it, and, my lesson over, he requested me to play such or +such an exercise: "And keep to your own business, and leave my business +to me, if you please, Miss. _Now!_" + +I was then expected to go over and over that exercise and keep perfect +time, while he stood behind me and improvised on the violin, growing more +and more distracting every moment, and if that led my attention away from +my _one_, two, three, what a crack I got across the top of my ear from +his fiddle-bow, and a sharp order to: "Go back--go back! _one_, two, +three; _one_, two, three! Cry by and by, but now play! _One_, two, +three!" + +I should have thought myself a hopeless case, and given up, had I not one +morning overheard him boasting to some of the musicians: "That I was a +good enough leading woman, he supposed, but it was as a piano pupil that +I really counted for something. Why," he cried, "she has the most perfect +ear, and such steadiness--a whole band-wagon of instruments turned loose +on her wouldn't make her lose time!" + +I smiled and felt of my even then burning ear, but still his boast +encouraged me to return to my scales, which were wofully interrupted by +the necessity I experienced of clawing up with my nails several old keys +that were too weak to rise again having once been pressed down. + +When Mr. Navoni played, and he came to one of those tired-out ivories, he +put a _damn_ in the place of the absent note, but for obvious reasons I +could not do that. But Mr. Navoni was an earnest, determined, and +enthusiastic teacher, and I remember him gratefully and respectfully. + +The widow of the boarding-house differs from the widow of the Testament +in that the boarding-house widow's cruse of oil seems always "just out," +and her meal at a like low ebb. Neither my mother nor myself were used to +luxuries; we expected little, and, truth to tell, we got it. To say we +were nearly always hungry would be putting things quite mildly, but we +were _together_! and so 'twas better to feel a bit "gone" under the belt +than to be filled to repletion and live apart. + +I worked hard at all times, and five nights out of seven I had to study +till far on toward morning. The Saturday brought me a double performance, +and left me a wreck; thus I thought I had a right to a bit of a treat on +Sunday; and I can see the important air mother unconsciously assumed as +she went forth on her secret errand--secret that no offence might be +given to the economical landlady. + +When the matinee was over I brought home my personal offering for our +next day's comfort and pleasure--a copy of an illustrated weekly paper +and five cents' worth of candy, always something hard that would last us +long while we read. Thus on Saturday night, on the sill of the back +window, there stood a small can of oysters, while in the top drawer +rested a box marked handkerchiefs, but which held crackers, beside it a +folded paper, and on top of that the wee package of candy. + +I had a membership at the library on the corner, so we had books, too, +thank heaven! I have always been a fairly regular church-goer; in +Cincinnati the limitations of my wardrobe would have made me conspicuous. +I had but one street dress in the world, and constant wear in rain or +shine made it a very shabby affair. In novels the heroine who has but one +gown is always so exquisitely gloved and shod, and her veil and neck-wear +are so immaculately fresh, that no one notices the worn dress; but in +real life it's just the gloves and shoes and veils and ruffles that cost +the most money, yet their absence stamps you ill-bred in the eyes of +other women. Therefore I knew the inside of but one church in Cincinnati, +"Christ's Episcopal," and only knew that in the spring, when I had +fluttered forth in new gown and gloves and things; so Sundays were given +over to a late breakfast, a little reading in the Bible, a good long +reading of secular matter, sweetened by candy, a calm acceptance (that +was puzzling to the Navonis) of a shadowy dinner, a short walk if weather +permitted, then, oh, then! a locked door, a small tea-pot, a tiny +saucepan (we had not the bliss of owning a chafing-dish), and presently +we sat enjoying, to the last spoonful, a hot and delicious stew, a pot of +tea, that brought to mind many stories and made old jokes dance forth +with renewed youth, and kept us loitering over our small banquet in a +quite disgraceful way. Then back to our novels again till bed-time, and +next day, all fresh and rested, I began my "one _and_ two _and_ three +_and_" before breakfast, and thus won approval from Navoni and started a +new week's work under fair auspices. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTIETH + + New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington and Mr. + Johnson--Mr. Ellsler's Mild Assistance--I Journey to New York, and + Return to Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly. + + +To say I made a success in Cincinnati is the barest truth. Almost at +once--the third night of the season, to be exact--I received my first +anonymous gift: a very beautiful and expensive set of jewelry, pale-pink +corals in combined dead and burnished gold. They rested in their +satin-lined nest and tempted me. The sender wrote: "Show that you forgive +my temerity by wearing my offering in the third act." + +_I did not wear them in any act_, and yet, oh, eternal feminine! I "tried +them on"--at least I put one ring in my ear and held the pendant against +my throat, "just to see" how they _would_ have looked, you know. + +Flowers came over the footlights, the like of which I had never seen in +my life before--great baskets of hot-house beauties, some of them costing +more than I earned in a week. Then one night came a bolder note, with a +big gold locket. A signature made it possible for me to return that gift +next morning. + +All that sort of thing was new to me, and, naturally, pleasing--yes, +because earned approbation pleases one, even though it be not quite +correctly expressed. It soon became whispered about that I sent back all +gifts of jewelry, and lo! one matinee, with a splendid basket of white +camelias, fringed about with poinsettia leaves, there came a box of +French candied fruit. My! what a sensation it created in the +dressing-room. I remember some of the ladies (we dressed in one great +long room there) took bits of peach and of green figs to show their +friends, while I devoted myself to the cherries and apricots. That seemed +to start a fashion, for candies, in dainty boxes, came to me as often as +flowers afterward, and, to my great pride and pleasure, were often from +women, and my Saturday five cents' allowance was turned over to mother +for the banqueting fund--that meant a bit of cheese for supper. + +At the time of the season's opening there was a man in Cincinnati who was +there sorely against his will, a wealthy native of the city, a lawyer who +would not practise, a traveler in distant lands, he had lived mainly for +his own pleasure and had grown as weary of that occupation as he could +possibly have grown had he practised the law. Tired of everything else, +he still kept his liking for the theatre. Living in New York in the +winter, at Cape May in the summer, he only came to his old home when +someone was irritating enough to die and need burying in state, or when +some lawsuit required his attention, as in this instance. So, being +there, and not knowing what else to do, he had gone dully and moodily to +the theatre, saying to his cousin companion: "I'll take a look at +Macaulay's new leading lady, and then I'll sleep through the rest of the +evening comfortably, for no one can talk to me here as they do at the +hotel"--and the country _Cicely_ had appeared, and, to use Mr. +Worthington's own words: he had sat up straight as a ramrod and as +wide-awake as a teething baby for the rest of the evening. + +Between acts he had made inquiries as to the history of the new actress, +only to find that, like most happy women, she had none. She came from +Cleveland, she lived three doors away with her mother--that was all. On +that first night he had said: "Good Lord, Will, what is that girl doing +out here in the West? I must see her in a better part. What's on +to-morrow night? Secure our seats for the season, that will save a lot +of trouble;" and incidentally it made a lot of annoyance for me. + +Next night I played what actresses call a "dressed part," which, in spite +of suggestion, does not mean that there are parts that are not dressed, +only that the character wears fine clothes instead of plain ones. It was +a bright, light comedy part. The audience was enthusiastic, though, of +course, I was only supporting the star. Then Mr. Worthington exclaimed: +"That girl ought to be in New York this very moment!" + +"Do you think so?" questioned his inseparable. + +"Do I think so?" mocked his cousin. "Yes, I know it. I know the theatres +foreign--their schools and styles, as well as I know the home theatres +and their actors. I believe I've made a discovery!" + +A beautiful mass of flowers came to me that night with Mr. Worthington's +visiting card, without message. The third night I played a tearful part; +the papers (as the women put it) "went on awful," and Mr. Worthington, +snapping his glasses into their case, said, as he rose: "I shall never +rest till this Clara Morris faces New York. She need clash with no one, +need hurt no one, she is unlike anyone else, and New York has plenty of +room for her. I shall make it my business to meet her some way or other, +and preach New York until she accepts the idea and acts upon it." + +His visit to Cincinnati was prolonged; his young cousin, Mr. Will +Burnett, thought he was on the high-road to crankiness on the subject. +Then Mr. Worthington discovered we had a common friend in lawyer Egbert +Johnson, and he was presented in proper form to my mother (oh, wise Mr. +Worthington), and winning her approval by praise of her wonderful chick +(where is the mother that does not readily believe her goose a swan?), +she in her turn presented him to me, and for the first time I listened to +a suggestion of coming to New York. + +To say I was amused at the idea would be putting it mildly indeed, for I +was tickled to such laughter that tears came to my eyes. He was annoyed, +but I laughed on. He waited--I was called upon for some heavy tragic +parts. He came again--I laughed still. + +"Good heavens!" I cried, "I'm not pretty enough!" + +He said: "You have your eyes and voice and expression, and you don't seem +to be suffering much here from your lack of beauty." + +"N-no," I answered, naively, "you see, all the women in this company are +rather plain." + +He laughed, but he continued to urge me to try for an engagement in New +York. + +"I don't know enough," I faltered. + +"You lack polish of manner, perhaps," he admitted, "but you will acquire +that quickly, while no one can acquire your fire and strength and pathos! +For God's sake, let me do one unselfish act in my life--let me serve you +in this matter. I will go to the managers in New York and speak for you." + +But that offer I curtly declined, asking him how long my reputation would +remain unassailed if I allowed him to act for me. + +In spite of all his praise of my work, I should have remained unmoved had +Mr. Johnson not joined forces with Mr. Worthington, and calmly assured me +that he, too, knew the New York theatres and actors, and he honestly +believed I had a chance of acceptance by the public, if only a manager +would give me an opening, for, said he: "Worthington is right this time, +you really are an exceptionally clever girl, so why should you bury +yourself in small Western cities?" + +"Oh!" I indignantly cried, "Cleveland and Cincinnati are very big cities, +indeed!" + +"Yes," smiled Mr. Johnson, "but New York is quite a bit larger, and +besides you would like to be accepted by the metropolis of your country, +would you not?" + +And straightway my heart gave a bound, my cheeks began to burn, the +leaven was working at last--my ambition was awakened! I wondered day and +night, could I act well enough to please New York? I thought not; I +thought yes! I thought--I thought there could be no harm just to ask the +managers if they had an opening. But there my courage failed me--I could +not. I never had written to a manager in my life, save to answer a +letter. Finally, I wrote to Mr. Ellsler--he knew all the New York +managers (few then)--and told him I was about to ask my first favor at +his hands. Would he write to one or two managers for me, or give me a +line of introduction to them? and his unexpected opposition to my plans, +the cold water he cast upon my warm hopes, instead of crushing my spirit +utterly, aroused the old dogged determination to do what I had undertaken +to do--make a try for a New York opening! + +The controversy finally ended in my receipt of a letter from Mr. Ellsler +informing me he had written to four managers, and said what he could for +me--which proved to be mighty little, as I afterward saw two of the four +letters, as they were in duplicate, though one was to a stranger, one to +an acquaintance, and two to friends. He simply asked: "If they had an +opening for a young woman, named Clara Morris, for leading or +leading-juvenile business." That was all; not a word of recommendation +for ability or mention of years of thorough experience--not even the +conventional expression of a personal obligation if they were able to +consider my application. + +Had I been a manager, and had I received such a letter, I know I should +have cast it aside, thinking: "Oh, that's a duty letter and amounts to +nothing. If the girl had any recommendations for the position he would +have said so." Still, some answers were returned, though Mr. Wallack +ignored his copy. Mr. Jarrett (of Jarrett & Palmer) wrote Mr. Ellsler +that they were bound to spectacular ("Black Crook") for the year to come, +and had no earthly use for an actress above a soubrette or a walking +lady. Mr. Edwin Booth wrote: "If you had only addressed me a few days +earlier. I remember well the young woman of whom you speak. I have +unfortunately" (this last word was crossed out)--"I have just closed with +Miss Blanche DeBar--old Ben is persistent and has great confidence in +her, and, as I said, I have just closed with her for the coming season. +With," etc., etc. + +Then there was a wee bit of paper--little, niggly-naggly, jetty-black, +impishly vindictive-looking writing on two short-waisted lines of about +eleven words each. That was from Mr. Daly, and it snapped out this +information: "If you send the young woman to me I will willingly consider +proposal. Will engage no actress without seeing her. A. Daly." + +These letters were blithely sent to me by Mr. Ellsler, who evidently +looked upon the question as closed, but that was where we differed. I +considered it a question just fairly opened. I admit Mr. Daly's calm +ordering of me from Cincinnati to his office in New York for inspection +staggered me at first, but there was that line: "I will willingly +consider the proposal;" that was all I had to trust to; not much, heaven +knows! "Yet," I argued, "he is evidently a man who says much in little; +at all events, though the chance is small, it is the only one offered, +and, if I can stand the expense, I'll go and take that chance." + +I would have to obtain leave of absence; I would have to pay a woman for +at least two performances, even if I got off on Saturday night; I would +have to stop one night in a hotel at New York, and, oh, dear, oh, dear! +would I dare to risk so much--to spend all my little savings toward the +summer vacation for this trip that might end disastrously after all? I +read again: "_Will engage no actress without seeing her._" Well, that +settled the matter. Suddenly I seemed to hear my old Irish washerwoman +saying: "Ah, well! God niver shuts one dure without opening anither!" I +laughed a bit and decided to risk my savings--nothing venture, nothing +win! + +That very night I asked leave of absence; the time was most favorable--I +obtained it. I found next day an actress to take my place on Monday and +Tuesday evenings. Then mother and I emptied out our flat and old +pocket-books. I brought from its secret hiding-place the little roll of +bills saved for summer's idle time, and we put all in a pile. Then I drew +out a week's board in advance and gave it to mother; drew out enough to +pay the woman who took my place, and all the rest, to the last dollar, +was required for the expenses of my solitary journey to the great +beckoning city by the sea. + +As I closed my pocket-book, I said to myself: "There, I have shut one +door with my own hand, but I'll trust God to open another for me before +vacation arrives." + +There's an old saw that gravely states: "It never rains but it pours," +and surely business opportunities "poured" upon me at that time, for in +that very week I received two offers of engagements, and one of them, had +not the New York bee been buzzing so loudly in my bonnet, would have +driven me quite wild with delight. That was from Mr. Thomas Maguire, of +San Francisco, and the salary was to me enormous. One hundred dollars a +week in gold, a benefit, and no vacation at all, unless I wished it. I +temporized. I wished to gain time enough to learn my fate in New York +before deciding. But Mr. Maguire was in haste, and as I hurried from the +theatre to start on my journey, a long envelope was placed in my hands. I +opened it on the cars, and found signed contracts for the leading +business at San Francisco, with an _extra_ benefit added as an inducement +for me to accept. + +So I journeyed onward to tempt Fate, a little forlorn and frightened at +first, but receiving so many courtesies and little kindnesses from my +more fortunately placed fellow-travelers, that I quite forgot to be +either frightened or forlorn--but was amazed at the beauty of the stately +river we crossed, whose ripples caught the glowing color of the sky and +broke them into jewels; and beyond that silvery curtain of haze stretched +the great city of my dreams, all circled round and guarded by living +waters. + +Then I was ashore again and clambering into the great swaying coach of +the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the conductor having told me it was right next +door to the theatre. I breakfasted, took from my bag a new gray veil, a +pair of gray gloves, a bit of fresh ruffling, and a needle and thread, +with which I basted the ruffle into the neck of my gown; put on the veil +and gloves, that being all the preparation I could make by way of toilet +to meet the arbiter of Fate, said "Our Father," and coming to "Amen" with +a jerk, discovered I had not been conscious of the meaning of one single +word, and whispering with shame, "only lip service," remorsefully +repeated again, and with absolute sincerity, that prayer which expresses +so simply, so briefly, all our needs, physical and spiritual; that places +us at once in the comforting position of a beloved child asking with +confidence for a father's aid. A prayer whose beauty and strength share +in the immortality of its Divine composer. + +And then I rose and went forth, prepared to accept success or defeat, +just as the good Lord should will. + +As I passed around the hotel and approached the theatre on Twenty-fourth +Street, an enormous upheaval of ice blocked the way--ice piled shoulder +high in front of the theatre door, and on one side of the glittering mass +stood a long, tall, thin man, as mad as a hornet, while on the other +side, stolidly, stupidly silent, stood a squat Irishman, holding an +ice-man's tongs in one hand and his shock of red hair in the other. The +long, flail-like arms of the tall man were in wild motion. In righteous +wrath he was trying to make the bog-trotter understand that the ice was +for the hotel, whose storage door was but a few feet to his right, when +he saw me making chamois-like jumps over the blocks of ice trying to +reach the door. With black-browed courtesy he told me to use the second +door, that morning, to reach the box-office. + +I had, all unconsciously, formed an idea of Mr. Daly, and I was looking +for a small, dark, very dark, nervously irritable man, and was therefore +frankly amused at the wrath of the long, thin man, whose vest and whose +trousers could not agree as to the exact location of the waist-line, and +laughed openly at the ice-scene, winning in return as black a scowl as +any stage-villain could well wear. Then I cheerfully remarked: "I'm +looking for Mr. Daly; can you tell me where I am likely to find him?" + +"You want Mr. Daly?" he repeated. "Who are you?" + +"I'll tell Mr. Daly that, please," I answered. + +He smiled and said: "Well, then, tell _me_--I'm Mr. Daly--are you----" + +"Yes," I answered, "I'm the girl come out of the West, to be inspected. +I'm Clara Morris." + +He frowned quickly, though he held out his hand and shook mine heartily +enough, and asked me to come into his office. + +It was a cranny in the wall. It held a very small desk and one chair, +behind which was a folding stool. As he entered, I laughingly said: "I +think I'll lean here, I'm not used to sitting on the floor," but to my +surprise, as he brought forth the stool, he curtly replied: "I was not +going to ask you to sit on the floor," which so amused me that I could +not resist asking: "Are you from Scotland, by chance, Mr. Daly?" and he +had frowningly said "No!" before the old, old joke about Scotch density +came to him. + +Then he said, with severity: "Miss Morris, I'm afraid your bump of +reverence is not well developed." + +And I laughed and said: "There's a hole there, Mr. Daly, and no bump at +all," and though the words were jestingly spoken, there was truth and to +spare in them, and there, too, was the cause of all the jolts and jars +and friction between us in our early days together. Mr. Daly was as a god +in his wee theatre, and was always taken seriously. I knew not gods and +took nothing under heaven seriously. No wonder we jarred. Every word I +spoke that morning rubbed Mr. Daly's fur the wrong way. I offended him +again and again. He wished to show me the theatre, and, striking a match, +lit a wax taper and held it up in the auditorium, at which I exclaimed: +"Oh, the pretty little match-box! Why, it's just a little toy +play-house--is it not?" + +Which vexed him so I was quite crushed for a minute or two. One thing +only pleased him: I could not tear myself away from the pictures, and I +praised, rapturously, a beautiful velvety-shadowed old engraving. We grew +quite friendly over that, but when we came to business he informed me I +was a comedy woman, root and branch. + +"But," I said, "ask Mr. Edwin Booth, or Mr. Davenport, or Mr. Adams!" + +He waved me down. "I won't ask anyone," he cried; "I never made a mistake +in my life. You couldn't speak a line of sentiment to save your soul!" + +"Why, sentiment is my line of business--I play sentiment every week of my +life," I protested. + +"Oh, you know what I mean," he said, "you can _speak_ and _repeat_ the +lines, but you couldn't give a line of sentiment naturally to save your +life--your forte is comedy, pure and simple." + +It all ended in his offer to engage me, but without a stated line of +business. I must trust to his honor not to degrade me by casting me for +parts unworthy me. He would give me $35 a week (knowing there were two to +live on it), _if I made a favorable impression he would double that +salary_. + +A poor offer--a risky undertaking. I had no one to consult with. I had in +my pocket the signed contract for $100 in gold and two benefits. I must +decide now, at once. Mr. Daly was filling up a blank contract. +Thirty-five dollars against $100! "_But if you make a favorable +impression_ you'll get $70," I thought. And why should I not make a +favorable impression? Yet, if I fail now in New York, I can go West or +South, not much harmed. If I wait till I am older, and fail, it will ruin +my life. + +I slipped my hand in my pocket and gave a little farewell tap to the +contract for $100. I took the pen; I looked hard at him. "There's a heap +of trusting being asked for in this contract," I remarked. "You won't +forget your promise about doubling the salary?" + +"I won't forget anything," he answered. + +I looked at the pen, it was a stub, the first I ever saw; then I said: +"That's what makes your writing look so villainous. I can't sign with +that thing--I'd be ashamed to own my signature in court, when we come to +the fight we're very likely to have before we are through with each +other." + +He groaned at my levity, but got another pen. I wrote Clara Morris twice, +shook hands, and went out and back to my home--a Western actress with an +engagement in a New York theatre for the coming season. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST + + John Cockerill and our Eccentric Engagement--I Play a Summer Season at + Halifax--Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at Last. + + +Mr. Worthington passed out of my life after he had done me the service he +set out to do. It had been an odd notion to step down from his carriage, +as it were, and point out to a girl, struggling along a rough and dusty +path, a short cut to the fair broad highway of prosperity; but I thank +him heartily, for without his urging voice, his steadily pointing hand, I +should have continued plodding along in the dust--heaven knows how long. + +One of the few people I came to know well in Cincinnati was John A. +Cockerill. At that time he was the city editor on the _Enquirer_, and my +devoted friend. We were both young, poor, energetic, ambitious. We +exchanged confidences, plans, hopes, and dreams, and were as happy as +possible so long as we were just plain friends, but as soon as sentiment +pushed in and an engagement was acknowledged between us, we, as the +farmer says: + + "Quarrel'd and fit--and scratched and bit--" + +For John was jealous of my profession, which made my temper hot, and we +were a queer engaged pair. I used to say to him: "It's just a question +which one of us suicides first!" + +Yet on some days we would forget we were engaged and be quite cheerful +and happy; and when I came back from New York, I cried: "Congratulate me, +John, I've got an engagement, so we can't nag each other to death for a +year at least!" and though that gave a lovely opening for a quarrel he +passed it by, congratulating me very gently instead, but very sadly, +adding: "You are getting so far ahead of me, dear--and you will learn to +despise a man who comes toiling always behind you!" + +A statement that came so dangerously near the truth that it threw me into +a passion, and we had a battle royal then and there. However, we parted +in a gale of laughter, for as John suddenly discovered he was overstaying +his intended short visit, he sprang up and grabbed his hat and exclaimed: +"Well, good-by, Clara, we haven't indulged in much sentiment to-day, +but," drawing a long, satisfied breath, "we've enjoyed a good lusty old +row all the same!" + +No wonder we laughed. We were a rare engaged couple. Lovers? why Cupid +had never even pointed an arrow at us for fun! We were chums--good +fellows in sunny weather; loyal, active friends in time of trouble, and, +after I came to New York, and found quarreling at length, with pen and +ink, too fatiguing, I broke the engagement, and we were happy ever +after--our friendship always standing firm through the years; and when, +in the _Herald's_ interests, he started on that last long journey to +report upon the Japanese-Chinese War, he said to me: "I never understood +the meaning of the word friendship until that day when you flung all your +natural caution--your calm good sense aside, and rushed through the first +cheering message that reached me after that awful St. Louis shooting: +'You acted in self-defence, I _know_--command any service from your +faithful friend,' that's what you said, over your full name, while as yet +you knew absolutely nothing. And when I realized that, guilty or +innocent, you meant to stand by me, I--well, you and my blessed mother +live in a little corner of my heart, just by your two loyal selves." + +And when he left me he carried on either cheek as affectionate a kiss as +I knew how to put there, and again, and for the last time, we parted in a +gale of laughter, as he cried: "You would have seen me in the bottomless +pit before you would have done that in Cincinnati!" + +"Oh, well," I replied, "we both preferred quarreling to kissing in those +days!" + +"Speak for yourself!" he laughed, and so we parted for all time. + +I had returned to my work in Cincinnati; had thanked the Washington and +San Francisco managers for their offers of engagements, and was putting +in some spare moments in worrying about the summer, when (without meaning +to be irreverent) God opened a door right before me. Never, since I had +closed a small geography at school, had I heard of "Halifax," save as a +substitute for another place beginning with H, but here, all suddenly, I +was invited to Halifax--not sent there in anger, for, oh, incredible! for +a four, perhaps six, weeks' summer engagement. Was I not happy? Was I not +grateful? One silver half-dollar did I recklessly give away to the Irish +washerwoman, who had said: "God niver shuts one dure without openin' +anither!" I could not help it, and she, being in trouble at the time, +declared, with hope rising in her tired old eyes, that she would "at onct +burn a waxen candle before the blissed Virgin!" Poor soul! I hope her +loving offering found favor in the eyes of the gentle Saint she honored! + +I had a benefit in Cincinnati before the season closed, and so it came +about that I was able to get my mother a spring gown and bonnet that she +might go home in proper state to Cleveland for a visit; while I turned my +face toward Halifax, the picturesque, to play a summer engagement, and +then to make my way to New York and find a resting-place for my foot in +some hotel, while I searched for rooms to which my mother might be +summoned, for I had determined I could board no longer. + +If we had rooms we could make a little home in them. If we had still to +go hungry, we could at least hunger after our own fashion, and endure our +privations in decent privacy. So, with plans all made, I landed at +Halifax and felt a shock of surprise, followed by a pang of +homesickness, at the first sight of the scarlet splendor of the British +flag waving against the pale blue sky, when instinctively my eyes had +looked for the radiant beauty of Old Glory. The next thing that impressed +me was the astonishing number of people who were in mourning. Men in +shops, in offices, on the streets, were wearing crepe bands about their +left arms, and women, like moving pillars of crepe, dotted the walks +thickly, darkened the shops, and gloomed in private carriages. What does +it mean? I asked. I never before saw so many people in black. And one +made answer: "Ah, your question shows you are a stranger, or you would +know that there are few well-to-do homes and _no_ business house in +Halifax that does not mourn for at least one victim of that great mystery +of the sea, the unexplained loss of the City of Boston--that monster +steamer, crowded with youth and beauty, wealth, power, and brains!" + +I recalled then how, at the most fashionable wedding of the year in +Cincinnati, the bride and groom had been dragged from the just-beginning +wedding-breakfast, and rushed off at break-neck speed that they might be +in time for the sailing of the City of Boston, and after her sailing no +word ever came of her. What had been her fate no man knew--no man knows +to-day. The ocean gave no sign, no clew, as it often has done in other +disasters. It sent back no scrap of wood, of oar, of boat, of mast, of +life-preserver--nothing, nothing! No fire had been sighted by other +ships. Had she been in collision with an iceberg, been caught in the +centre of a tornado, had she run upon a derelict, been stricken by +lightning, been blown up by explosion? No answer had ever come from the +mighty bosom of the deep, that will keep its grim secret until the awful +day when, trembling at God's own command, it will give up its dead! +Meantime thousands of tender ties were broken. The awful mystery +shrouding the fate of the floating city turned more than one brain, and +sent mourners to mad-houses to end their ruined lives. Halifax was a very +sad city that summer. + +I met in the company there Mr. Leslie Allen (the father of Miss Viola +Allen), Mr. Dan Maginnis (the Boston comedian), and Mr. John W. Norton. +The future St. Louis manager was then leading man, and the friendship we +formed while working together through those summer weeks was never +broken, never clouded, but lasted fair and strong up to that very day +when, sitting in the train on his way to New York, John Norton had, in +that flashing moment of time, put off mortality. + +He had changed greatly from the John Norton of those early days. He had +known cruel physical suffering, and while he had won friends and money, +shame and bitter sorrow had been brought upon him by another. No wonder +the laughing brightness had gone out of him. It was said that he believed +in but two people on earth--Mary Anderson and Clara Morris, and he said +of them: "One is a Catholic, the other an Episcopalian; they are +next-door neighbors in religion; they are both honest, God-fearing women, +and the only ones I bow my head to." Oh, poor man! to have grown so +bitter! But in the Halifax days he loved his kind, and was as full of fun +as a boy of ten, as full of kindness as would be the gentlest woman. + +Mr. Maginnis had his sister-in-law with him, a helpless invalid. She knew +her days were numbered, yet she always faced us smilingly and with +pleasant words. She was passionately fond of driving, but dreaded lonely +outings; so clubbing together, that no one might feel a sense of +obligation, we four, Dan and his sister, John Norton and I, used evenly +to divide the expense of a big, comfortable carriage, and go on long, +delightful drives about the outskirts of the gray old hilly city. + +The stolid publicity of Tommy Atkins's love-making had at first covered +us with confusion, but we soon grew used to the sight of the scarlet +sleeve about the willing waist in the most public places, while a loving +smack, coming from the direction of a park bench, simply became a sound +quite apropos to the situation. + +One yellow-haired, plaided and kilted young Highlander, whom I came upon +in a public garden, just as he lifted his head from an explosive kiss on +his sweetheart's lips, startled at my presence, flushing red, lifted his +hand in a half-salute, and at the same moment, in laughing apologetic +confusion, he--winked at me! And his flushing young face was so bonnie, +that had I known how I believe in my heart I'd have winked back, just +from sheer good-fellowship and understanding. + +In that short season I had one experience, the memory of which makes me +pull a wry face to this day. I played _Juliet_ to a "woman-_Romeo_"--a so +plump _Romeo_, who seemed all French heels, tights, and wig, with _Romeo_ +marked "absent." I little dreamed I was bidding a personal farewell to +Shakespeare and the old classic drama, as I really was doing. + +One other memory of that summer engagement that sticks is of that +performance of Boucicault's "Jessie Brown, or the Siege of Lucknow," in +which real soldiers acted as supernumeraries, and having been too well +treated beforehand and being moved by the play, they became so hot that +they attacked the _mutineers_ not only with oaths but with clubbed +muskets; and while blood was flowing and heads being cracked in sickening +earnest on one side of the stage, a sudden wall-rending howl of derisive +laughter rose from that part of the theatre favored by soldiers. I saw +women holding programmes close, close to their eyes, and knew by that +that something was awfully wrong. + +The Scotch laddies were pouring over the wall, coming to the rescue of +the starving besieged. I looked behind me. The wall, a stage wall, was +cleated down the middle to keep the join there firm, and no less than +three of the soldiers had had portions of their clothing caught by the +cleats as they scaled the wall. The cloth would not tear, the men were +too mad to be able to see, and there they hung, kicking like fiends +and--well, the words of a ginny old woman, who sold apples and oranges in +front of the house, will explain the situation. She cried out, at the top +of her voice: "Yah! yah! why do ye no pull down yer kilties, instead o' +kickin' there? yah! yer no decent--do you ken?" and the curtain had to +come whirling down before the proper time to save the lives of the men +being pounded to death, and the feelings of the women who were being +shamed to death. + +A surgeon had to attend to two heads before their owners could leave the +theatre, and after that an officer was kind enough to come and take +charge of the men loaned to the manager. + +Then I bade the people, whom I had found so pleasant, good-by--Mr. Louis +Aldrich arriving as I was about leaving, keen, clever, active, full of +visions, of plans, just as he is to-day. I and my little dog-companion +made our way to New York. A lady and gentleman, traveling acquaintances, +advised me to go to the St. Nicholas, and as all hotels looked alike to +me I went there. My worst dread was the dining-room. I could not afford +to take meals privately, yet how could I face that great roomful of +people alone! At last I resolved on a plan of action. I went up to the +head waiter--from his manner an invisible crown pressed his brow; his +eyes gazed coldly above my humble head, his "Eh?--beg pardon!" was +haughty and curt, yet, believe it or not, when I told him I was quite +alone, and asked could he place me at some quiet retired table, he became +human, he looked straightly and kindly at me. He himself escorted me, not +to a seat in line with the kitchen smells or the pantry quarrels, as I +had expected, but to a very retired, very pleasant table by an open +window, and assured me the seat should be reserved for me every day of my +stay, and only ladies seated there. I was grateful from my heart, and I +mention it now simply to show the general willingness there is in America +to aid, to oblige the unprotected woman traveler. + +Naturally anxious to find, as quickly as possible, a less expensive +dwelling-place, I showed my utter ignorance of the city by the blunder I +made in joyfully engaging rooms in a quiet old-fashioned brick house +because it was on Twenty-first Street and the theatre was on +Twenty-fourth, and the walk would be such a short one. All good New +Yorkers will know just how "short" that walk was when I add that to reach +the neat little brick house I had first to cross to Second Avenue, and, +alas! for me on stormy nights, there was no cross-town car, then. + +However, the rooms were sunny and neatly furnished; the rent barely +within my reach, but the entire Kiersted family were so unaffectedly kind +and treated me so like a rather overweighted young sister that I could +not have been driven away from the house with a stick. I telegraphed to +mother to come. She came. + +To the waiter who feeling the crown upon his brow yet treated me with +almost fatherly kindness, I gave a small parting offering and my thanks; +and to the chambermaid also--she with the pure complexion, bred from +buttermilk and potatoes, and the brogue rich and thick enough to cut +with a knife--who had "discoursed" to me at great length on religion, on +her own chances of matrimony, on the general plan of the city, +describing the "lay" of the diagonal avenues, their crossing streets and +occasional junctures, in such confusing terms that a listening +city-father would have sent out and borrowed a blind man's dog to help +him find his home. Still she had talked miles a day with the best +intentions, and I made my small offering to her in acknowledgment, and +leaving her very red with pleasure, I departed from the hotel. That +blessed evening found my mother and me house-keeping at last--_at last_! +And as we sat over our tea, little Bertie, on the piano-stool at my +side, ate buttered toast; then, feeling license in the air, slipped +down, crept under the table, and putting beseeching small paws on +mother's knee, ate more buttered toast--came back to me and the +piano-stool, and bringing forth all her blandishments pleaded for a lump +of sugar. She knew it was wrong, she knew _I_ knew it was wrong, but, +good heavens! it was our house-warming--Bertie got the sugar. So we were +settled and happily ready to begin the new life in the great strange +city. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND + + I Recall Mr. John E. Owens, and How He "Settled my Hash." + + +Just previous to my coming East I met, for the first time, Mr. John E. +Owens. He was considered a wealthy man, and was at the height of his +popularity as a comedian. He was odd, even his marriage seemed an +expression of eccentricity, and one felt as if one had received a dash of +cold water in the face when the hot-tempered, peppery, and decidedly +worldly Mr. Owens presented the little orthodox Quakeress, with a +countenance of gentle severity, as his wife. + +She wore the costume of her people, too, and watched him above her +knitting-needles with folded lips and condemning eye as he strutted and +fumed and convulsed his audience. She was said to be a most tender and +gentle nurse and, indeed, a devoted wife, but she certainly seemed to +look down upon theatrical life and people. + +Mr. Owens was telling me she was a clever business woman, with a quick +eye for a good investment, when I jestingly answered: "That seems to be a +peculiarity of the sect--thee will recall the fact that William Penn +showed that same quality of eye in his beautiful and touching relations +with the shrewd and knowing Indians," and in the middle of his laugh, his +mouth shut suddenly, his eyes rolled: "Oh, Lord!" he said, "you've done +for yourself--she heard you, your fate's fixed!" + +"But," I exclaimed, "I was just joking." + +"No go!" he answered, mournfully, "the eye that can see the main chance +so clearly is blind to a joke. She has you down now on her list of the +ungodly. No use trying to explain--I gave that up years ago. Fact of the +matter is, when that Quakeress-wife of mine puts her foot down--I--well, +I take mine up, but hers stays right there." + +Mr. Owens was of medium height and very brisk in all his movements, +walking with a short and quick little step. He had a wide mouth, good +teeth, and a funny pair of eyes. The eyeballs were very large and round, +and he showed an astonishing amount of their whites, which were of an +unusual brilliancy and lustre; this, added to his power of rolling them +wildly about in their sockets, made them very funny; indeed, they +reminded many people of a pair of large peeled onions. + +I think his most marked peculiarity was his almost frantic desire to +provoke laughter in the actors about him. He would willingly throw away +an entire scene--that is, destroy the illusion of the audience--in order +to secure a hearty laugh from some actor or actress whom he knew not to +be easily moved to laughter; and what was more astonishing still, if an +actress in playing a scene with him fell from tittering into helpless +laughter and failed to speak her lines, he made no angry protest, but +regarded the situation with dancing eyes and delighted smiles, seeming to +accept the breakdown as proof positive that he was irresistible as a +fun-maker. + +For some reason I never could laugh at "Solon Shingle." Mr. Owens had +opened in that part, and as I stood in the entrance watching the +performance, my face was as grave as that of the proverbial judge. He +noticed it at once, and paused a moment to stare at me. Next morning, +just as he entered and crossed to the prompt-table at rehearsal, I, in +listening to a funny story, broke out in my biggest laugh. Open flew the +star's eyes, up slid his eyebrows. + +"Ha! ha!" said he, "ha! ha! there's a laugh for you--by Jove, that's a +laugh as is a laugh!" + +I turned about and faced him. He recognized me instantly. "Well, blast my +cats!" he exclaimed, "say, you young hyena, you're the girl that wouldn't +laugh at me last night. I thought you couldn't, and just listen to your +roars now over some tomfoolery. What was the matter with me, if you +please, mum?" + +I stood in helpless, awkward embarrassment, then, drawing in his lip and +bulging out his eyes until they threatened to leap from their places, he +advanced upon me, exclaiming: "Spare me these protestations and +explanations, I beg!" then tapped me on the chest with his forefinger +and, added, in a different tone: "My young friend, I'll make you laugh or +I'll cut my throat!" next turned on his heel, and called: "Everybody +ready for the first act? Come on, come on, let's get at it!" + +Rehearsal began and Mr. Owens did not have to cut his throat. + +Funny in many things, it was the old farce of "Forty Winks" that utterly +undid me, and not only sat me violently and flatly down upon the entrance +floor, but set me shrieking with such misguided force that next day all +the muscles across and near my diaphragm were too lame and sore for me to +catch a breath in comfort. Perhaps that's not the right word, and I may +not be locating the lamed muscles properly, but if you will go to see +some comedian who will make you laugh until you cry, and cry until you +scream, and laugh and cry and scream until you only breathe in gasps and +sobs, you will next morning know exactly which muscles I have been +referring to--even if you haven't got a diaphragm about you. + +But really the mad absurdities Mr. Owens indulged in that night might +have made the very Sphinx smile stonily. As a miserly old man, eating his +bread-and-cheese supper in his cheap little bedroom, and retiring for the +night only to be aroused by officers who are in pursuit of a flying man, +and think they have now found him. Not much to go upon, that, but, oh, if +you could have seen his ravening hunger; have seen his dog-like snaps at +falling crumbs; his slanting of the plate against the light to see if any +streak of butter was being left; his scooping up of bread-crumbs from +his red-handkerchief lap, and eager licking up of the same; have seen him +sorting out his money and laying aside the thin, worn pennies to give the +waiter; breaking off the hardened grease that in melting had run down the +candle's side, putting it away in his valise, "to grease his boots next +winter" (a line he introduced for my especial benefit). + +Having gone up-stage and taken off his shoes, he suddenly bethought him +that there might be a few crumbs on the floor, and taking his candle, +down he came to look, and turning his back to the audience, they screamed +with sudden laughter, for two shining bare heels were plainly showing +through his ragged black woollen socks. He paid no heed, but sought +diligently, and when he found a crumb he put his finger to his lip to +moisten it, and pouncing upon the particle, conveyed it to his mouth, and +mumbled so luxuriously one almost envied him. Then, remarking that it was +too cold to undress, he undressed, and as his coat came off he started +toward a chair, saying, querulously: "He couldn't abide a man that wasn't +neat and careful about his clothes," and down he pitched the coat in a +heap upon the floor in front of the chair. His vest he dumped beside +another seat, as he dolorously declared: "He had neat habits ever since +his mother had taught him to put his clothes carefully on the chair at +night." + +And so he went up and down and about, until that stage was one litter of +old clothes. Blowing out his candle he got into bed, and, shivering with +cold, tried frantically to pull the clothes over his poor shoulders--but +all in vain. At last a tremendous jerk brought the quilt and sheet about +his shoulders, only to leave his ancient black feet facing the audience, +all uncovered. And so went on the struggle between feet and shoulders +until, worn out, the old man finally "spooned" himself with knees in +chest, and so was covered and fell asleep, only to be aroused by +officers, and turned into driveling idiocy by a demand "for the girl." + +It was at the point when, sitting up in bed, trying, with agonizing +modesty, to keep covered up, his eyes whitely and widely rolling, he +pleadingly asked: "N-n-now I, leave it to you--do I look like a seducer?" +that my knees abandoned me to my fate, and sat me down with a vicious +thud that nearly shook the life out of me. And John Owens sat in bed and +saw my fall and rejoiced with a great joy, and said: "Blast my cats--look +at the girl! there, now, that's something like laughing. I'd take off my +hair and run around bald-headed for her!" + +I was called upon to play blind _Bertha_ to Mr. Owens's _Caleb Plummer_ +in the "Cricket on the Hearth," and I was in a great state of mind, as I +had only seen one or two blind persons, and had never seen a blind part +acted. I was driven at last by anxiety to ask Mr. Owens if he could make +any suggestions as to business, or as to the walk or manner of the blind +girl. But he was no E. L. Davenport, he had no desire to teach others to +act, and he snappishly answered: "No--no! I can't suggest anything for +you to do--but I can suggest something for you not to do! For God's sake +don't go about playing the piano all evening--that's what the rest of 'em +do!" + +"The piano?" I repeated, stupidly. + +"Yes," he said, "the piano! D----d if they don't make me sick! Here they +go--all the '_Berthas_'!" + +He closed his eyes, screwed up his face dismally, and advancing, his +hands before him, began moving them from left to right and back, as +though they were on a keyboard. It was very ridiculous. + +"And that's what they call blindness--playing the piano and tramping +about as securely as anybody!" + +Ah, ah! Mr. Owens, you did make a suggestion after all, though you did +not mean to do it, but I found one all the same in that last contemptuous +sentence, "_tramping about as securely as anybody_." It quickened my +memory--I recalled the piteous uncertainty of movement in the blind; the +dread hesitancy of the advancing foot, unless the afflicted one was on +very familiar ground. I tried walking in the dark, tried walking with +closed eyes. It was surprising how quickly my fears gathered about my +feet. Instinctively I put out one hand now and then, but the fear of +bumping into something was as nothing to the fear of stepping off or +down, or falling through the darkness--oh! + +Then I resolved to play _Bertha_ with open eyes. It was much the more +difficult way, but I was well used to taking infinite pains over small +matters, and believing that the open, unseeing eye was far more pathetic +than the closed eye, I proceeded to work out my idea of how to produce +the unseeing look. By careful experiment I found that if the eyes were +very calm in expression, very slow in movement, and at all times were +raised slightly above the proper point of vision, the effect was really +that of blindness. + +It was unspeakably fatiguing to keep looking just above people's heads, +instead of into their faces, as was my habit, but where is the true actor +or actress who stops to count the cost in pain or in inconvenience when +striving to build up a character that the public may recognize? Says the +ancient cook-book: "First catch your hare, and then--"; so with the +actor, first catch your idea, your desired effect, and _then_ reproduce +it (if you can). But in the case of blind _Bertha_ I must have reproduced +with some success the effect I had been studying, for an old newspaper +clipping beside me says that: "The doubting, hesitating advance of her +foot, the timid uncertainty of her occasional investigating hand spelled +blindness as clearly as did her patient unseeing eyes," and for my reward +that wretched man amused himself by pulling faces at me and trying to +break me down in my singing of "Auld Robin Grey," until I was obliged to +sing with my eyes tight shut to save myself from laughter; and when the +curtain had fallen he said to me: "I'll settle your hash for you some +night, young woman, you see if I don't--you just wait now!" And the next +season, in Cincinnati, in very truth, he did "settle my hash" for me, to +his great delight and my vexation. + +He was so very, very funny as _Major Wellington de Boots_ in "Everybody's +Friend"; his immense self-satisfaction, his stiff little strut, his +martial ardor, his wild-eyed cowardice were trying enough, but when he +deliberately acted _at_ you--oh, dear! He would look me straight in the +eye and make faces at me, until I sobbed at every breath. Then he had a +wretched little trick of rising slowly on his toes and sinking back to +his heels again, while he cocked his head to one side so like a knowing +old dicky-bird that he simply convulsed me with laughter. + +I was his _Mrs. Swansdown_, and I had kept steady and never lost a line, +until we came to the scene where, as my landlord and would-be husband, he +brought some samples of wall-paper for me to choose from. Where, in +heaven's name, he ever found those rolls of paper I can't imagine. They +were not merely hideous but grotesque as well, and were received with +shouts of laughter by the house. + +With true shopman's touch, he would send each piece unrolling toward the +footlights, while holding up its breadth of ugliness for _Mrs. +Swansdown's_ inspection and approval, and every piece that he thus +displayed he greeted at first sight with words of hearty admiration for +its beauty and perfect suitability, until, catching disapproval on the +widow's face, he in the same breath, with lightning swift hypocrisy, +turned his sentence into contemptuous disparagement, and fairly shook his +audience with laughter at the quickness of his change of opinion. + +At last he unfurled a piece of paper whose barbarity of design and +criminality of color I remember yet. The dead-white ground was widely and +alternately striped with a dark Dutch blue and a dingy chocolate brown, +and about the blue stripes there twined a large pumpkin-colored +morning-glory, while from end to end the brown stripes were solemnly +pecked at by small magenta birds. The thing was as ludicrous as it was +ugly--an Indian clay-idol might have cracked into smiles of derision over +its artistic qualities. + +Then Mr. Owens, bursting into encomiums over its desirability as a +hanging for the drawing-room walls of a modest little retreat, caught my +frown, and continued: "Er--er, or perhaps you'd prefer it as trousering?" +then, delightedly: "Yes--yes, you're quite right, it _is_ a neat +thing--cut full at the knee, eh? Close at the foot, yes, yes, I see, +regular peg-tops--great idea! I'll send you a pair at once. Oh, good +Lord! what have I done! I--I--mean, I'll have a pair myself, _Mrs. +Swansdown_, cut from this very piece of your sweet selection!" + +Ah, well! that ended the scene so far as my help went. The shrieking +audience drowned my noise for a time, but, alas, _it_ recovered directly, +having no hysterics to battle with, while I buried my head deep in the +sofa-pillows and rolled and screamed and wept and bit my lips, clinched +my hands, and vainly fought for my self-control; while all the time I saw +a pair of trousers cut from that awful wall-paper, and Mr. Owens just +bulged his white shiny eyes at me and pranced about and rejoiced at my +downfall, while the audience, seeing what the trouble was, laughed all +over again, and--and--well, "my hash" was very thoroughly "settled," even +to the entire satisfaction of Mr. Owens's self. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD + + From the "Wild West" I Enter the Eastern "Parlor of Home Comedy"--I + Make my First Appearance in "Man and Wife." + + +The original Fifth Avenue Theatre was a tiny affair, with but small +accommodation for the public and none at all for the actor, unless he +burrowed for it beneath the building; and indeed the deep, long basement +was wonderfully like a rabbit-warren, with all its net-work of narrow +passageways, teeming with life and action. The atmosphere down there was +dreadful--I usually prefer using a small word instead of a large one, but +it would be nonsense to speak of the "air" in that green-room, because +there was none. Atmosphere was there stagnant, heavy, dead, with not even +an electric fan to stir it up occasionally, and the whole place was +filled with the musty, mouldy odor that always arises from carpets spread +in sunless, airless rooms. Gas, too, burned in every tiny room, in every +narrow slip of passageway, and though it was all immaculately clean, it +was still wonderful how human beings endured so many hours imprisonment +there. + +It was on a very hot September morning that the company was called +together in the green-room of the Fifth Avenue Theatre. This first "call" +of the season is generally given over to greetings after the vacation, to +chattings, to introductions, to welcomes, and a final distribution of +parts in the first play, and a notification to be on hand promptly next +morning for work. With a heavily throbbing heart I prepared for the +dreaded first meeting with all these strange people, and when I grew +fairly choky, I would say to myself, "What nonsense, Mr. Daly or the +prompter will be there, and in the general introductions you will, of +course, be included, and after that you will be all right--a smile, a +bow, or a kind word will cost no more in a New York theatre than in any +other one," which goes to prove what a very ignorant young person I was +then. In looking back to that time, I often drop into the habit of +considering myself as another person, and sometimes I am sorry for the +girl of that day, and say: "You poor thing, if you had only known!" or +again, "What wasted trust--what needless sorrow, too!" But I was then +like the romping, trusting, all-loving puppy-dog who believes every +living being his friend, until a kick or a blow convinces him to the +contrary. + +I had two dresses, neither one really fit for the occasion, but I put on +the best one, braided my mass of hair into the then proper _chatelaine_ +braids, and found comfort in them, and encouragement in a fresh, +well-fitting pair of gloves. At half-past ten o'clock I entered the +underground green-room. Two young men were there before me. I slightly +bent my head, and one responded doubtfully, but the other, with the +blindness of stone in his eyes, bowed not at all. I sat down in a +corner--the stranger always seeks a corner; can that be an instinct, a +survival from the time when a tribe fell upon the stranger, and with the +aid of clubs informed him of their strength and power? Anyway, as I said, +I sat in a corner. There was the carpet, the great mirror, the cushioned +bench running clear around the room, and that was all--oh, no! on the +wall, of course, there hung that shallow, glass-covered frame or cabinet +called, variously, "the call-board," the "call-case," or even the +"call-box." It is the official voice of the manager--when the "call-case" +commands, all obey. There, in writing, one finds the orders for next +day's rehearsal; there one finds the cast of characters in the plays; +there, too, the requests for the company's aid, on such a day, for such a +charity benefit appears. Ah, a great institution is the "call-case," +being the manager's voice, but not his ears, which is both a comfort and +an advantage at times to all concerned. + +That day I glanced at it; it was empty. The first call and cast of the +season would be put up presently. I wondered how many disappointments it +would hold for me. Then there was a rustle of skirts, a tapping of heels, +a young woman gayly dressed rushed in, a smile all ready for--oh! she +nodded briefly to the young men, then she saw me--she looked full at me. +The puppy-dog trust arose in me, I was a stranger, she was going to bow, +perhaps smile! Oh, how thankful I am that I was stopped in time, before I +had betrayed that belief to her. Her face hardened, her eyes leisurely +scorched up and down my poor linen gown, then she turned frowningly to +the glass, patted her bustle into shape, and flounced out again. I felt +as though I had received a blow. Then voices, loudly laughing male +voices, approached, and three men came in, holding their hats and mopping +their faces. They "bah-Joved" a good deal, and one, big and noisy, with a +young face topped with perfect baldness, bowed to me courteously, the +others did not see me. + +Where, I thought, was the manager all this time? Then more laughter, and +back came my flouncy young woman and two of her kind with her; pretty, +finely dressed, badly bred women, followed by one whom I knew instantly. +One I had heard much of, one to whom I had a letter of introduction--I +have it still, by the way. She was gray even then, plain of feature, but +sweet of voice and very gentle of manner. I lifted my head higher. Of +course she would not know me from sole-leather, but she would see I was a +stranger and forlornly alone, and besides, being already secure in her +position in the company--she was its oldest member--and therefore, in a +certain measure, a hostess, and as my mere presence in the green-room +showed I was a professional of some sort or quality, both authority and +kindness would prompt her to a bow, a smile, perhaps a pleasant word. I +looked hungrily at her, her bright, small eyes met mine, swept swiftly +over me, and then she slowly turned her black silk back upon me, the +stranger in her gate; and as I swallowed hard at the lump Mrs. Gilbert's +gentle indifference had brought to my throat, my old sense of fun came +uppermost, and I said to myself: "No morning is lost in which one learns +something, and I have discovered that covering a club neatly in velvet +improves its appearance, without in the least detracting from the force +of its blow." + +And then the passage resounded with laughter and heel-taps, the small +room filled full; there was a surging of silken gowns, a mingling of +perfumes and of voices, high and excited, and, I must add, affected; much +handshaking, many explosive kisses, and then, down the other passageway, +came more gentlemen. They were a goodly crowd--well groomed, well +dressed, manly fellows, and all in high good-humor, except Mr. Davidge, +but, in mercy's name! who ever saw, who would have wished to see "rare +old Bill" in a good humor? + +Such gay greetings as were exchanged around about and even over me, since +my hat was twice knocked over my eyes by too emphatic embracings in such +crowded quarters--and still no manager, no prompter. When they quieted +down a bit, everyone took stock of me. It would have been a trying +position even had I been properly gowned, but as it was the +ill-suppressed titters of two extravagantly gowned nonentities and the +swift, appraising glances of the others kept me in agony. + +Suddenly a quick step was heard approaching. I nearly laughed aloud in +all my misery at their lightning-quick change of manner. Silence, as of +the grave, came upon them. They all faced toward the coming +steps--anxious-eyed, but with smiles just ready to tremble on to their +lips at an instant's notice. Never had I seen anything so like +trick-poodles. They were ready to do "dead dog," or jump over a chair, or +walk on two legs--ready, too, for either the bone or the blow. I knew +from their strained attitude of attention who was coming, and next +moment, tall and thin and dour, Mr. Daly stood in the doorway. He neither +bowed nor smiled, but crossly asked: "Is Miss Morris here?" + +Everyone looked reproachfully at everyone else for not being the desired +person. Then as the managerial frown deepened, from my corner I lifted a +rather faint voice in acknowledgment of my presence, saying: "Yes, sir, I +am here," and he gave that peculiar "huh!" of his, which seemed to be a +combination of groan and snort, and instantly disappeared again. + +Oh, dear! oh, dear! I had felt myself uncomfortable before, but now? It +was as if I had sprung up and shouted: "Say! I'm Miss Morris!" Everyone +gazed at me openly now, as if I were a conundrum and they were trying to +guess me. I honestly believe I should have broken down under the strain +in a moment more, but fortunately a slender little man made his silent +appearance at one of the doors and took off his immaculate silk hat, +revealing the thin, blond hair, the big, pale blue pop-eyes of James +Lewis. Twenty minutes ago my heart would have jumped at sight of him, but +I had had a lesson. I expected no greeting now, even from a former +friend. I sat quite still, simply grateful that his coming had taken the +general gaze from my miserable face. He shook hands all round, glanced at +me and passed by, then looked back, came back, held out his hand, saying: +"You stuck-up little brute, I knew you in aprons and pig-tails, and now +you ain't going to speak to me; how are you, Clara?" + +While I was huskily answering him, a big woman appeared at the door. Her +garments were aggressively rich, and lockets (it was a great year for +lockets) dangled from both wrists, from her watch-chain, and from her +neck-chain. She glittered with diamonds--in a street-dress which might +also have answered for a dinner-dress. I laughed to myself as I thought +what a prize she would be for pirates. Then I looked at her handsome face +and, as our eyes met, we recognized each other perfectly, but my lesson +being learned I made no sign, I had no wish to presume, and she--looked +over my head. + +M. Benot, the Frenchman who died in harness early in the season, poor +little gentleman! came in then with the MSS. and the parts of the play, +"Man and Wife." Silence came upon the company. As M. Benot called Mr. or +Miss So-and-so, he or she advanced and received the part assigned to +them. "Miss Clara Morris!" I rose stiffly--I had sat so long in my +corner--and received rather a bulky part. I bowed silently and resumed my +seat, but the place was for a moment only a black, windy void; I had seen +the name on my part--I was cast for _Blanche_, a comedy part! + +As I came back to my real surroundings, M. Benot was saying: "Eleven +o'clock sharp to-morrow, ladies and gentlemen, for rehearsal." + +People began hurrying out. I waited a little, till nearly all were gone, +whispering "Miss Ethel for _Anne_, Miss Ethel for _Anne_" when the +handsome "Argosy of wealth" sailed up to me, and, in a voice of sweet +uncertainty, said: "I wonder if you can possibly recognize me?" + +"Oh, yes," I answered, smiling broadly, "we recognized each other at the +moment you entered, Miss Newton." + +She reddened and stammered something about "not being quite sure--and out +West, and now here," and as she was even prettier than when I had last +seen her, I told her so, and--we were happy ever after. + +Then I slipped out of the theatre and crossed to Twenty-first Street +safely, but could control my grief and pain, my mortification and my +disappointment, no longer. Tears would have their way, and I held my +sunshade low before my tear-washed, grieving face. Those little +ill-suppressed smiles at my clothes, those slightly lifted eyebrows, and +there was not even a single introduction to shelter me to-morrow, and as +to _Blanche_, oh, I thought "let her wait till I get home!" + +At last mother opened the door for me. I flung the hat from my aching +head, and as she silently tied a wet handkerchief about my throbbing +temples, I blurted out three words: "_A comedy part!_" and fell face +downward on the bed, and cried until there was not a tear left in me, and +considering my record as a shedder of tears, that's saying a good deal. +Afterward I knelt down and hid my shamed face in the pillow and asked +forgiveness from the ever-pitiful and patient One above, and prayed for a +clear understanding of the part entrusted to me. Oh, don't be shocked. I +have prayed over my work all my life long, and I can't think the Father +despises any labor that is done to His honor. And I humbly gave over my +further thought of _Anne_, and praying pardon for the folly of "kicking +against the pricks" and wasting my scant strength in useless passion, I +retired, at peace with myself, the world, and even _Blanche_. + +Next morning a curious thing happened. I heard, or thought I heard, the +words: "The first shall be last and the last shall be first," and I +called from my bed: "Did you speak to me, mother?" and she answered, +"No." + +As I sat over my coffee and rolls, I said, absently: "The first shall be +last, and the _last_ shall be first." + +"What do you mean?" mother asked. + +"Nothing," I said. "The words were in my ears when I awoke, and they keep +coming back to me." + +I rose and dressed for rehearsal. As I drew on my gloves I heard a +hurried voice asking for me in the hall. I recognized it as M. Benot's. +My heart sank like lead--was even the comedy part to be taken from me? I +opened the door. Out of breath, the little man gasped: "I so come quite +quick for Monsieur Da-_lay_. He make me to ask you right away, very +quick, can you play that part of _Anne_?" + +My breath came in gasps, I might have been the runner! I answered, +briefly: "Yes!" + +"Then," said he, "here give you to me that other part, _Blanche_." + +I gave it joyously. + +"Take you now this of _Anne_ and make of the great haste to Monsieur +Da-_lay's_ office, before--_comprenez-vous_--before that you go on the +stage, or see anyone else, he want you to make some lies, I tink, so you +best hurry!" + +"Mother, mother!" I cried. As she ran, I held out to her the part, _Anne +Sylvester_, written large on it. She looked, and said: "The last shall be +first!" and kissing me, pushed me toward the stairs. + +I almost ran in my anxiety to obey orders; my mind was in a state of +happy confusion--what could it all mean? The announcement had been +distinctly made only yesterday that Miss Agnes Ethel would play _Anne_. +Was she ill? Had she met with an accident? And why should Mr. Daly wish +to see me privately? Could he be going to ask me to read the part over to +him? Oh, dear, heaven forbid! for I could much more successfully fly up +into the blue sky. + +The stairs that led down from the sidewalk to the stage-door passed +across the one, the only, window of the entire basement, which let a +modicum of light into a tiny den, intended originally for the janitor's +use, but taken by Mr. Daly for his private office. Here the great guiding +intelligence of the entire establishment was located. Here he dreamed +dreams and spun webs, watching over the incomings, the outgoings, the +sayings and the doings of every soul in the company. He would have even +regulated their thoughts, if he could. I once said to him, after a +rehearsal: "If you could, sir, while in the theatre at least, you would +force us all to think only 'Hail, Daly!'" + +He laughed a little, and then rather grimly remarked: "That speech made +to anyone else would have cost you five dollars, Miss Morris. But if you +have absolutely _no_ reverence, neither have you fear, so let it pass," +and I never said "Thank you" more sincerely in my life, for I could ill +afford jests at five dollars apiece. + +But that morning of the first rehearsal, as I hurried down the stairs, +the shade was drawn up high, and through the window I saw Mr. Daly +sitting, swinging about, in his desk-chair. Before I could tap, he called +for me to enter. He was very pale, very rumpled, very tired-looking. He +wasted no time over greetings or formalities, but curtly asked: "Can you +play _Anne Sylvester_?" + +And, almost as curtly, I answered: "Yes, sir!" + +The calm certainty of my tone seemed to comfort him; he relaxed his +seemingly strained muscles, and sank back into his chair. He passed his +long, thin fingers wearily across his closed eyes several times, then, as +he opened them, he asked, sharply: "Can you obey orders?" + +"Yes," I answered, "I've been obeying orders all my life long." + +"Well," he said, "can you keep quiet--that's the thing. Can you keep +quiet about this part?" + +I stared silently at him. + +"This thing is between ourselves. Now, are you going to tell the people +all about when you received it?" + +I smiled a little bitterly as I replied: "I am hardly likely to tell my +business affairs to people who do not speak to me." + +He looked up quickly, for I stood all the time, and asked: "What's that, +don't speak to you? Were you not welcomed----" + +I broke his speech with laughter, but he would not smile: "Were you not +properly treated? Who was lacking in courtesy?" + +"Oh, please," I hurried, "don't blame anyone. You see there were no +introductions made, and of course I should have remembered that the +hospitality of the East is more--er--well, cautious than that of the +West, and besides I must look very woolly and wild to your people." + +"Ah!" he broke in, "then in a measure the fault is mine, since worry and +trouble kept me away from the green-room. But Benot should have made +introductions in my place--and--well, I'm ashamed of the women! cats! +cats!" + +"Oh, no!" I laughed, "not yet, surely not yet!" + +Suddenly he returned to the part: "You will tell the people that you were +to play _Anne_ in the first place." + +"But, Mr. Daly," I cried, "the whole company saw me receive the part of +_Blanche_." + +He gnawed at the end of his mustache in frowning thought. "One woman to +whom it belongs refuses the part," he said; "another woman, who can't +play it, demands it from me, and I want to stop her mouth by making her +believe the part was given to you before I knew her desire for it--do you +see?" + +Yes, with round-eyed astonishment, I saw that this almost tyrannically +high-handed ruler had someone to placate--someone to deceive. + +"You will therefore tell the people you received _Anne_ last night." + +I was silent, hot, miserable. + +"Do you hear?" he asked, angrily. "Good God! everything goes wrong. The +idiot that was to dramatize the story of "Man and Wife" for me has failed +in his work; the play is announced, and I have been up all night writing +and arranging a last act for it myself. If Miss Davenport thinks she has +been refused _Anne_, she will take her revenge by refusing to play +_Blanche_, and the cast is so full it will require all my people--you +_must_ say you received the part last night!" + +"Mr. Daly," I said, "won't you please trust to my discretion. I don't +like lying, even for my daily bread, but if silence is golden, a discreet +silence is away above rubies." + +He struck his hand angrily on the desk before him: "Miss Morris, when I +give an order----" + +Up went my head: "Mr. Daly, I have nothing to do with your private +affairs; any business order----" + +Heaven knows where we would have brought up had not a sudden darkness +come into the little room--a woman quickly passed the window. Mr. Daly +sprang to his feet, caught my fingers in a frantic squeeze, and pushing +me from the door rapidly, said: "Yes--yes--well, do your best with it. +I'm very glad Benot found you last night!" Then turning to the new-comer, +who had not been present the day before, he cheerfully exclaimed: "Well, +you didn't lose to-day's train, I see! I have a charming comedy part for +you--come in!" + +She went in, and the storm broke, for as I felt my way through the +passage leading to the stage-stairs, I heard its rolling and rumbling, +and two dimly-seen men in front of me laughed, while one, pointing over +his shoulder, toward the office, sneered, meaningly: "Ethel stock is +going down, isn't it?" + +And almost I wished I was back in a family theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH + + I Rehearse Endlessly--I Grow Sick with Dread--I Meet with Success in + _Anne Sylvester_. + + +Up-stairs I found a bare stage, as is often the case for a first mere +reading of parts, and most of the company sitting on camp-stools, +chatting and laughing. Already M. Benot had announced the change in the +cast, and people looked at me in perfect stupefaction: "Good heavens! +what a risk he is taking! Who on earth is she, anyway?" and I cleared my +throat in mercy to the speaker, who didn't know I stood behind her. + +That morning I was introduced to a number of the ladies and gentlemen, +but it was a mere baptism of water, not of the spirit. I was not one of +them. Understand, no one was openly rude to me, everyone bowed a +"good-morning," but, well, you can bow a good-morning over a large iron +fence with a fast-locked gate in it. That my dresses of gray linen or of +white linen struck them as being funny in September is not to be wondered +at, yet they must have known that necessity forced me to wear them, and +that their smiles were not always effaced quickly enough to spare me a +cruel pang. And my amazement grew day by day at their own extravagance of +dress. Some of the ladies wore a different costume each day during the +entire rehearsal of the play. How, I wondered, could they do it? Two of +them, Miss Kate Claxton and Miss Newton, had husbands to pay their bills, +I found, and Miss Linda Dietz--the gentlest, most sweetly-courteous +creature imaginable--had parents and a home; but the magnificence of the +others remained an unsolvable mystery. + +Another thing against me was, I could not act even the least bit at +rehearsal. Foreign actors will act in cold blood at a daylight rehearsal, +but few Americans can do it. I read my lines with intelligence, but gave +no sign of what I intended to do at night. Of course that made Mr. Daly +suffer great anxiety, but he said nothing, only looked at me with such +troubled, anxious eyes that I felt sorry for him. One gentleman, however, +decided that I was--not to put too fine a point upon it--"a lunk-head." +He treated me with supercilious condescension, varied occasionally with +overbearing tyranny. Just one person in the theatre knew that I was +really a good actress, of considerable experience, and that was James +Lewis; and from a tricksy spirit of mischief he kept the silence of a +graven image, and when Mr. Dan Harkins took me aside to teach me to act, +Lewis would retire to a quiet spot and writhe with suppressed laughter. + +One day he said to me: "Say, you ain't cooking up a huge joke on these +gas-balloons, are you, Clara? And upon my soul you are doing it well--you +act as green as a cucumber." + +And never did I succeed in convincing him that I had not engineered a +great joke on the company by deceptive rehearsing. One tiny incident +seemed to give Mr. Daly a touch of confidence in me. In the "Inn scene" a +violent storm was raging, and at a critical moment the candle was +supposed to be blown out by a gust of wind from the left door, as one of +the characters entered. They were using a mechanical device for +extinguishing the candle, and it was tried several times one morning, and +always, to my surprise, from the _right_ side of the stage. No one seemed +to notice anything odd, though the flame streamed out good and long in +the wrong direction before going out. At last I ventured, as I was the +principal in the scene: "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but is it not the +wind from the open door that blows that light out?" + +Then, quick and sharp, mine enemy was upon me: "This is _our_ affair, +Miss Morris." + +"Yes," I answered, "but the house will laugh if the candle goes out +_against_ the storm," and Mr. Daly sprang up, and, smiling his first +kindly smile at me, said: "What the deuce have we all been thinking +of--you're right, the candle must be extinguished from the _left_," and +as I glanced across the stage I saw Lewis doing some neat little dancing +steps all by himself. + +The rehearsals were exhausting in the extreme, the heat was unnatural, +the walk far too long, and, well, to be frank, I had not nearly enough to +eat. My anxiety was growing hourly, my strength began to fail, and at the +last rehearsals, white as wax from weakness, I had to be carried up the +stairs to the stage. Having such a quick study, requiring but few +rehearsals, I was from the fourth day ready at any moment to go on and +play my part. Fancy, then, what a waste of strength there was in forcing +me, day after day, to go over long, important scenes--three, five, even +seven times of a morning for the benefit of one amateur actress, who +simply could not remember to-day what she had been told yesterday. It was +foolish, it was risking a breakdown, when they had no one to put in my +place. Mr. William Davidge was the next greatest sufferer, and as an +experienced old actor he hotly resented being called back to go over a +scene, again and again, "that a 'walking vanity' might be taught her +business at his expense!" + +And though I liked and admired the "walking vanity" (who did not in the +least deserve the name), I did think the manner of her training was +costly and unjust, and one morning, just before the production of the +play, I--luckily as it would seem--lost my self-control for a moment, and +created a small sensation. In my individual case, fainting is always +preceded by a moment of total darkness, and that again by a sound in my +ears as of a rushing wind. That morning, as I finished the sixth +repetition of _Anne's_ big scene with _Lady Glenarm_, the warning whir +was already in my ears, when the order came to go over it again, "that +_Mrs. Glenarm_ might be quite easy." It was too much--a sudden rage +seized upon me: "_Mrs. Glenarm_ will only be quite easy when the rest of +us are dead!" I remarked as I took my place again, and when I received my +cue I whirled upon her with the speech: "Take care, _Mrs. Glenarm_, I am +not naturally a patient woman, trouble has done much to tame my temper, +but endurance has its limits!" + +It was given with such savage passion that Miss Dietz burst into +frightened tears and forgot utterly her lines, while a silence that +thrilled, absolute, dead, came upon the company for a moment. Hastily I +controlled myself, but there were whispers and amazed looks everywhere. +Mr. George Brown, who played the pugilist, said aloud to a group: "She's +done the whole crowd--she's an actress to the core!" + +Mr. Daly sat leaning forward at the prompt-table, white as he could well +be. His eyes were wide and bright, and, to my surprise, he spoke quite +gently to me as he said: "Spare yourself--just murmur your lines, Miss +Morris." And Miss Dietz said: "Oh, Mr. Daly, I am so glad I am prepared; +I should have fallen in my tracks if she had done that to me at night, +without warning." + +When I left the stage, one of the ladies swept her dress aside, and said: +"Sit here by me; how tired you must be!" It was the first friendly +advance made to me. Before rehearsal ended I overheard the young man with +the bald head saying: "She has sold us all, and I bet she will completely +change the map of the Fifth Avenue Theatre." + +"Oh, no, she won't," answered Lewis, shortly, "she's not that type of +woman!" + +"Well, at all events, on the strength of that outburst, I ain't afraid to +bet twenty good dollars that she makes pie out of Ethel's vogue!" Then, +seeing me, he removed his hat hurriedly, offering his shoulder for me to +lean upon as I descended the winding-stairs, and I said to myself: +"Yesterday this would have been a kindly service; to-day--to-day it is +not far from an humiliation." + +Hitherto I had known neither clique nor cabal in a theatre; now I found +myself in a network of them. The _favorite_--who, I had supposed, lived +only in the historic novel--I now met in real life, and found her as +charming, as treacherous, and as troublesome in the theatre as she could +ever have been in a royal court. There was no one to explain to me the +nature or progress of the game that was being played when I came upon the +scene; but I soon discovered there were two factions in the theatre, Miss +Agnes Ethel heading one, Miss Fanny Davenport the other. Each had a +following, but Miss Ethel, who had been all-powerful, had overestimated +her strength when she refused, point-blank, to play _Anne Sylvester_, +giving as her reason "the immorality of _Anne_." This from the lady who +had been acting all season in "Fernande" and "Frou-Frou"--as a gambler's +decoy and an adulterous wife abandoning child and home--satisfactorily +proved the utter absence of a sense of humor from her charming make-up. + +Mr. Daly, like every other man, could be managed with a little patient +_finesse_, but he would not be bullied in business affairs by any living +creature, as he proved when, rather than change the play to please the +actress he then regarded as his strongest card, he trusted a great part +to the hands of an unknown, untried girl, and gave out to the newspapers +that Miss Ethel had sprained her ankle, and, though in perfect health, +could not walk well enough to act. And, after my momentary outburst, the +anti-Ethelites suddenly placed me on one of the sixty-four squares of +their chess-board; but I knew not whether I was castle, knight, bishop, +or pawn, I only knew that I had become a piece of value in their game, +and they hoped to move me against Ethel. + +It was all very bewildering, but I had other things to think about, and +more important. My money had run so low I was desperately afraid I could +not get dresses for the play, and for the white mousseline necessary for +the croquet-party of the first act I was forced to go to a very cheap +department store, a fact the dress nightly proclaimed aloud from every +inch of its surface. Shawl dresses were the novelty of that season, and +at Stewart's I found a modestly priced dark-gray shawl overskirt and +jacket that I could wear over a black alpaca skirt for two acts. The +other two dresses I luckily had in my wardrobe, and when my new shoes, a +long gray veil, and two pairs of gray gloves were laid into the +dressing-room basket, I had in the whole world $2.38, on which we had to +live until my first week's salary came to me. But, oh, that last awful +day before the opening night. I was suffering bodily as well as mentally. +I had had an alarming attack of pleurisy. My mother had rung the bell and +left a message at the first house that carried a doctor's sign. He came; +he was far gone in liquor; he was obstinate, almost abusive--to be brief, +he blistered me shockingly; another doctor had to be called to dress and +treat the hideous blisters the first had produced; and the tight closing +of dress-waists about me was an agony not yet forgotten. But what was +that to the nervous terror, the icy chill, the burning fever, the deadly +nausea! I could not swallow food--I _could_ not! My mother stood over me +while, with tear-filled eyes, I disposed of a raw, beaten egg, and then +she was guilty of the dreadful extravagance of buying two chops, of which +she made a cup of broth, and fearing a breakdown if I attempted without +food five such acts as awaited me, she almost forced me to swallow it to +the last drop after my hat was on and I was ready to start. I always kiss +my mother good-by, and that night my lips were so cold and stiff with +fright that they would not move. I dropped my head for a moment upon her +shoulder, she patted me silently with one hand and opened the door with +the other. My little dog, escaping from the room, rushed to me, leaping +against my knees. I caught her up, and she covered my troubled, veiled +face with frantic kisses. I passed her to mother and crept painfully down +the steps. I glanced back--mother waved her hand and innocently called: +"Good luck! God bless you!" + +The astonishing conjunction of superstition and orthodox faith touched my +sense of the ridiculous. I laughed aloud, Bertie barked excitedly, I +faced about and went forward almost gayly to meet--what? As I reached +Broadway, I remember quite distinctly that I said aloud, to myself: +"Well, God's good to the Irish, and at all events I was born on St. +Patrick's day--so Garryowen forever!" + +The pendulum was swinging to the other extreme, I was in high spirits; +nor need you be surprised, for such is the acting temperament. + +I had not on that first night even the comfort of a dressing-room to +myself, but shared one of the tiniest closets with Mrs. Roberta Norwood, +in whose chic blonde person I failed utterly to see a future friend. The +terrible heat, the crowding, the strange companion, all brought back the +memory of that far-away first night of all in Cleveland; but now there +was no Mrs. Bradshaw to go to for advice or commendation. The sense of +utter loneliness came upon me suddenly, and I bent my head low over the +buckling of my shoe that my rising tears might not be noticed. + +We were directly beneath the auditorium parquet, and every seat flung +down by the ushers seemed to strike a blow upon our heads, while applause +shook dust into our eyes and hair. Forced occupation is the best cure for +nervousness, and in the hurried making-up and dressing I for the time +forgot my fright. Two or three persons had come to the door to speak to +Mrs. Norwood, and it seemed to me they were all made up unusually pale. I +looked at myself in the glass, I hesitated, at last I turned and asked if +I wore too much color--if I was too red, and the answer I received was: +"That's a matter of taste." + +Now it was not a matter of taste, but a matter of business. She was +familiar with the size and the lighting of the theatre, and I was not, +yet either from extreme self-occupation or utter indifference she allowed +me to go upon that tiny stage painted like an Indian about to take the +war-path. Truly I was climbing up a thorny stem to reach the flower of +success. + +The overture was at its closing bars, all were rushing to the stairs for +the first act. I stopped behind the dressing-room door and bent my head +for one dumbly pleading moment, then muttering "Amen--amen," I, too, +hurried up the stairs to face the awful first appearance before a New +York audience. + +I had always been rehearsed to enter with the crowd of guests. The cue +came, and as I stepped forward, a strong hand caught my arm. Mr. Daly had +suddenly changed his mind, he held me fast till all were on, then let me +go, whispering, "Now--now," and I went on alone. + +I had to retire to the back of the stage and wait a few moments till +spoken to. Never shall I forget the sort of horror the closeness of the +audience caused me, I felt I should step upon the upturned faces; I +wanted to put out my hands and push the people back, and their use of +opera-glasses filled my eyes with angry tears. Suddenly I understood the +meaning of the lightly painted faces. I raised my handkerchief and wiped +some of the red from my cheeks, while somewhat bitterly, I am afraid, I +thought that "love ye one another" and "thy neighbor as thyself" had been +relegated to the garret with "God bless our home." + +Then the astonishing beauty of the women on the stage struck me with +dismay; their exquisite lacy dresses, their jewel-loaded fingers. Oh! I +thought, how can I ever hope to stand with them. I grew sick and cold. +Then there dully reached my ears the words of _Lady Lundy_: "I +choose--Anne Sylvester." It was my cue. I came slowly down; no one knew +me, no one greeted me. I opened my lips, but no sound came. I saw a +frightened look on Miss Newton's face; I tried again, and in a husky +whisper, answered: "Thank you; I'd rather not play." + +Out in front one actor friend, John W. Norton, watched and prayed for a +success for me; when he heard the hoarse murmur, he dropped his head and +groaned: "A failure--total and complete!" But I also had noted that +hoarse croak, and it had acted like a mighty spur. I was made desperate +by it. I threw up my head, and answered my next cue with: "No, Lady +Lundy, nothing is the matter; I am not very well, but I will play if you +wish it." + +I gave the words so bell-clear and with so much insolent humility that a +round of applause of lightning quickness followed them. It was the first +bit of genuine hearty kindness I had received in the city of New York. In +my pleasure I forgot the character of _Anne_ completely, and turned to +the audience a face every feature of which, from wide, surprised eyes to +more widely-smiling lips, radiated such satisfaction and good-fellowship +that they first laughed aloud and then a second time applauded. + +At last! I was starting fair, we had shaken hands, my audience and I; my +nerves were steady, my heart strong, the "part" good. I would try hard, I +would do my best. I made my whispered appointment to meet _Geoffrey_, and +when I returned and stood a moment, silently watching him, there came +upon the house the silence that my soul loves--the silence that might +thrill a graven image into acting, and I was not stone. + +Our scene began. _Anne_, striving desperately to restrain her feelings, +said: "You are rich, a scholar, and a gentleman; are you something else +besides all these--_are you a coward and a villain, sir?_" + +Clear and distinct from the right box, in suppressed tones, came the +words: "Larmes de la voix! larmes de la voix!" Many glanced at the box, a +few hissed impatiently at the new mayor, Oakey Hall, who had spoken. Our +interview was interrupted by _Lady Lundy_ (Miss Newton) and _Sir Patrick +Lundy_ (Mr. Lewis). I was dismissed by the first and left the stage. +Applause broke forth--continued. Mr. Lewis and Miss Newton began to +speak--the applause redoubled. I turned angrily. "What bad manners!" I +said. Mr. Daly ran up to me, waving his hands: "Go on! go on! It's you, +you fool!" + +"I know it," I replied, "but I'm not going to insult any actor by taking +a call in the middle of his scene." + +"Confound you!" he said, "will you do as I tell you?" He caught me, +whirled me about and, putting his hand between my shoulders, literally +pitched me on to the stage, where I stood ashamed and mortified by what I +honestly felt to be a slight to those two waiting to proceed. + +After that the evening's triumph, like the rolling snowball, grew as it +advanced. At the end of the quarrel act with _Mrs. Glenarm_ the curtain +was raised on the stage picture--once, twice, three times. Then M. Benot +said to Mr. Daly: "They want her," and Mr. Daly answered, sharply: "I +know what they want, and I know what I don't want--ring up again!" + +He did so; no use, the applause went on. Then Mr. Daly said to me: "Take +_Mrs. Glenarm_ on with you, and acknowledge this call." + +We went on together; retired; more applause. Again we went on together; +no use, the applause _would_ not stop. "Oh, well, ring up once more," +said Mr. Daly, "and here, you, take it yourself." + +I went on alone, and the audience rose as one individual. I saw them, +all blurred through happy tears. I held my hands out to them, with a very +passion of love. The house blossomed with white waving handkerchiefs in +answer. The curtain fell and, before I moved, rose once more, and then, +as I live by bread! I saw pass between me and those applauding people a +little crying child carrying a single potato in her hand. Of course that +was nerves; but I saw her, I tell you I saw her! and surely I should know +myself! + +In the fourth act, which was a triumph for all concerned in it--and that +meant nearly everyone in the cast--I received a compliment that I prize +still. There is a certain tone which should be reserved for short +important speeches only in strong and exciting scenes, where, by force of +contrast, it has a great effect; so, in tones low, level, clear and cold +as ice, _Anne_ had scarcely taken her solemn oath: "I swear it, on my +honor as a Christian woman, sir!" when from end to end of their railed-in +semicircle the musicians broke into swift applause. Catching the effect, +their foreign impetuosity made them respond more quickly than could the +Americans who seconded their action, while mere recognition from these +play-worn, _blase_ men was to me veritable incense. In the last act, Mrs. +Gilbert, as _Hester Detheridge_, the supposed dumb woman, proved herself +an artist to the fingertips. Later I saw many _Hesters_, but never one to +equal hers. + +At last, and late, far too late, the play ended in a blaze of glory. The +curtain was raised for final compliments. All the actors in the play had +been summoned--we all stood in line, a bowing, smiling, happy +line--facing a shouting, hat, handkerchief, or cane-waving crowd of +pleased, excited people. As I saw how many eyes were turned my way, with +a leap of the heart I repeated: "If you make a favorable impression I +will--yes, I will double that salary." + +Surely, I thought, no one can doubt that I have made a favorable +impression, and, oh, mother, we will be so happy! Just then I caught the +eye of a young girl--I could have touched her outstretched hand, she was +so close--she gave me a lovely smile, and taking from her bosom a bunch +of scarlet carnations she threw them herself. They fell on the stage. +One of the actors picked them up and, turning, handed them to _Blanche_. +I heard the disappointed "Oh!" and caught her eye again, when, +regardless of all the rules and regulations forbidding communication +with the audience, I smiled and kissed my hand to her. As the curtain +fell, in an instant everyone was talking with everyone else. I had begun +alone--well, I must end alone. I slipped down the staircase least used, +and at its foot met Mr. George Brown, who was waiting for me. He took my +hands in his and gave me both commendation and congratulation, though +they were stayed and braced with unconscious profanity; and I squeezed +his hands hard and said: "You are so good, oh! you are so good! but +please take care, I'm afraid you'll get forfeited." When he cried: +"D----n the forfeit, it's worth a few dollars to speak as you feel +sometimes, so good-night!" + +I scrambled into my street-clothes, caught up the inevitable bag, and +fairly rushed from the theatre, and as I came up from that place of +mouldy smell and burnt-out air, and lifted my face to the stupendous +beauty of the heavens, sniffing delightedly at the cool, pure night air, +suddenly I thought how delicious must have been the first long breath +young Lazarus drew when, obeying the Divine command, he "came forth" from +the tomb. + +Tired, excited, I hurried to carry the news to the two who awaited me--my +mother and my dog. At the corner of Twenty-third Street and Broadway I +had to pass around a party of ladies and gentlemen who stood talking +there, and a lady said as I passed: "No, no! it's Morris, I tell you; +see, here it is--Clara Morris." She held up a folded programme, pointing +out the name to a gentleman beside her. I laughed happily. Odd bits of +the evening's happenings kept appearing before me like pictures. +Sometimes I saw the unknown young girl's smiling face--and the scarlet +flowers I failed to receive. Sometimes 'twas Mr. Daly's angry one as he +pitched me on to the stage to acknowledge a compliment I did not want, +great as it was. Most often I saw the faces of the lovely women of the +company. What a galaxy of beauty they made! The stately Newton, the +already full-blown, buxom Davenport, the tall, slender, deer-eyed Dietz, +the oriental Volmer, the auburn-haired Claxton, the blond Norwood! There +were just two women in that company who were not beauties--Mrs. Gilbert +and Miss Morris; even they were wholesome, pleasant women, who did not +frighten horses by any means, but still if you speak of beauty--why, +next! please! + +At last I saw the lighted windows that told me home was near. Then up the +stairs, where there bounded upon my breast the little black-and-tan +bundle of love and devotion, called Bertie the loyal, whose fervid +greetings made the removal of my hat so difficult a job that it was +through the tangle of hat, veil, and wriggling dog I cried at last: "It's +all right, Mumsey--a success! Lots and lots of 'calls,' dear! and, oh! is +there anything to eat--_I am so hungry!_" + +So, while the new actress's name was floating over many a dainty +restaurant supper, its owner sat beneath one gas-jet, between mother and +pet, eating a large piece of bread and a small piece of cheese; and, +thankful for both, she talked to her small circle of admirers, telling +them all about it, and winding up supper and talk with the declaration: +"Mother, I believe the hearts are just the same, whether they beat +against Western ribs or Eastern ribs!" + +Then, supper over, I stumbled through my old-time "Now I lay me," and +adding some blurred words of gratitude (God must be so well used to sleep +thanks, but very wide-awake entreaties!) I fell asleep, knowing that +through God's mercy and my own hard work I was the first Western actress +who had ever been accepted by a New York audience, and as I drowsed off, +I murmured to myself: "And I'll leave the door open, now that I have +opened it--I'll leave it open for all others." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH + + I Am Accepted by the Company--I am Warned against Mr. Fisk--I Have an + Odd Encounter with Mr. Gould. + + +The following morning we were called to the theatre at eleven o'clock to +have the play cut "judiciously," as old actors used to say. It was very +loosely constructed, and, besides cutting, the entire drama required a +tightening-up, as it were. + +Mr. Daly was the first to greet me and offer hearty and genial +congratulations. Everyone followed his example, and that morning I was +admitted into the family circle and came into my just inheritance of +equality and fraternity. + +A little surprised, but very happy, I gave back smile for smile, +hand-pressure for hand-pressure; for being held off at arm's length by +them all had hurt worse I'm sure than they knew, therefore when they +offered me kindly greeting I did not stop to study out the _cause_ of +this _effect_, but shut my eyes and opened my mouth, and took what luck +had sent me, and thankfully became so much one of them that I never had a +clashing word with a member of the company--never saw the faintest cloud +darken our good-fellowship. + +That morning, as the cutting was going on, I advanced and offered my +part, but Mr. Daly waved me away. "No," he said, "there's plenty of +useless matter to take out, but the public won't want _Anne_ cut, they +have none too much of her now." + +He gave but few compliments, even to those he liked, and he did not like +me yet, therefore that gracious speech created a sensation among the +other hearers and was carefully treasured up by me. + +Another of his sayings of that morning I recall. In conversation with one +of the ladies, I remarked: "As a Western woman, I suppose I have various +expressions to unlearn?" when Mr. Daly turned quickly from the +prompt-table, saying, sharply: "Miss Morris, don't say that again. You +are a New York woman now--please remember that. You ceased to be a +Westerner last night when you received the New York stamp." + +I thought him jesting, and was about to make some flippant reply, when +one of the ladies squeezed my arm and said: "Don't, he will be angry; he +is in earnest." + +And he was, just as he was in earnest later on when we had become good +friends, and I heard him for the first time swear like a trooper because +I had been born in Canada. And when I laughed at his anger, he was not +far from boxing my ears. + +"It's a damn shame!" he declared; "in the first place you are an American +to the very marrow of your bones. In the next place you are the only +woman I know who has a living, pulsing love of country and flag! Oh, the +devil! I won't believe it--you born in a tu'penny ha'penny little +Canadian town under that infernal British flag! See here, if you ever +tell anyone that--I'll--I'll never forgive you! Have you been telling +that to people?" + +I answered him: "I have not--but I have permitted the assertion that I +was born in Cleveland to go uncorrected," and, with the sweet frankness +of friendship, he answered that I had more sense than he had given me +credit for. But, small matter that it was, it annoyed him greatly, and I +still have notes of his, sent on my birthdays, in which he petulantly +refers to my unfortunate birth-place, and warns me to keep silent about +it. + +Like many other great men--and Mr. Daly was a great man--he often made +mountains out of mole-hills, devoting to some trifle an amount of +consideration out of all proportion to the thing considered. + +On the first night of the season Mr. Daly had said to me: "One word, +Miss Morris, that I had forgotten before--Mr. James Fisk, unfortunately, +as landlord, has the right of entrance into the green-room. He doesn't +often appear there, but should he come in, if you are present I desire +you should instantly withdraw. I do not wish you to be introduced to him +under any circumstances." + +I felt my face flushing red as I answered: "I have no desire to meet +either Mr. Fisk or any other gentleman in the green-room!" But Mr. Daly +said, hurriedly: "Don't misunderstand me, there's no time for +explanations now, only do as I ask you. You will recognize him when I +tell you he is very blond and very like his pictures," and away flew Mr. +Daly to attend to things enough to drive most men crazy. + +Now, that speech did not mean that Mr. Fisk was a monster of ill-breeding +or of immorality, but it did mean that that was Mr. Daly's "tat" to Mr. +Fisk's "tit" in a very pretty little "tit-for-tat" quarrel between them. + +Mr. Daly very seldom tasted defeat--very, very seldom came out second +best in an encounter; but there had been a struggle anent the renting of +the theatre: Mr. Fisk, as landlord, refusing to renounce his right of +entrance by the stage-door to any theatre he owned--nothing could move +him, no argument, no entreaty, no threat; not even an offer of more rent +than he himself asked. To Mr. Daly the right of entrance of an outsider +back of the stage was almost unbearable, even though the privilege was +seldom used and never abused. He declared he would not sign any agreement +holding such a clause. He gave up the theatre rather than yield, and +then, with a large company already engaged, he sought in vain for a house +to shelter it. Now, the city is broken out all over, close and fine, with +theatres, like a case of well-developed measles; but then 'twas +different. Mr. Daly could find no other theatre, and he was compelled to +accept the Fifth Avenue with the hated clause compromised thus: Mr. Fisk +was to have the right of entrance to the green-room, but was never to go +upon the stage or behind the scenes; an ending to the struggle that +pleased the company mightily, for they were all very fond of Jimmy Fisk, +or "The Prince," as he was called. + +He never forgot them on benefit nights; whether the beneficiary was man +or woman there was always a gift ready from the "Railroad Prince." + +He looked like a man well acquainted with his tub. His yellow hair +crisped itself into small waves right from its very roots. His blue eyes +danced with fun, for he was one of nature's comedians. His manner was +what he himself would describe as "chipper." No one could talk five +minutes with him without being moved to laughter. + +His own box was the right upper one, and as I first had him pointed out +to me, yellow-haired, laughing, flashing now and then a splendid ring, I +wondered if he really was the stalking-horse of the dark little man with +the piercing eyes who sat for one act well back of the redundant and +diffuse Mr. James Fisk. Wishing to make sure of the dark man's identity, +I asked who he was. "Oh," was the answer, "he's gone now, but I suppose +it was Gould, rooting out the 'Prince' to talk shop to him!" then, +thrusting out a contemptuous under-lip, my informant added: "He's no +good--he has nothing to do with the theatre! Scarcely ever comes to a +performance, and doesn't see anything when he does. He couldn't tell any +one of us apart from the others if he tried--and he's not likely to try. +You want to keep your eye on Jimmie. If he likes you, you're in for +flowers and a present, too, on your benefit!" + +Imagine, then, my amazement on the third night of the season when this +occurred: In one act I made my exit before the curtain fell--all the +other characters being still upon the stage. Having a change of dress +there, I always hurried down-stairs as quickly as possible, and passing +in one door and out of the other, crossed the green-room to reach my +dressing-room. That evening as I ran in I saw a gentleman standing near +the opposite door. I turned instantly to retreat, when a voice called: +"If you please." I paused, I turned. The gentleman removed his hat, and +coming to the centre of the room held out his hand, saying: "Miss +Morris--you _are_ Miss Morris?" + +I smiled assent and gave him my hand. His small, smooth fingers closed +upon mine firmly. We stood and looked at each other. He was small, and +dark of hair and of beard, and his piercing eyes seemed to be reading me +through and through. He spoke presently, in a voice low and +gentle--almost to sadness. + +"I wanted to speak to you," he said; "I'm not going to waste time telling +you you are a wonderful actress, because the papers have already done +that, and all New York _will_ do it, but I see you are an honest girl and +alone here----" + +"No--oh, no!" I broke in, "my mother, too, is here!" + +A faint smile seemed to creep about his bearded lips, there was a +distinct touch of amusement in his voice as he said: "I-n-d-e-e-d! a +valiant pair, no doubt--a truly valiant pair! but," his small fingers +closed with surprising strength about mine in emphasis of his words, +"but, oh, my honest little woman, you are going to see trouble here!" He +glanced down at the hateful cheap dress I wore, he touched it with the +brim of his hat: "Yes, you will have sore trouble on this score, to say +nothing of other things; but don't let them beat you! When your back is +to the wall, don't give up! but at a last pinch turn to me, Clara Morris, +and if I don't know how to help you out, I know somebody who will! +She----" + +Steps, running steps, were coming down the passageway, then tall, +dead-white with anger, Mr. Daly stood in the doorway. He almost gasped +the words: "What does this mean, sir?" then angrily to me: "Leave the +room at once!" + +Flushing at the tone, I bent my head and moved toward the door, when, +calm and clear, came the words: "Good-night, Miss Morris, please +remember!" + +Mr. Daly seemed beside himself with anger. "Mr. Gould," he cried (my +heart gave a jump at the name; to save my life I could not help glancing +back at them), "how dare you pass the stage-door? You have no more right +here than has any other stranger! Your conduct, sir----" + +The gray, blazing eyes of the speaker were met by Mr. Gould's, calm, +cold, hard as steel, and his voice, low and level, was saying: "We will +not discuss my conduct here, if you please--your office perhaps," as I +fled down the entry to my own room. + +Mr. Daly sent for me at the end of the play to demand my story of the +unexpected meeting. Had I received any note, any message beforehand? Had +we any common acquaintance? What had he said to me--word for word, what +had he said? + +I thought of the gentle voice, the piercing eyes that had grown so kind, +the friendly promise, and somehow I felt it would be scoffed at--I +rebelled. I would only generalize. He had called me an honest girl, had +said the city praised me; but when I got home I told my mother all, who +was greatly surprised, since she had had only the newspaper Gould in her +mind--a sort of human spider, who wove webs--strong webs--that caught and +held his fellow-men. + +His words came true. I saw trouble of many kinds and colors. More than +once I thought of his promise, but I had learned much ill of human nature +in a limited time, and I was afraid of everyone. Knowing much of poor +human nature now, and looking back to that evening, recalling every tone, +every shade of expression, I am forced to believe Mr. Jay Gould was +perfectly honest and sincere in his offer of assistance. + +If this incident seems utterly incredible at first, it is because you are +thinking of Mr. Gould wholly in his character of "The Wizard of Wall +Street;" but turn to the domestic side of the man, think of his undying +love for, his unbroken loyalty and devotion to, the wife of his choice, +who, as mother of his little flock, never ceased to be his sweetheart. + +Is it so improbable, then, that his heart, made tender by love for one +dear woman, sheltered and protected, might feel a throb of pity for +another woman, unsheltered and alone, whose poverty he saw would be a +cruel stumbling-block in her narrow path? I think not. + +Who that "she" was whose aid he would have asked in my behalf I do not +know, can never know; but it always gives me an almost childish pleasure +to imagine it was the sweet, strong woman who was his wife. At all +events, Mr. Gould that night furnished me with a pleasant memory, and +that is a thing to be thankful for. + +The first time I saw Mr. Fisk in the green-room he was surrounded by a +smiling, animated party, and as he advanced a step, expectantly, I +disappeared. I have been told that he laughed at his own disappointment +and the suddenness of some claim upon my attention. The second time, I +was in the room when he entered, and at my swift departure he reddened +visibly, and, after a moment, said: "If you were not all such good +friends of mine, I should think someone had been making a bugaboo of me +to scare that young woman." + +"Oh," laughed one of the men, "she's from the West and is a bit wild +yet." + +"Well," he replied, "it doesn't matter where she's from, New York's got +her now and means to keep her. I'd like to offer her a word of welcome +and congratulation, but she won't give a chap any margin," and he resumed +his conversation. + +The third time, he was alone in the room, and as I backed hastily out he +followed me. I ran--so did he--but as that was too ridiculous I stopped +at his call and, turning, faced him. He removed his hat and hurriedly +said: "I beg your pardon for forcing myself upon your attention, Miss +Morris, but any man with a grain of self-respect would demand an +explanation of such treatment as I have received from you. Come now, you +are a brave girl, an honest girl--tell me, please, why you avoid me as if +I were the plague. Why, good Lord! your eyes are all but jumping out of +your head! Are you afraid even to be seen listening to me?" Suddenly he +stopped, his own words had given him an idea. His eyes snapped angrily. +"Well, I'll be blessed!" he exclaimed; then he came closer. He took my +hand and asked: "Miss Morris, have you been putting these slights on me +by order?" + +I was confused, I was frightened; I remembered the anger Mr. Gould's +presence had aroused, and this was an actual breech of orders. I +stammered: "I--oh, I just happened to be busy, you know." + +I glanced anxiously about me; he replied: "Yes, you were very busy +to-night, sitting in the green-room doing nothing--yet you ran as if I +were a leper. Tell me, little woman--don't be afraid--have you been +obeying an order?" + +"If you please--if you please!" was all I could say. + +He looked steadily at me, lifted my hand to his lips, and said, with a +compassionate sigh: "Bread and butter comes high in New York, doesn't it, +child? There, I won't worry you any longer, but Brother Daly and I will +hold a little love-feast over this matter." And with a laugh he returned +to the green-room, where I could hear him singing "Lucy Long" to himself. + +A fortnight later, finding him again surrounded by the company, he +laughingly called out to me: "Don't run away, the embargo is raised. It +won't cost you a cent to shake hands and be friendly!" And as I seated +myself in the place he made beside him, he added, low: "And no advantage +taken of it outside the theatre." + +He used so many queer, old-fashioned words, such as "chipper," +"tuckered," "I swan!" "mean tyke," etc., that I once said to him: "I'm +afraid you have washed your face in a pail by the pump ere this, Mr. +Fisk?" + +He laughed, and responded: "I'm afraid I used to be sent back to do it +better, when I had first to break the ice to get to the water in the +pail, Miss Guesswell!" + +And then he gave a funny imitation of a boy washing his face in icy +water, by wetting his fingers and drawing a circle about each eye and +his mouth. He called his wife Lucy. Heaven knows whether it really was +her name, but he always referred to her as Lucy. He was very fond of +her, in spite of appearances, and proud of her, too. He said to me once: +"She is no hair-lifting beauty, my Lucy, just a plump, wholesome, +big-hearted, commonplace woman, such as a man meets once in a lifetime, +say, and then gathers her into the first church he comes to, and seals +her to himself. For you see these commonplace women, like common-sense, +are apt to become valuable as time goes on!" + +When anyone praised some wife, he would look up and say: "Wife--whose +wife? What wife? Bring your wives along, I ain't afraid to measure my +Lucy with 'em. For, look here, you mustn't judge Lucy by her James!" + +A divorce case was before the courts, and it was much discussed +everywhere. The wife had been jealous and suspicious, and blond hairs +(she was very dark herself) and strange hair-pins held a ludicrous +prominence in the evidence. "Ah!" said Fisk, "that's not the kind of a +wife I have! Never, _never_ does Lucy surprise me with a visit, God bless +her! No, she always telegraphs me when she's coming, and I--I clear up +and have a warm welcome for her, and then she's pleased, and that pleases +me, and we both enjoy our visit. Hang'd if we don't! And just to show you +what a hero--yes, a _hero_--she is, and, talking of hair-pins, let me +tell you now. You know those confounded crooked ones, with three infernal +crinkles in the middle to keep them from falling out of the hair? Those +English chorus-girls wear them, I'm told. Well, one day Lucy comes to see +me. Oh, she had sent word as usual, and everything was cleared up (I +supposed) as usual, and George, my man, was laying out some clothes for +me, when Lucy, smoothing her hand over the sofa-cushion, picks up and +holds to the light an infernal crinkled hair-pin. George turned white and +looked pleadingly at me. I saw myself in court fighting a divorce like +the devil; and then, after an awful, perspiring silence, my Lucy +says--she that has worn straight pins all her life: 'James, that is a +lazy and careless woman that cares for your rooms. It's three weeks +to-day since I left for home, and here is one of my hair-pins lying on +the sofa ever since!' + +"If she had put it in her hair I should have thought her really deceived +in the matter, but when she dropped it in the fire, I knew she was just a +plain hero! I walked over and knelt down and said: 'Thank you, Lucy,' +while I pretended to tie her shoe. George was so upset that he dropped +the studs twice over he was trying to put into a shirt-front. Oh, I tell +you my Lucy can't be beat!" + +The time he won the name of "Jubilee Jim," when the whole country was +laughing over his triumphant visit to Boston with his regiment, he made +this unsmiling explanation of the matter: + +"You see, the Ninth and I were both tickled over the invitation to visit +Boston, and as there were so many of us I paid the expenses myself. +Being proud of the regiment and anxious it should be acquainted with all +real American institutions, I arranged for it to stay over Sunday, for +there were dozens of the boys who had never even seen a slice of real +Boston brown-bread or a crock-baked bean--and a Boston Sunday breakfast +was to be the educational feature of the visit. Everything was lovely, +until the Ninth suddenly felt a desire to pray, as well as to eat, and +I'll be switched on to a side-track if the minister of that big church +didn't begin to kick like a steer, and finally refuse to let us pray in +his shop. Now, if there's anything that will make a man hot as blazes in +a minute, it's choking him off when he wants to pray. Some sharply +pointed and peppery words were exchanged on the subject. I suppose our +numbers rather muddled up his schedule, but if he'd said so quietly I +could have straightened out his heavenly time-table so that there would +have been no collision between trains of prayer. But no, instead of +that, he slams the doors of his church in our visiting faces, and, in +act at least, tells us to go to--what's that polite word now that means +h--? What--what do you call it _sheol_? Shucks! that word won't become +popular--hasn't got any snap to it! Well, the boys were mighty blue, +they thought the visit was off. But I got 'em into the armory, and I +said, what amounted to this, I says: 'This visit ain't off; Boston is +right as a trivet, and wants us! We ain't bucking against the city, but +against that sanctified stingyike who don't want anyone in heaven but +his own gang; but you see here, when the Ninth Regiment wants to pray, +I'm d----d if it don't do it. Who cares for that church, anyway, where +you'd be crowded like sardines and have your corns crushed to agony! +We'll go to Boston, boys, and we'll praise the Lord on the Common, if +they'll let us, and if they won't, we'll march out to the suburbs and +have a perfect jubilee of prayer!' And what do you think," he cried, +grinning like a mischievous boy, as he twisted the long, waxed ends of +his mustache to needle-like points, "what do you think--we prayed out of +doors, with all female Boston and her attendants looking on and saying +_amen_; and, oh, by George! I sent a man to see, and 'stingyike's' +church was nearly empty! Ha! ha! I tell you what it is, when a New York +soldier wants to pray, he prays, or something gives!" After that he was +Jubilee Jim. + +His growing stoutness annoyed him greatly, yet he was the first to poke +fun at what he called his "unmilitary figure." One evening I said: "Mr. +Fisk, I'm afraid you have cast too much bread upon the waters; it's said +to be very fattening food when it returns?" + +"Well, I swan!" he answered, "I'll never give another widow a pass over +any road of mine--whether she's black, mixed, or grass, for that's about +all the breadcasting I do." + +This was not true, for he was very kind-hearted and generous, especially +to working people who were in trouble. His "black widow" was one in full +mourning, his "mixed widow" was the poor soul who had only a cheap black +bonnet or a scanty veil topping her ordinary colored clothing to express +her widowed state, while the "grasses" were, in his own words: "All those +women who were not married--but ought to be." + +Whenever he gave a diamond or an India shawl to a French opera-bouffe +singer the world heard of it, and the value grew and grew daily, and that +publicity gratified his strange distorted vanity, but the lines of +widows, sometimes with hungry little flocks hanging at their skirts, that +he passed over roads, the discharged men he "sneaked" (his own word) back +into positions again, because of their suffering brood, he kept silent +about. + +He never got angry at the papers, no matter what absurdity they printed +about him. At the time of the riot some paper declared he had left his +men and had climbed a high board fence in order to escape from danger. In +referring to the article at the theatre one evening, he said, in +reproachful tones: "Now wasn't that a truly stupid lie?" He rose, and +placing his hands where his waist should have been, he went on +mournfully: "Look at me! I look like a sprinter, don't I? If you just +could see me getting into that uniform--no offence, ladies, I don't mean +no harm. Oh, Lord, who has a small grammar about them? Well, when I'm in +the clothes, it takes two men's best efforts, while I hold my breath, to +clasp my belt--and they say I climbed that high fence! Say, I'd give five +thousand dollars down on the nail if I had the waist to do that act +with!" + +He was not only a natural comedian, but he had an instinct for the +dramatic in real life, and he was quick to grasp his opportunity at the +burning of Chicago. _His_ relief train must be rushed through first--_he_ +must beg personally; and then--and then, oh, happy thought! all the city +knew the value he placed upon the beautiful jet black stallion he rode +in the Park. Out, then, he and his stall-mate came--splendid, fiery, +satin-coated aristocrats! And taking their places before a great express +wagon, went prancing and curvetting their way from door to door, Mr. Fisk +stopping wherever a beckoning hand appeared at a window. And bundles of +clothing, boxes of provisions, anything, everything that people would +give, he gathered up with wild haste, and brief, warm thanks, and rushed +to the express offices for proper sorting and packing. Of course that +personal service was not really necessary. A modest man would not have +done it, but he was spectacular. His act pleased the people, too, and +really many were moved to give by it. Their fancy was caught by the +picture of the be-diamonded Jubilee Jim placing himself and his valuable +horses at the service of the terror-stricken, homeless Chicagoans. + +Though he was himself the butt of most of his jokes, he often expressed +his opinions in terms as conclusive and quite as funny as those of his +world-famous reply to the sanctimonious fence-committee, who, claiming +that the laying of his railroad had destroyed the greater part of the old +fence about a country graveyard, demanded that he should replace it with +a new one. Scarcely were the words out of their lips than, swift as a +flash, came the characteristic answer: "What under heaven do you want a +fence round a graveyard for? The poor chaps that are in there can't get +out, and, I'll take my Bible oath, those that are out don't want to get +in! Fence around a graveyard! I guess not; I know a dozen better ways of +spending money than that!" + +I heard much of his generosity on benefit nights, but personally I never +tested it. Before my benefit night arrived, Mr. Edward Stokes had caught +Mr. Fisk on a walled-in staircase, as in a trap, and had shot him down, +and then, in that time of terror and excitement, Jubilee Jim proved that +whatever else he had been called--man of sin, fraud, trickster, clown--he +was _not_ a coward! With wonderful self-control he asked, as the +clothing was being cut from his stricken body: "Is this the end of me; am +I going to die, doctor?" + +And when the man addressed made an evasive and soothing answer, that his +hopeless eyes contradicted, James Fisk testily continued: "I want to +know the truth!" Then, more gently: "I'm not afraid to die, doctor, but +_I am_ afraid of leaving things all at sixes and sevens! This is the end +of me, isn't it? Well, do what you can, and, George, send for ---- and +for ---- [his lawyers], and I will do what I can. When can Lucy get +here?" + +And so he quickly and calmly made all possible use of his ebbing +strength--of the flying moments--disproving at least one charge, that of +cowardice. He was dying, and crowds were waiting about the hotel where he +lay, hungry for any morsel of news from the victim's bedside. That was +the situation as I went to the theatre. I dressed and went through one +act, then, as I came upon the stage in the second act, I faced Mr. Fisk's +private box. I glanced casually at it, and stopped stock-still, the words +dying on my lips. A shiver ran over me--someone had entered the box since +the first act and had lowered the heavy red curtains and drawn them close +together. + +No one could fail to understand. The flood of light, the waves of music +reached to the edge of the box only--within were silence, darkness! The +laughing owner would enter there no more, forever! + +With swelling throat I stood looking up. Another actor entered, saw the +direction of my eyes, followed it, and next moment tears were on his +cheeks. Then people in the house, noticing our distress, glanced in that +same direction, and here and there a man rose and slipped out. Here and +there a handkerchief was pressed to a face, for without a word being +spoken all knew, by the blank, closed box, that Mr. Fisk was dead. + +I never knew a more trying evening for actors, for all knew him +well--liked him and grieved for him. I was the only mere acquaintance, +yet I was deeply moved and found it hard to act as usual before that +mute, blank box--hard as though the body of its one-time owner lay +within. + +So he made his exit--dramatic to the last. A strange character--shrewd, +sharp, vain, ostentatious, loving his diamonds, velvet coats, white +gloves. The monumental silver water-pitchers in his private boxes were +too foul to drink from generally, but then the public could see the mass +of silver. A bit of a mountebank, beyond a question, but with a temper so +sunny and a heart so generous that in spite of all his faults Jubilee Jim +had a host of friends. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH + + A Search for Tears--I Am Punished in "Saratoga" for the Success of "Man + and Wife"--I Win Mr. Daly's Confidence--We Become Friends. + + +The people who have known happiness without the alloying _if_ or _but_ +are few and far between. "Yes, of course we are happy--but," "I should be +perfectly and completely happy--_if_," you hear people saying every day; +and so in my case, having been admitted into fellowship with the men and +women of the company, who were a gracious and charming crowd, and +receiving hearty approval each night from the great Public, by whose +favor I and mine existed, I was grateful and would have been quite +happy--_but_ for a brand-new difficulty that suddenly loomed up, large, +and wide, and solid before me. + +Never in my life had I been in a play of a longer run than one week. +Imagine, then, my misery when I found this play, that was already old to +me at the end of the first week, was likely to go on for a long time to +come. It was not mere _ennui_ over the repetition of the same lines, +night after night, that troubled me, it was something far more serious. I +had made my hit with the public by moving the people's feelings to the +point of tears; but to do that I had first to move my own heart, for, try +as I would, no amount of careful acting had the desired effect. _I_ had +to shed tears or _they_ would not. Now that is not an easy thing to do to +order, in cold blood. While the play is new one's nerves are strained +almost to the breaking point--one is over-sensitive and the feelings are +easily moved; then the pathetic words I am speaking touch my heart, tears +rush to my eyes, tears are heard in my voice, and other hearts respond +swiftly; _but_ when you have calmed down, when you have repeated the +lines so often that they no longer mean anything to you, what are you to +do then? + +Really and truly there were days when I was nearly out of my mind with +terror lest I should not be able to cry that night; for those tears of +mine had a commercial value as well as an artistic, and Mr. Daly was +swift to reproach me if the handkerchief display in front was not as +great as usual. This sounds absurd perhaps to a reader, but heaven knows +it was tragic enough to me. I used to agonize all day over the question +of tears for the night, and I have seen the time when even my own +imaginary tomb failed to move me. + +One night, when my eyes were dry as bones, and my voice as hard as stone, +and Mr. Daly was glaring whitely at me from the entrance, I had suddenly +a sort of vision of that dethroned actress whom, back in Cleveland, I had +seen uncrowned. I saw her quivering face, her stricken eyes, and a sudden +rush of tears blinded me. Later, Mr. Daly said: "What a tricky little +wretch you are. I thought you were going to throw that scene away, +without a single tear to-night. I suppose you were doing it to aggravate +me, though?" + +Goodness knows I was grateful enough myself for the tears when they did +come, and I got an idea from that experience that has served me all the +years since. Everything else--love, hate, dignity, passion, vulgarity, +delicacy, duplicity, all, everything can be assumed to order; but, for +myself, tears are not mechanical, they will not come at will. The heart +must be moved, and if the part has lost its power then I must turn to +some outside incident that _has_ power. It may be from a book, it may be +from real life--no matter, if only its recalling starts tears to weary +eyes. + +Thus in "Alixe" it was not for my lost lover I oftenest wept such racing +tears, but for poor old _Tennessee's partner_ as he buried his worthless +dead, with his honest old heart breaking before your eyes. While in +"Camille" many and many a night her tears fell fast over the memory of a +certain mother's face as she told me of the moment when, returning from +the burial of her only child, the first snowflakes began to whirl through +the still, cold air, and she went mad with the anguish of leaving the +little tender body there in the cold and dark, and flung herself from the +moving carriage and ran, screaming, back to the small rough pile of earth +to shelter it with her own living body. + +So there is my receipt for sudden tears. I being--thank heaven--a +cheerful body, and given to frequent laughter, may laugh in peace up to +the last moment, if I have only stowed away some heart-breaking incident +that I can recall at the proper moment. It seems like taking a mean +advantage of a tender heart, I know--what Bret Harte would call "playing +it low down" on it; but what else could I do? I leave it to you. What +could _you_ do to make yourself cry seven times a week, for nine or ten +months a year? + +Then there was another great change in the new life. I was used to +rehearsing every day, and, lo! when once a play was on here, there +followed weeks, perhaps months, when there were no rehearsals. Mercy! I +could never afford to waste all that time; but what could I do? "One +_and_ two _and_ three _and_," I could not afford; but, oh, _if_ I could +take some French lessons, _what_ a help they would be to me in the proper +pronunciation of names upon the stage. But I did not want lessons from +some ignorant person, or someone who had a strange dialect. I have all my +life had such a horror of _unlearning_ things. I knew a real French +teacher would charge me a real "for-true" price, and my heart was +doubtful--but see how fate was good to me. There was in Tenth Street a +little daughter of a well-known French professor--he taught in a certain +college. The daughter was eager to teach. The father said: "Who will +trust so young a girl to instruct them? If you only had a first and +second pupil, you would be self-supporting. French teachers are in great +demand, but where shall you find that first pupil--tell me that, _ma +fille_. No matter how small your charge, the question will be, where have +you taught? No one will wish to be the first pupil." + +But, fine old French gentleman as he was, he was mistaken nevertheless, +for I was willing, nay, eager, to be that first pupil, and she found my +name of so much value to her in obtaining a full class that she became +absolutely savage in her fell determination to make me speak her beloved +language correctly. In spite of her eighteen years she looked full +fourteen, and her dignity was a fearful thing to contemplate, until she +had a chocolate-cream in one cheek and a dimple in the other, then +somehow the dignity broke in the middle and the lesson progressed through +much laughter. + +She was not beautiful, but pretty and charming to such an extent that, +within the year, she became Madame, carried her own chocolates, and was +absolutely vicious over irregular verbs. Dear little woman--I remember +her gratefully, and also remember that, later on, I paid just six times +as much per lesson to an elaborate person, well-rouged, who taught me +nothing, lest she might offend me in the act. I know this to be true, +because one day I deliberately mispronounced and let tenses run wild, to +see if she would have the honesty or courage to correct me; but she +looked a trifle surprised, rearranged her bangles, and let it all pass. I +then resigned my position as pupil, that she might give her very +questionable assistance as teacher to some other scholar, shorter of +temper, and more sensitive to rebuke or correction than I was. + +At the theatre I think everyone liked me well enough, save Mr. Daly. He +disliked me because I simply could not learn to treat him with reverence. +I had the greatest admiration for him, I showed him respect by obeying +him implicitly, but if he was funny I laughed, if he gave me an +opportunity to twist his words absurdly I accepted it as gleefully as if +he had been the gas-man. + +But two things happened, and lo! my manager's attitude toward me changed +completely. Mr. Daly was convinced that no man or woman could bear +decently a sudden success. He was positive that no head could stand it. +When I made no demand for my promised increase of salary, but went +pinching along as best I could, he only said to himself: "She will be all +the worse when her head does begin to turn." + +One day a certain newspaper man looked in at his office, and said: "Oh, I +have something here about the play, and I've given a few pretty good +lines to your _find_ (Clara Morris): do you want to look at them?" + +"I want them cut out!" sharply ordered Mr. Daly. + +"Cut out?" repeated the surprised man. "Why, she's the play--or mighty +near it. I thought you'd want her spoken of most particularly?" + +And then Mr. Daly made his famous speech: "I don't want individual +successes, sir, in my theatre! I want my company kept at a level. I put +them all in a line, and then I watch, and if one head begins to bob up +above the others, I give it a crack and send it down again!" + +I had heard that story in several forms, when one day I spoke of it to +Mr. Daly, and he calmly acknowledged the speech, as I have given it +above, adding the words: "And next week I'm going to give Mr. Crisp's +head a crack, he's bobbing up, I see!" + +The play of "Saratoga," by Mr. Bronson Howard, had been read to the +company, and, after the custom of actors the world over, they began to +cast the characters themselves--such a part for Lewis, such a one for +Miss Davenport. The splendid Irish part for Amy Ames (of course, with her +wonderful brogue), etc.; almost everyone remarking that there was nothing +for me. Lewis said: "Well, Clara, you're out of this play, sure. Will you +study Greek or the Rogue's Vocabulary? for I'll wager a hat to a hair-pin +you'll be turning a good head of hair gray over some nonsense of the +kind--good Lord!" + +For M. Benot was holding toward me a thin little part, saying: "For you, +Miss Morris." + +Mr. Daly stood at the far end of the room; he was watching me. The part +was a walking lady of second quality. It was an indignity to give it to +me. Like lightning I recalled the terms of my contract--I realized my +helplessness. + +I rolled up the small part, calmly rose, and smiling a comprehending +smile into Mr. Daly's disappointed eyes, for which he could have choked +me, I sauntered out of the room. At home I wept bitterly. It was +undeserved! I had borne so much from gratitude, and here I was being +treated just as a fractious, brain-turned, presuming person might have +been treated for a punishment. However, my tears were only seen at home. +At the theatre I rehearsed faithfully and good-temperedly, and writhed +smilingly at the expressions of surprise over the cast, and for one +hundred nights I was thus made to do penance for having made a success in +"Man and Wife." Truly I had got a good "crack" for bobbing up; still my +patient, uncomplaining acceptance of the part had made an impression on +Mr. Daly, and he often expressed his regret, later on, for the error he +made as to the possible turning of my head. + +Then came the second happening. To Mr. Daly a confidant was an absolute +necessity of existence. If they had tastes in common, so much the happier +for Mr. Daly, but such tastes were not imperatively demanded, neither was +sex of importance--male or female would answer; but the one great, +indispensable, and essential quality was the ability to respect a +confidence, the power to hold a tongue. + +In the early weeks of the season he had been drifting into a friendship +with a man in the company, and had told him, in strictest confidence, of +a certain plan he was forming, and twenty-four hours later he heard that +plan being discussed in one of the dressing-rooms. It had traveled by way +of husband to wife, wife to friend, friend to her husband, and husband +No. 2 was busy in explaining it to all and sundry. + +That ended the career of one gentleman as friend and confidant to Mr. +Daly. One day after rehearsal I was detained on the stage to discuss a +fashion-plate he was tearing from a magazine. A short poem caught his +eye. He glanced at it carelessly, then looked more closely at the lines, +and began to mumble the words: + + "She of the silver foot--fair goddess--" + +His brows were knit, his eyes looked away, dreamily. Again he repeated +the words, adding, impatiently: "I can't place that silver foot--the bow, +the lyre, yes; but the foot? Oh, probably it's a mere figure of speech," +and he turned to the plate again, when I said: "Perhaps it means +_Thetis_, you know, silver-footed queen--daughter of old sea-god." + +His whole face lit up with pleasure. "That's it," he said, "that's whom +it means; but are you sure the word 'queen' belongs right there?" + +"No," I laughed, "I have grave doubts about my 'queen,' but I'm solid as +a rock on the rest of the line." + +Then he repeated, with lingering enjoyment: "'Thetis, silver-footed, +_silver-footed_, daughter of old sea-god.' Do you know I often wonder why +someone does not make a play of mythological characters--a play after the +modern method I mean." + +"Oh," I broke in, "then I shall have a rest, for I am not beautiful +enough for even a walking-lady divinity." + +"Ah," he said, kindly, "you are not going to do any more walking +ladies--divine or human. I have already in my possession a play with a +great part for you. Boucicault wrote it, and----" + +He stopped suddenly, all the brightness went out of his face. He played +nervously with his watch-guard. He started out with: "Miss Morris, I +wish--" stopped, frowned; then impatiently took up the picture-plate, +pointed out which dress he wanted me to wear, and curtly dismissed me. + +I understood him perfectly. In a genial moment he had unintentionally +given me some information which he now regretted, though he would not +stoop to ask my silence; and he felt sure that I would at once boast of +the great part that was to be mine; and I went home, one broad smile of +malicious satisfaction, for in spite of my seemingly-careless speech, I +had, by long and careful training, acquired the fine art of holding my +tongue about other people's affairs, even though I ascended to the roof +to babble to the city of my own; and Mr. Daly would be again +disappointed, as he had been the day I accepted, without protest, the +walking-lady part. + +That night he barely nodded in silent recognition of my "Good-evening, +sir." Next morning he kept his eyes averted from me when he gave me any +stage directions; but whenever or wherever we women formed a little group +to chat, there Mr. Daly, like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly sprang into +evidence. It was very funny--he was simply waiting for me to repeat my +interesting information. + +Two, three days passed, then a certain kindness began to show in his +manner toward me. Quite suddenly, and of course unasked, he gave me a +dressing-room to myself. I was delighted! Hesitatingly, I tapped at the +door of his office. I had never stood there before, save by order. I +said: "I will not come in, Mr. Daly, I only wished to thank you for the +room you have given me. It will be a great comfort, for we are terribly +crowded in the other one." + +But he rose, took my hand, and said: "You deserve anything and everything +this theatre can provide for you." Drawing me to a chair, he placed me in +it, while still speaking: "And I am proud of you. You are a girl in ten +thousand! For you can respect a confidence." + +I was very much embarrassed by such unexpected warmth, and laughing +nervously I said: "Even when the confidence was unintentional and deeply +regretted?" + +"Ah!" he answered, "you saw that, did you? Well, I've been listening and +waiting to hear about the 'new play' ever since, but not a word have you +dropped, and I did not ask for silence either. You are a woman worth +talking to, and I shall never be afraid to tell you things I am going to +do, and----" + +And straightway he told me all about the new play--its good points, its +bad ones, and where he feared for it; and to show you how true was his +judgment, the play, which later on gave me a great personal success, was +itself a failure from the very causes he then indicated. + +And so it came about that Mr. Daly, putting aside his dislike for +me--coming to enjoy my sense of the ridiculous, instead of resenting +it--confided many, many plans and dreams, likes and dislikes, hates and +loves to me. We quarreled spitefully over politics, fought furiously over +religion, wickedly bowed down and worshipped before odds and ends of +lovely carvings or precious _cloisonne_, to whose beauty I first +introduced him, and hung in mutual rapture over rare old engravings. + +Thus I came to know him fairly well. A man with unbounded ambition, a man +of fine and delicate tastes, with a passionate love of beauty--in form, +color, sound. I have known him to turn a sentence, exquisitely, word by +word, slowly repeating the line, as though he were tasting its beauty, as +well as hearing it. Interested in the occult and the inscrutable--a man +of many tastes, but of one _single purpose_--every power and acquirement +were brought to the service of the stage. + +In love he was mutability personified. In friendship, always exigent. Now +sullenly silent, now rapidly talkative, whimsical, changeable, he was +ever lavishly generous and warm-hearted. And it is a comfort to know that +in one respect at least I proved satisfactory during the friendship that +lasted as long as I remained in the theatre, since I never, even by +chance, betrayed his confidence. + +When we had finally parted, a man one day mentioned me to Mr. Daly, +expecting to bring forth some disparaging remark. There was a pause while +my former manager gazed out at the heavily falling rain, then he said, +quietly: "When you drop a thing in a well, it can go no further. Clara +Morris is a sort of human well, what you confide to her goes no further. +Some people call that 'discretion,' I call it loyalty. I--I guess you'll +get a wetting on the way home." And acting on that hint the surprised +gentleman withdrew. He told me himself of the occurrence, and I confess +that Mr. Daly's words gave me a thrill of pleasure. + +After those two occurrences I found my theatrical life pleasanter, for I +love my kind and wish to live at peace with them--and Mr. Daly's dislike +had disturbed and distressed me; therefore, when that had been conquered, +great was my contentment. A sympathetic word, a comprehending glance, a +friendly smile, proving ample indemnification for former injuries. + +Nor could I be made to accept at full value the cruel gibes, the bitter +sarcasms reported to me as coming from Miss Agnes Ethel. For some reason +there was a distinct effort made to arouse in me an enmity against that +lady. Unpleasant stories had been repeated to me during the run of "Man +and Wife"; some of them had wounded me, but I had only listened silently. +Then one night I met her--a slender, auburn-haired, appealing creature, +with clinging fingers, sympathetic voice, and honest eyes--a woman whose +charming and cordial manner not only won my admiration, but convinced me +she was incapable of the brutalities charged to her. + +So when "Jezebel" was announced, and it was known that Mr. Daly desired +Miss Ethel and me both to appear in it, great interest was aroused, only +to be crushed by Miss Ethel's refusal to play the part allotted to her. I +think she was in error, for the two parts were perfectly balanced. Mine +was the wicked, even murderous adventuress; hers the gentle, sweet, and +triumphant wife. I had the first act; she was not in that, but Mr. +Daly's idea was that her victory in the last act--where I was simply +pulverized for my sins--evened things up. But Miss Ethel listened to the +advice of outside friends. Her relations with Mr. Daly were already +strained, and her second refusal of a part was the beginning of the end. + +Mr. Daly himself informed me that she said her part was secondary, but +that the real difficulty sprang from an earlier wrangle between them, +with which I had nothing to do. Yet there were persons who, with great +indignation, informed me that Miss Ethel had positively "refused to +appear upon the stage in any play with me--a mere vulgar outsider!" + +But "vulgar outsider" was just a touch too strong; "malice had o'erleaped +self" and fallen on the other side. The silly story even reached some of +the papers, but that did not increase my belief in its truth. + +Mr. Daly and Miss Ethel parted company before, or at, the end of the +season, and while I never worked with her, later on I privately received +such gracious courtesies from her kindly hands that the name of Agnes +Ethel must ever ring pleasantly in my ears. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH + + A Study of Stage-Management--I Am Tricked into Signing a New Contract. + + +Before I came under the management of Mr. Daly, I may say I never really +knew what stage-management meant. He was a young man then; he had had, I +believe, his own theatre but one season before I joined his forces, yet +his judgment was as ripe, his decisions were as swift and sure, his eye +for effect was as true, his dramatic instinct as keen as well could be. + +We never exchanged so much as a frown, let alone a hasty word, over work. +I realized that he had the entire play before his "mind's eye," and when +he told me to do a thing, I should have done it, even had I not +understood why he wished it done. But he always gave a reason for things, +and that made it easy to work under him. + +His attention to tiny details amazed me. One morning, after Mr. Crisp had +joined the company, he had to play a love-scene with me, and the +"business" of the scene required him to hold me some time in his embrace. +But Mr. Crisp's embrace did not suit Mr. Daly--no more did mine. Out he +went, in front, and looked at us. + +"Oh," he cried, "confound it! Miss Morris, relax--relax! lean on him--he +won't break! That's better--but lean more! lean as if you needed support! +What? Yes, I know you don't need it--but you're in love, don't you see? +and you're not a lady by a mile or two! For God's sake, Crisp, don't be +so stiff and inflexible! Here, let me show you!" + +Up Mr. Daly rushed on to the stage, and taking Crisp's place, convulsed +the company with his effort at acting the lover. Then back again to the +front, ordering us to try that embrace again. + +"That's better!" he cried; "but hold her hand closer, tighter! not quite +so high--oh, that's too low! Don't poke your arm out, you're not going to +waltz. What in ---- are you scratching her back for?" + +It was too much; in spite of the awe in which Mr. Daly was held, +everyone, Crisp included, screamed with laughter, while Mr. Daly fumed +and fretted over the time that was being wasted. + +One of my early experiences of his way of directing a rehearsal made a +deep impression upon me. In the play of "Jezebel" I had the title part. +There were a number of characters on in the scene, and Mr. Daly wanted to +get me across the stage, so that I should be out of hearing distance of +two of the gentlemen. Now, in the old days, the stage-director would +simply have said: "Cross to the Right," and you would have crossed +because he told you to; but in Mr. Daly's day you had to have a _reason_ +for crossing the drawing-room, and so getting out of the two gentlemen's +way--and a reason could not be found. + +Here are a few of the many rejected ideas: There was no guest for me to +cross to in welcoming pantomime; no piano on that side of the room for me +to cross to and play on softly; ah, the fireplace! and the pretty warming +of one foot? But no, it was summer-time, that would not do. The ancient +fancy-work, perhaps? No, she was a human panther, utterly incapable of so +domestic an occupation. The fan forgotten on the mantel-piece? Ah, yes, +that was it! you cross the room for that--and then suddenly I reminded +Mr. Daly that he had, but a moment before, made a point of having me +strike a gentleman sharply on the cheek with my fan. + +"Oh, confound it, yes!" he answered, "and that's got to stand--that blow +is good!" + +The old, old device of attendance upon the lamp was suggested; but the +hour of the day was plainly given by one of the characters as three +o'clock in the afternoon. + +These six are but few of the many rejected reasons for that one cross of +the stage; still Mr. Daly would not permit a motiveless action, and we +came to a momentary standstill. Very doubtfully, I remarked: "I suppose a +smelling-bottle would not be important enough to cross the room for?" + +He brightened quickly--clouded over even more quickly: "Y-e-e-s! N-o-o! +at least, not if it had never appeared before. But let me see--Miss +Morris, you must carry that smelling-bottle in the preceding scene, +and--and, yes, I'll just put in a line in your part, making you ask some +one to hand it to you--that will nail attention to it, you see! Then in +this scene, when you leave these people and cross the room to get your +smelling-bottle from the mantel, it will be a perfectly natural action on +your part, and will give the men their chance of explanation and +warning." And at last we were free to move on to other things. + +Above all was he eager to have his stage present a home-like interior. +Never shall I forget my amazement when I first saw a piece of furniture +occupying the very centre of the stage, while I with others were reduced +to acting in any scrap of room we could "scrooge" into, as children say. + +Long trains were fashionable then, and it was no uncommon sight to see +the lover standing with both feet firmly planted upon his lady's train +while he implored her to fly with him--the poor man had to stand +somewhere! Miss Davenport, in one of her comedy scenes, having to move +about a good deal on the crowded stage, finally wound her trailing skirts +so completely about a chair that, at her exit, the chair went with her, +causing a great laugh. + +One night a male character, having to say boastfully to me: "I have my +hand upon a fortune!" I added in an undertone: "And both feet upon my +white satin dress!" at which he lost his grip (as the boys say) and +laughed aloud--said laugh costing him a forfeit of fifty cents, which +really should have been paid by me, as I was the guilty cause of that +disastrous effect. But the gentleman was not only gallant but well used +to being forfeited, and unconcernedly paid the penalty exacted. + +But really it was very distressing trying to make your way between pieces +of furniture--stopping to release your skirts from first one thing and +then another, and often destroying all the effect of your words by such +action. One evening I petulantly observed to Mr. Daly: "I see now why one +is only _woolly_ in the West--in the East one gets the wool all rubbed +off on unnecessary pedestals and centre-divans." + +He laughed first, then pulled up sharply, saying: "Perhaps you did not +notice that your comment contained a criticism of my judgment, Miss +Morris? If I think the furniture necessary, that is sufficient," and I +gave him a military salute and ran down-stairs. At the foot Mr. George +Brown and one of the pretty young women stood. She was saying: "Now if +any of _us_ had said there was too much crowding from that rubbishy old +furniture, he would have made us pay a nice forfeit for it, but Miss +Morris gets off scot-free!" + +"Yes, I know," said Mr. Brown, "but then she amused him first with the +idea of rubbing the Western wool off here, and you can't very well laugh +and then turn around and forfeit the person who made you do it." + +And so I learned that if no detail was too small for Mr. Daly to consider +carefully in his preparation of a play, so no detail of daily life in his +theatre was too small for notice, consideration, and comment, and I +resolved to try hard to curb my careless speech, lest it get me into +trouble. + +Early during that first week my friend, John Norton, said to me: "Have +you spoken to Mr. Daly about your salary yet?" + +"Good gracious, no!" I answered. + +"Well, but you should," he persisted; "that is only business. You have +made a great hit; he promised you to double thirty-five dollars if you +made a favorable impression." + +"Well," I cried, "wait till salary-day, and very likely I'll get it; he +will keep his word, only, for mercy's sake, give him a chance! It would +insult him were I to remind him, now, of his promise." + +I was content to wait, but Mr. Norton was anxious. Monday came and, +tremblingly, I opened my envelope to find thirty-five dollars--no more, +no less. I knew what anyone else would do, I knew I was valuable to Mr. +Daly, but, oh, those years and years of repression--for so long a time +_to be seen--not heard_, had been the law of my weary life, and now the +old thrall was upon me, I simply could not demand my right. + +The tears fell fast as I went home, with that miserable wage in my hand. +We were in such dreadful straits for clothing. Other needs we could hide, +but not the need of outer garments. I was quite sick with disappointment +and anxiety, yet I would not permit Mr. Norton to go and speak for me, as +that would mean gossip as to his right to interfere. + +I used to plan out exactly what I was going to say, and start a little +earlier to the theatre, that I might have time to see Mr. Daly and remind +him of his promise, and then, when I got there, unconquerable shame +overcame me--I _could_ not! + +Then one night Mr. Daly asked me to sign a contract for five years, with +a certain rise in salary each year. I utterly refused. I knew that would +mean absolute bondage. He said he would raise my salary now, if I would +sign; and I did actually whisper, that he had not kept his promise about +this year's salary. + +He curtly answered: "Never mind this year--sign for five, and this season +will then take care of itself!" + +"No," I said, and yet again "No!" "Mr. Daly," I cried, "I shall be +grateful to you all the days of my life for giving me this chance in New +York--you are treating me badly, but I am grateful enough not to rebel. I +will play for you every season of my life, if you want me; I will never +consider an offer without first telling you of it, but you must engage me +but for one season at a time." + +"Then you can go!" he said. "All my people are engaged from three to five +years--I will not break my rule for anyone; so now you can choose!" + +"Pardon me," I answered, huskily, "you chose for me when you told me to +go!" I bowed to him and went out, sore at heart and deeply wounded, for I +was keeping silent as to his broken promise out of sheer gratitude for +the opening he had given me. + +The letter-box for the company hung near his private office. One night, +as he unlocked his door, he saw old man Keating (the stage-door man) +sorting out letters for the various boxes. One caught Mr. Daly's eye, +bearing the name of Wallack. He took it from Keating's hand; it was +addressed to Clara Morris. No one ever called Mr. Daly a dull man, and +when he put two and two together, even in a hurry, he knew quite well +that the result would be four; and when he put the words, "Wallack's +Theatre," and the address, "Clara Morris," together he knew equally well +the result would be an offered engagement. Then Mr. Daly put back the +letter and said sharply to the reverent Keating: "Whatever you do, don't +let Miss Morris pass you when she comes in. Stop her before she takes her +key. Remember, whether early or late, stop her anyway, and send her to my +room. Tell her it is urgent--you understand? Before she gets her key (by +the letter-box) I _must_ see her!" + +Yes, he understood, for when I came in I was switched away from the +key-board in a jiffy and rushed by the elbow to the governor's office, +and even held there until the summons to enter answered the knock of the +determined and obedient Keating. + +Inside, Mr. Daly, smiling benignly, greeted me as one greets a naughty, +spoiled child, and pulling me by my fingers toward his desk, showed me a +contract outspread: "A contract for _one_ season," he said, giving me a +light tap on my ear. "Though you must promise silence on the subject, for +there would be an outcry of favoritism if it were known that I broke a +rule for you! Salary? oh, the salary is only fifty-five dollars, but we +will balance that by my assistance in the matter of wardrobe. Whenever +you have five dresses to buy I will provide three, which will belong to +me afterward, of course--and--and just sign now, for I'm in a great +haste, child, as I have an appointment to keep! Oh, you don't want any +time to think over an engagement of just one season! You obstinate little +block! and, by the way, I'll add five dollars a week to your present +salary for the rest of the season, if you sign this--yes, that's the +right place!" + +So pinched, so tormented were we for money that I signed instantly to +secure that immediate poor little five dollars a week rise! Signed and +went out to find, awaiting me in the letter-box, a better offer from Mr. +Lester Wallack. + +And let me say right here that about the middle of the season I found +that some young actresses, who handed me cards on the stage, and in laced +caps and aprons appeared as maids in my service, were receiving for their +arduous duties a higher salary than I received as leading woman and their +play-mistress. "It's a strange world, my masters, a very strange world!" + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH + + I Go to the Sea-shore--The Search for a "Scar"--I Make a Study of + Insanity, and Meet with Success in "L'Article 47." + + +I had got safely through my first dreaded vacation. I had had two +wonderful weeks at the seaside, where, with Mr. and Mrs. James Lewis and +George Parkes, I had boarded with Mrs. By Baker, whom we left firmly +convinced of our general insanity--harmless, but quite hopeless cases she +thought us. Awed into reverent silence I had taken my first long look at +the ocean; that mighty monster, object of my day-dreams all the years, +lay that day outstretched, smiling, dimpling, blinking like the babe of +giants, basking in the sun. + +I had inhaled with delight the briny coolness of its breath, and with my +friends had engaged in wild romps in its waves, all of us arrayed +meanwhile in bathing dresses of hideous aspect, made from gray flannel of +penitential color and scratchiness, and most malignant modesty of cut; +which were yet the eminently proper thing at that time. + +I almost wonder, looking at the bathing dresses of to-day, that old +Ocean, who is a lover of beauty, did not dash the breath out of us, and +then fling us high and dry on the beach, where the sands might quickly +drift over our ugly shells and hide them from view. + +All this happened, and much more, before I came to the play "L'Article +47," famous for its great French court scene, and for the madness of its +heroine. I am so utterly lacking in self-confidence that it was little +short of cruelty for Mr. Daly to tell me, as he did, that the fate of the +play hung upon that single scene; that the production would be expensive +and troublesome, and its success or failure lay absolutely in my hands. + +I turned white as chalk, with sheer fright, and could scarcely force +myself to speak audibly, when asked if I could do the part. + +I answered, slowly, that I thought it unfair for Mr. Daly first to reduce +me to a state of imbecility, through fear, and then ask me to make a +close study of violent madness--since the two conditions were generally +reversed. + +The people laughed, but there was no responsive smile on my lips, as I +entered upon a period of mental misery that only ended with the +triumphant first night. + +I did all I could do to get at _Cora's_ character and standing before the +dread catastrophe--feeling that her madness must to some extent be tinged +by past habits and personal peculiarities. I got a copy of the French +novel--that was not an affectation, but a necessity, as it had not then +been translated, and I was greatly impressed with the minute description +of the destruction done by the bullet _George_ had fired into her face. +Portions of the jaw-bone had been shot away; the eye, much injured, had +barely been saved, but it was drawn and distorted. + +As the woman's beauty had been her letter of introduction to the gilded +world, indeed had been her sole capital, that "scar" became of tremendous +value in the make-up of the part, since it would explain, and in some +scant measure excuse, her revengeful actions. + +Still, as the play was done in Paris, the "scar" was almost ignored by +that brilliant actress, Madame Rousseil. I had her photograph in the part +of _Cora_, and while she had a drapery passed low beneath her jaws to +indicate some injury to her neck or breast, her face was absolutely +unblemished. + +To my mind that weakened _Cora's_ case greatly--she had so much less to +resent, to brood over. + +I took my trouble to Mr. Daly, after I had been out to the mad-house at +Blackwell's Island, and had gained some useful information from that +awful aggregation of human woe. He listened to Belot's description of +_Cora's_ beauty and its wrecking "scar"; he looked condemningly at the +Rousseil picture, and then asked me what I wanted to do. + +I told him I wanted a dreadful scar--then I wanted to veil it always; and +he broke in with, "Then why have the scar, if it is to be veiled?" + +But I hurried on: "My constant care to keep it covered will make people +imagine it a hundred times worse than it really is. Then when the veil is +torn off by main force, and they catch a glimpse of the horror, they will +not wonder that her already-tottering brain should give way under such a +blow to her vanity." + +Mr. Daly studied over the matter silently for a few moments, then he +said: "Yes, you are right. That scar is a great factor in the play; go +ahead, and make as much of it as you can." + +But right there I came up against an obstacle. I was not good at even an +eccentric make-up. I did not know how to proceed to represent such a +scar, as I had in my mind. + +"Try," said Mr. Daly. I tried, and with tear-reddened eyes announced my +failure, but I said: "I shall ask Mr. Lemoyne to help me--he is the +cleverest and most artistic maker-up of faces I ever saw." + +"Yes," said Mr. Daly, "get him to try it after rehearsal; you have no +time to lose now!" + +Only too well I knew that; so at once I approached Mr. Lemoyne, and made +my wants known. I had not the slightest hesitation in doing so, because, +in spite of his sinful delight in playing jokes on me, he was the +kindest, most warm-hearted of comrades; and true to that character he at +once placed his services at my disposal, though he shook his head very +doubtfully over the undertaking. + +"You know I never saw a scar of such a nature in my life," he said, as he +lighted up his dressing-room. + +"Oh," I said, "you, who can change your nose or your mouth or your eyes +at will, can make an ugly scar, easily enough," and off went hat and +veil, and Mr. Lemoyne, using my countenance for his canvas, began work. + +He grew more and more glum as he wiped off and repainted. One scar was +too small--oh, much too small. Then the shattered jaw-bone was described. +Again he tried. "Clara," he said, "I can't do it, because I don't know +what I am aiming at!" + +"Oh, go on!" I pleaded, "make a hideous scar, then I'll learn how from +you, and do it myself." + +He was patience and kindness personified, but when at last he said he +could do no more, I looked in the glass, and--well, we both laughed +aloud, in spite of our chagrin. He said: "It looks as though some +street-boy had given you a swat in the eye with a chunk of mud." + +I mournfully washed it off and begged him to try just once +more--to-morrow; and he promised with a doleful air. + +I had tears in my eyes as I left the theatre, I was so horribly cast +down, for if Mr. Lemoyne could not make up that scar no one could. But he +used too much black--that was a grave mistake, and--oh, dear! _now_ what? +Men were peeling up the stone walk. I could not go home by the Sixth +Avenue car as usual, without a lot of bother and muddy shoes. I was just +tired enough from rehearsal and disappointed enough to be irritated by +the tiniest _contretemps_, and I almost whimpered, as I turned the other +way and took a Broadway car. I dropped into a corner. Three men were on +my side of the car. I glanced casually at them, and, "Goodness mercy!" +said I to myself, "what are they gazing at--they look fairly frightened?" + +I followed the direction of their eyes, and, I gasped! I felt goose-flesh +creeping up my arms! On the opposite side sat a large and handsome +mulatto woman, a small basket of white linen was on her knees, her face +was turned toward the driver, and oh, good God! not so long ago, her +throat had been cut almost from ear to ear! + +The scar was hideous--sickening, it made one feel faint and frightened, +but I held my quivering nerves with an iron hand--here was my scar for +_Cora_! I must study it while I could. It had not been well cared for, I +imagine, for the edges of the awful gash were puckered, as though a +gathering thread held them. There was a queer, cord-like welt that looked +white, while the flesh either side was red and threatening; and then, as +if she felt my eyes, the woman turned and faced me. A dull color rose +slowly over her mutilated throat and handsome face, and she felt hastily +for a kerchief, which was pinned at the back of her dress-collar, and +drew the ends forward and tied them. + +I kept my eyes averted after that, but when I left the car weariness was +forgotten. I stopped at a druggist's shop, bought sticking-plaster, +gold-beaters' skin, and absorbent cotton, and with springy steps reached +home, materials in hand, model in memory--I was content, I had found my +scar at last! + +If you are about to accuse me of hardness of heart in using, to my own +advantage, this poor woman's misfortune, don't, or at least wait a moment +first. + +When I had gone through the asylum's wards and the doctor had called my +attention to this or that exceptional case and had tried to make clear +_cause_ and _effect_; when I had noted ophidian's stealth in one and +tigerish ferocity in another, I suddenly realized that to single one of +these unfortunates out, then to go before an indifferent crowd of people +and present to them a close copy of the helpless afflicted one, would be +an act of atrocious cruelty. I could not do it! I would instead seize +upon some of the general symptoms, common to all mad people, and build up +a mad-scene with their aid, thus avoiding a cruel imitation of one of +God's afflicted. + +So in this scar I was not going exactly to copy that riven throat, but, +with slender rolls of cotton, covered and held by gold-beaters' skin, I +was going to create dull white welts with angry red spaces painted +between--with strong sticking-plaster attached to my eyelid, I was going +to draw it from its natural position. Oh, I should have a rare scar! yet +that poor woman might herself see it without suspecting she had given me +the idea. + +Oh, what a time of misery it was, the preparation of that play! Poor Mr. +Daly--and poor, poor Miss Morris! + +You see everything hung upon the mad-scene. Yet, when we came to that, I +simply stood still and spoke the broken, disjointed words. + +"But what are you going to do at night?" Mr. Daly cried. "Act your scene, +Miss Morris." + +Act it, in cold blood, there, in the gray, lifeless daylight? with a +circle of grinning, sardonic faces, ready to be vastly amused over my +efforts? He might better have asked me to deliver a polished address in +beautiful, pellucid Greek, to compose at command a charming little +_rondeau_ in sparkling French, or a prayer in sonorous Latin--they would +have been easier for me to do, than to gibber, to laugh, to screech, to +whisper, whimper, rave, to crouch, crawl, stride, fall to order in +street-clothes, and always with those fiendish "guyers" ready to assist +in my undoing. Yet, poor Mr. Daly, too! I was sorry for him, he had so +much at stake. It _was_ asking a good deal of him to trust his fate +entirely, blindly to me. + +"Oh!" I said, "I would if I could--do please believe me! I want to do as +you wish me to, but, dear Mr. Daly, I can't, my blood is cold in +daylight, I am ashamed, constrained! I cannot act then!" + +"Well, give me some _faint_ idea of what you are going to do," he cried, +impatiently. + +"Dear goodness!" I groaned, "I am going to try to do all sorts of +things--loud and quiet, fast and slow, close-eyed cunning, wide-eyed +terror! There, that's all I can tell about it!" and I burst into harassed +tears. + +He said never another word, but I used to feel dreadfully when, at +rehearsals, he would rise and leave the stage as soon as we reached the +mad-scene. + +Then it happened we could not produce the play on Monday. An old comedy +was put on for that one night. I was not in it, and Mr. Daly, seeing how +near I was to the breaking-point with hard work and terror, tried to give +me a bit of pleasure. He got tickets for my mother and me, and sent us to +the opera to hear Parepa and Wachtel. I was radiant with delight; but, +alas, when did I ever have such high spirits without a swift dampening +down. Elaborately dressed as to hair, all the rest of my little best was +singularly plain for the opera. Still I was happy enough and greatly +excited over our promised treat. + +Mother and I set out to go to Miss Linda Dietz's home, where we were to +pick her up, and, under escort of her brother, go over to the Academy of +Music. We could not afford a carriage, so we had to take one of the +'busses then in existence. Mr. Daly had sent me, with my box tickets, a +pair of white gloves, and with extreme carefulness I placed them in my +pocket, drawing on an old pair to wear down to Fifteenth Street, where I +would don the new ones at Miss Dietz's house. How I blessed my +fore-thought later on! + +Long skirts were worn, so were bustles. A man in the omnibus was in +liquor; he sat opposite me, right by the door. I signaled to stop. Mother +passed out before me--I descended. The man's feet were on my dress-skirt. +I tried to pull it free--he stupidly pulled in the door. The 'bus +started--I was flung to the pavement! + +I threw my head back violently to save my face from the cobbles, my hands +and one knee were beating the cruel stones. Mother screamed to the +driver, a gentleman sprang to the horses, stopped them, picked me up, and +even then had to thrust the drunken man's feet from my torn flounce. I +had faintly whispered: "My glass--my fan!" and the gentleman, placing me +in mother's arms, went out into the street and found them for me. I sat +on a bench in the Park: I was shaken and bruised and torn and muddy, but +I would not go home--not I, I was going to hear Parepa and Wachtel! + +The gentleman simply would not leave us; he gave me his arm to Miss +Dietz's house, and I needed its aid, for each moment proved I was worse +hurt than I had at first thought. There, however, when with my heartiest +thanks we parted from our good Samaritan, the Dietz family, with dismayed +faces, received us. They were kindness personified. I was sponged and +arnicaed and plastered and sewed and brushed, and at last my ankle's hurt +being acknowledged, it was tightly bound. The new white gloves safely +came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set +forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the +crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight +over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome +fan--applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten--saw me close my eyes. +She thought it was the pain of my ankle, but it was a sudden memory of +_Cora_ and the mad-scene. As the whirlwind of applause roared about me, I +sickened with a mortal terror of the ordeal awaiting me. I hope I may +always thrust Satan behind me with the whole-hearted force I used in +thrusting "L'Article 47" behind me on that occasion. I returned to "Il +Trovatore." I enjoyed each liquid jewel of a note, helped to raise the +roof, afterward declined supper, hastened home, romped my dog, and put +her to bed. Got into a dressing-gown, locked myself in my room, and had +it out with _Cora_, from A to Z. Tried this walk and that crouch; read +this way and that way. Found the exact moment when her mind began to +cloud, to waver, to recover, to break finally and irretrievably. +Determined positively just where I should be at certain times; allowed a +margin for the impulse or inspiration of the moment, and at last, with +the character crystal-clear before me, I ended my work and my vigil. + +After turning out the gas I went to the window and looked at the sky. The +stars had gone in; low down in the east a faint, faint band of pink held +earth and sky together. I was calm and quite ready to rest. All my +uncertainty was at an end. What the public would do I could not know; +what I would do was clear and plain before me at last. + +Poor Mr. Daly! I sighed, for I knew _his_ anxiety and uneasiness were not +allayed. Bertie, tired of waiting for me, had curled her loving little +body up in my pillow--a distinct breach of family discipline. A few +moments later, feeling her small tail beating a blissful tattoo on my +feet, I muttered, laughingly: "A little prayer, a little dog, and a +little rest," and so sank into the sound sleep I so desperately needed, +in preparation for the ever-to-be-dreaded first night of "L'Article 47" +of the French Penal Code. + +The house was packed. Well-known people were seen all through the +theatre. Act I. represented the French Court with a trial in full +swing--it played for one hour, lacking three minutes. I was on the stage +ten minutes only. I was told Mr. Daly shook his head violently at the +curtain's fall. + +The next act I was not in at all, but it dragged, and when that was over +Mr. Daly's peculiar test of public feeling showed the presence of +disappointment. Like many other managers, he often placed men here and +there to listen to the comments made by his patrons, but his quickest, +surest way of judging the effect a new play was making, was by watching +and listening at the very moment of the curtain's fall. If the people +instantly turned to one another in eager speech, and a bee-like hum of +conversation arose, he nodded his head with pleased satisfaction--he knew +they were saying, "How lovely!" "That was a fine effect!" "We've had +nothing better for a long time!" "It's just divine!" "It's great!" etc. + +When they spoke slowly and briefly, he shook his head; but when they sat +still and gazed steadily straight ahead of them, he called a new play for +rehearsal next morning. + +That second act had made him shake his head; the third came on with +_Cora's_ rejected love, her strangling tears of self-pity, her whirlwind +of passion, ending with that frantic and incredible threat. The people +caught at it! I suppose the swiftness of its action, the heat and fury +following so close upon the two slow, dull acts, pleased and aroused +them. The curtain went up and down, up and down, call after call, and +when at last it was allowed to remain down, myriads of bees might have +been swarming in front, and Mr. Daly, nodding and smiling as I rushed +past on my way to change my gown, said: "Hear 'em--hear the bees +buzz--that's good! Now if only you----" + +I waited not for the rest--too well I knew how to complete the sentence: +"If only I could safely hive those swarming bees" for him. Could I? Oh, +could I? for the moment was at hand, the "mad-scene," so dreaded, so +feared! + +Three things I had counted upon to help my effects: the crouch, the +laugh, the scar. The crouch had just done splendid service at the end of +Act III. Would the other two be as effective? + +I went up to the stage; I was to be discovered lying on a lounge. Miss +Davenport, magnificently handsome in person and gown, beside me; the +others at the gambling-table. As she took my hand she gave a sharp little +cry: "Heavens!" she said, "you might be dead, you are like ice!" She +touched my forehead, asking, "Are you ill? Why, your head is burning, +hot! hot! hot! Mr. Daly, just touch her hands and head!" + +He looked down on me in silence; two pairs of frightened eyes met; he +gave a groan; threw out his hands helplessly; stepped off the stage, and +signaled the curtain up on what was to make or break the play--and he +knew no more what to expect than did one of the ushers out in front. + +Under cover of the music and the applause accompanying the curtain's +rise, I caught myself muttering, vaguely: "The power and the glory--the +power and the glory," and knew that involuntarily I was reaching out for +the old staff on which I had leaned so many times before. + +The scene was on--the laughing cynicism of the _Baroness_--the chatter of +the players--then, at last, _George_ and _Cora_ were alone! + +My terror had slipped from me like a garment, I was in the play once +more; save for just one awful moment! _George_ had torn the veil from my +disfigured face, and, casting in my teeth the accusation: "You are mad!" +had left me there alone, standing, stunned by the word! That was the +moment of actual dethronement of reason, and, as I slowly, stupidly +turned my eyes, I saw Mr. Daly's white face thrust forward eagerly. His +gray eyes wide and glowing, his thin hand tightly grasping the lapel of +his coat, his whole being expressing the very anguish of anxiety! + +One moment I felt I was lost! I had been dragged out of the play at the +crucial moment! I clasped my hands across my eyes: "The kingdom and the +power!" I groaned--I faced the other way! The low, eerie music caught my +attention and awakened my imagination, in another second I was as mad as +a March hare. The first time the low, gibbering laugh swelled into the +wild, long-sustained shrieking _ha! ha!_ a voice said, low and clear: +"Oh, dear God!" + +Yet I who had heard the genuine laugh at the mad-house knew this to be +but a poor, tame, soulless thing, compared to that Hecate-like +distillation--the very essence of madness, that ran through that real +gibber of laughter. + +Yet it was enough. At the end there came to me one of those moments God +grants now and then as a reward for long thirst, way-weariness, and +heart-sickness patiently borne! One of those foolishly divine moments you +stand with the gods and, like them, are young and fair and powerful! Your +very nerves thrill harmonious, like harp-strings attune--your blood +courses like quicksilver for swiftness, like wine for warmth, and on that +fair peak of Triumph, where one tarries but by moments, there is no +knowledge of sin or suffering, of death or hate; there is only sunshine, +the sunshine of success! love for all those creatures who turn smiling +faces on you, who hold their hands to you with joyous cries! + +There is no question of deserts, of qualifications! No analysis, no +criticism then--they follow later! That is just a moment of delicious +madness; and to distinguish it from other frenzies it is called--a +Dramatic Triumph! + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH + + I Am too Dull to Understand a Premonition--By Mr. Daly's Side I See the + Destruction of the Fifth Avenue Theatre by Fire. + + +How shall I call that strange influence that dumbly tries to warn, to +prepare? + +Many of us have had experience of this nameless something whose efforts +are but rarely heeded. The something that one morning suddenly fills the +mind with thoughts of some friend of the far past, who is almost entirely +forgotten--persistent thoughts not to be shaken off. + +You speak of the matter, and your family exclaim: "What on earth ever +brought him to your mind?" and that night you either hear of the old +friend's death or he sends you a letter from the other side of the world. + +I had an acquaintance who one day found herself compelled, as it were, to +talk of thefts, of remarkable robberies. She seemed unable to turn her +mind to any other subject. If she looked at a lock, she thought how easy +it would be to force it; at a window, how readily a man might enter it. +Her people laughed and told her she was hoodooed; but next day she was +robbed of every jewel she had in the world. What was it that was trying +dumbly to warn her? + +It was on the 1st of January that my mind became subject to one of those +outside seizures. The snow was banked high in the streets--had been so +for days. The unexpected sale of the house in Twenty-first Street had +forced me to new quarters; I was at that moment in Twenty-fourth Street. +As I raised my head from kissing my mother a Happy New Year, I remarked: +"The streets are in a terrible condition for a great fire--are they +not?" + +"Let us hope there won't be a great fire," replied mother, and began to +pour out the coffee. + +A little later the French lady coming in, to pass the compliments of the +day, I was immediately moved to ask her if our fire service here was not +superior to that of Paris? And I was greatly pleased at her joyous +acquiescence, until I discovered that her remarks had reference to our +larger fireplaces--there are always certain drawbacks accompanying a +foreign landlady. + +Then I went to the matinee--for, lo, the poor actress always does double +work on days of festivity for the rest of the world, and all occasions of +legalized feasting find her eating "a cold bite." We were doing a play +called "False Shame," known in England as "The White Feather," a very +light three-act play. The dresses and scenery were beautiful; Mr. Daly +provided me with one gown--a combination of sapphire-blue velvet and +Pompadour brocade that came within an ace of making me look handsome, +like the rest. + +He remarked upon its effect, and I told him I felt compelled to look +well, since I had nothing else to do; but the day had gone by when such +remarks could anger him. He laughed good-humoredly and said: "All the +same, Miss, that scene at the organ is mighty pretty and taking, too." + +For, look you, in the theatre "a little knowledge is not a dangerous +thing." Complete knowledge is, of course, preferable; but, ah, how far a +very little will go, and here was my poor tum-tumming, "one _and_ two +_and_ three _and_," filling Mr. Daly's very soul with joy, because +forsooth, in a lovely old English interior, all draped in Christmas +greens, filled with carved-wood furniture, big logs burning in an +enormous fireplace, wax candles in brass sconces, two girls are at the +organ in dinner dress, who, nervously anxious about a New Year carol, +with which they are going to surprise their guests at mid-night, seize +the moment before dinner to try said carol over. + +Miss Davenport, regal in satin, stood, music in hand, the fire-light on +her handsome face. I, seated at the organ in my precious blue and +brocade, played the accompaniment, and sang alto, and, though terror over +this simple bit of work brought me to the verge of nervous prostration, +the scene was, from the front, like a stolen peep into some beautiful +private home, and it brought an astonishing amount of applause. But if I +had not "_one_ two threed" in Cincinnati on that grinning old piano, +where would the organ-scene have been? Ah, a little knowledge, if spread +ever so thin by a master hand like Mr. Daly's, will prove useful. + +So don't refuse to learn a little because you fear you cannot afford to +study thoroughly--if you are an actress. + +While I was sitting through a long wait that day I fell into a brown +study. The theatre dresser, who was very fond of me and gave me every +spare moment of her time, came into my room and twice addressed me before +I came out of my reverie. + +"What in the world are you thinking of, Miss Clara?" she asked, and I +answered with another question: "Mary, were you ever in a great fire?" + +"No," she said; "were you?" + +"Yes," I answered; "I have been twice burned out from shelter at dead of +night," and I told her of that hotel fire at 3 A.M., where there was but +one stairway to the street; of the mad brutality of the men; of the +terrible and the ludicrous scenes; of my own escape, quite alone, in bare +feet and one white garment; of my standing across a leaking hose, while a +strange man pulled my right arm, frantically crying, "You come with me! +my mother's got a blanket to wrap you up in!" and Mr. Ellsler, who had +just arrived, seized my left arm, dragging me his way and shouting, "Come +over to the house and get to bed quick, before you die of exposure!" +while I felt the water spraying my forlornly shivering shins, and was +more nearly torn asunder than was ever the Solomon baby. + +"Oh, my!" said Mary, "how dreadful!" + +"Yes," I said, musingly, "and what a fire this place would make--all +these partitions of painted pine!" + +"Oh, don't!" protested Mary. + +"But," said I, "you know that's what theatres are built for--to burn is +their natural end!" and then I was called, and went up-stairs to saunter +through another act of the mild little play. + +I owned but little jewelry then, but what I had was noticeably good. My +rings, including the handsome pearl one Mr. Daly had given me as a +souvenir of "47," I had to remove from my fingers for the last act, and +when the curtain had fallen and I had rushed myself into street garments, +and was leaving the dressing-room in haste to join my waiting mother at +dinner, Mary called to me: "Miss Clara, you are leaving your diamond +rings--but never mind," she picked them up and dropped them, one by one, +into a little box: "I'll lock the door myself, you run along, the rings +will be safe enough--run!" and the answering words I heard swiftly +leaving my lips were absolutely involuntary and dictated by no thought of +mine. They were: + +"Yes, as far as theft is concerned, they are safe enough, but in case of +fire? Better give them to me, Mary. Oh!" for the girl had dropped one on +the floor. It was a bit of Oriental enamel set about with tiny sparks of +diamonds. I put the others on, but would not wait for her to pick up the +rolling truant, and away I went. + +At the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street I came to a +stand-still before two great snow-banks, and I thought again what they +might mean in case of a fire. + +I reached home at a brisk pace, ran up-stairs, threw off my cloak, and +had drawn my dress-waist half off, when, without a preliminary knock, the +door was flung open and my landlord, Mr. Bardin, white with the +excitement that had wiped out his knowledge of English, stood +gesticulating wildly and hurling French at me in seething masses. I +caught "_le feu!_" "_le feu!_" many times repeated; then "_le theatre!_" +and with a cry I seized his arm and shook him. + +"What is it?" I cried, "do you mean fire?" + +He nodded, and again came the words: "_le theatre!_" + +"Good heaven and earth! you don't mean _my_ theatre, do you?" and then +two great horses, hurling a fire-engine around the corner into our street +made swift and terrifying answer. With a piercing cry I caught up my +cloak, and throwing off somebody's restraining hands I dashed down-stairs +and into the street, racing like mad, giving sobbing cries, and utterly +unconscious for over two blocks' space that my waist was unclosed and my +naked throat and chest were bare to the wintry wind. + +At the corner of the street at Sixth Avenue I wrung my hands in anguish, +crying, "Oh, dear God! I knew it! I knew it!" for there, stalled in the +snow, was the engine, so desperately needed a little further on! And as I +resumed my run I said to myself: "What is it that has tried so hard to +tell me--to warn me? Tried all the day--and I would not understand--and +now it's too late!" + +Why I ran I do not know--it was not curiosity. I felt, somehow, that if I +could get there in time I might do something--God knows what! As I neared +the theatre the crowd grew more dense, yet to my gasping: "Please, oh, +please!" an answer came in a quick moving aside to let pass the woman +with the white, tear-wet face. I broke through the cordon and was making +for the stage-door, when a rough hand caught me by the shoulder. There +was an oath, and I was fairly hurled back toward the safety line. + +"Oh, let me alone!" I cried, "I want to go to my room! It will take me +but a moment!" + +Again the rough hand reached out for me, when a strange man threw his arm +in front of me protectingly: "Take care what you're about!" he said. "Be +a little gentle--she has a right close to the line, she's one of the +company! Can't you see?" + +"Oh," grunted the policeman, "well, I didn't know, and I couldn't let her +kill herself!" + +"No," said the stranger, "but you had no call to pitch her about as you +did!" And just then a long, thin hand caught mine, and Mr. Daly's voice +said: "Come here, child!" and he led me across the street and up some +steps, and there, opposite the burning building, I could realize the +madness of my act in trying to enter. The front of the building stood +firm, but beyond it, within, all was seething flame. It was like some +magnificent spectacular production--some Satanic pantomime and ballet, +and every now and then a whirling flame, crowned with myriad sparks, +sprang madly up into the very sky like some devilish _premiere danseuse_; +while the lesser fiends joined hands and circled frenziedly below. + +Mr. Daly never spoke a word. He had not released my fingers, and so we +stood, hand in hand, watching silently over the torment of his beloved +theatre--the destruction of his gathered treasures. I looked up at him. +His face gleamed white in the firelight; his eyes were wide and strained; +his fingers, icy cold, never lessened their clinching grasp on mine. Then +came the warning cry firemen are apt to give when they know the roof is +going. I had heard it often, and understood that and their retreating +movement. Mr. Daly did not, and when, with a crackling crash, the whole +roof fell into the roaring depths, his hand, his body, relaxed suddenly; +a sort of sobbing groan escaped his pale lips. But when the column of +glowing sparks flew high into the air he turned away with a shiver and +gave not one other look at the destroyed building. + +Not one word was spoken on the subject. Glancing down he noticed I had no +rubbers on and that streams of water were running in the street: + +"Go home, child!" he said, speaking quickly and most kindly. A crowd of +reporters came up to him: "Yes," he said, "in one moment, gentlemen," +then to me: "Hurry home, get something to eat--you could have had no +dinner!" + +He gave one heavy sigh, and added: "I'm glad you were with me, it would +have been worse alone." He pushed me gently from him. As I started down +the street he called: "I'll send you word some time to-night what we're +to do." + +I left him to the reporters; I had not spoken one word from the moment I +had begged to enter my dressing-room. I felt strangely sad and forlorn as +I dropped, draggled and tired, into a chair. I said to mother: "It's +gone! the only theatre in New York whose door was not barred against me, +and--I--I think that at this moment I know just how a dog feels who has +lost a loved master," and, dropping my face upon my hands, I wept long +over the destruction of my first dramatic home in New York, the little +Fifth Avenue Theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTIETH + + We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New Theatre--Our + Astonishing Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a Great Triumph. + + +My first thought on awaking the next morning was one of dismay, on +recalling the destruction of the little "P.H.C."--that being the actors +contraction of Mr. Daly's somewhat grandiloquent "Parlor Home of Comedy." +My grief over the burning of the pretty toy theatre was very real, and I +would have been an astonished young woman had anyone prophesied that for +me, personally, the disaster was to prove a piece of unqualified good +luck. + +And, by the way, that expression "good luck" reminds me of one of the +incidents of the fire. That morning, when the firemen went to the ruins +to examine into the state of the standing front wall, they looked upward, +and there, all alone, on the burned and blackened space, smiling down in +friendly fashion upon them, was the picture of Clara Morris--a bit +charred as to frame and smoky as to glass, but the photograph (one taken +by Kurtz), absolutely uninjured, being the one and only thing saved from +the ruins. The firemen very naturally wanted it for their engine-house, +and Mr. Daly said that for it many were claiming, pleading, demanding, +bartering--but all in vain. His superstition was aroused. Not for +anything in the world, he cried, would he part from his "luck," as he +ever after called the rescued picture. So there again appeared the malice +of inanimate things, for how else could one account for the plunging of +that line, the entire length of the staircase, of splendidly framed +pictures of loveliness, into the fiery depths, while the plain and +unimportant one kept its place in calm security? + +Mr. Daly had a very expensive company on his hands. He had amazed other +managers by his "corner" on leading men. With three already in his +company he had not hesitated to draw on Boston for Harry Crisp, and on +Philadelphia for Mr. Louis James; and when he added such names as George +Clark, Daniel Harkins, George DeVere, James Lewis, William Lemoyne, +William Davidge, A. Whiting, Owen Fawcett, George Parkes, F. Burnett, H. +Bascombe, J. Beekman, Charles Fisher, George Gilbert, etc., one can +readily understand that the salary of the men alone must have made quite +an item in the week's expenses, and added to the sharp necessity of +getting us to work as quickly as possible. And in actual truth the ruins +of the little theatre were not yet cold when Mr. Daly had, by wire, +secured a week for us, divided between Syracuse and Albany, and we were +scrambling dresses together and buying new toilet articles--rouge, +powders, and pomades, and transforming ourselves into "strolling +players"; though, sooth to say, there was precious little "strolling" +done after we started, for we were all rushing for rooms, for food, for +trains, through a blizzard that was giving us plenty of delaying +snow-drifts. And while the company was cheerfully "barn-storming," Mr. +Daly was doing his best to find shelter for us in New York, engaging the +little one-time church on Broadway. He had painters, paper-hangers, +scrub-women, upholsterers, climbing over one another in their frantic +efforts to do all he desired to have done in about one-half the +regulation time allowed for such work; and while they toiled day and +night with much noise and great demonstration of haste, he sat +statue-still in a far corner, mentally reviewing every manuscript in his +possession, searching eagerly for the one that most nearly answered to +the needs of the moment. Namely, a play that required a strong cast of +characters (he had plenty of men and women), little preparation, and +scanty scenery (since he was short of both time and money). And, finding +"Alixe," then known as "The Countess de Somerive," he stopped short. The +action of the play covered but one day--that was promising. There were +but three acts--good; but two scenes--better! A conventional chateau +garden-terrace for one act, and a simply elegant morning-room or stately +drawing-room, according to managerial taste, could stand for the other +two acts. A strong and dramatic work--requiring the painting of but two +scenes. The play was found! The company was ordered home to rehearse it. + +Now at that time, to my own great anxiety, I was by way of standing on +very dangerous ground. The public had favored me almost extravagantly +from the very first performance of _Anne Sylvester_, but the critics, at +least the most important two, seemed to praise my efforts with a certain +unwilling drag of the pen. Nearly all their kind words had the sweetness +squeezed out of them between "buts" and "ifs," and, most wounding of all, +my actual work was less often criticized than were my personal defects. +Occasionally an actress's work may be too good for her own welfare. You +doubt that? Yet I know an actress, still in harness, who in her lovely +prime made so great a hit, in the part of an adventuress, that she has +had nothing else to act since. Whenever a play was produced with such a +character in it, she was sent for. But if she was proposed for a loyal +wife, a gentle sweetheart, a modern heroine, the quick response +invariably was: "Oh, she can't play anything but the adventuress." + +There is nothing more fatal to the artistic value, to the future welfare +of a young player, than to be known as "a one-part actress"; yet that was +the very danger that was threatening me at the time of the burning of the +home theatre. Following other parts known as strong, _Jezebel_, the +half-breed East Indian, a velvet-footed treachery and twice would-be +murderess, and _Cora_, the quadroon mad-woman, were in a fair way to +injure me greatly. Already one paper had said: "Miss Morris has a +strange, intuitive comprehension of these creatures of mixed blood." + +But worse than that, the most powerful of the two critics I dreaded had +said one morning: "Miss Morris played with care and much feeling. The +audience wept _copiously_" (to anyone who has long read the great critic, +that word "copiously" is tantamount to his full signature, so +persistently does he use it), "but her performance was flecked with those +tigerish gleams that seem to be a part of her method. She will probably +find difficulty in equaling in any other line her success as _Cora_." + +No animal had ever a keener sense of approaching danger than I had, when +my professional welfare was threatened, and these small straws told me +plainly which way the wind was beginning to blow, and now, looking back, +I am convinced that just one more "tigerish part" at that time would have +meant artistic ruin to me, for, figuratively speaking, pens were already +dipped to write me down "a one-part actress." + +Then, one bitter cold day we returned to New York and Mr. Daly, sending +for me, said he must ask a favor of me. A form of speech that literally +made me "sit up straight"--yes, and gasp, too, with astonishment. With a +regretful sigh he went on: "I suppose you know you are a strong +attraction?" + +I smiled broadly at his evident disapproval of such knowledge on my part, +and he continued: "But in this play there is no part for you--yet I +greatly need all my strongest people in this first cast. Of course as far +as ability is concerned you could play the _Countess_ and make a hit, but +she's too old--so you'll not play the mother to marriageable daughters +under my management, even in an emergency. Now I have Miss Morant, Miss +Davenport and Miss Dietz, but--but I must have your name, too." + +I nodded vigorously--I understood. And having seen the play in Paris, +where it was one of the three pieces offered for an evening's programme, +I mentally reviewed the cast and presently made answer, cheerfully and +honestly: "Oh, yes! I see--it's that--'er--_Aline?_ _Justine?_ No, no! +_Claudine?_ that's the name of the maid. You want me to go on for that? +All right! anything to help!" + +He leaned forward, asking, eagerly: "Do you mean that?" + +"Of course I do!" I answered. + +"Ah!" he cried, "you don't guess well, Miss Morris, but you've the heart +of a good comrade, and now I'm sure you will do as I ask you, and play +_Alixe_ for me?" + +I sprang to my feet with a bound. "_Alixe?_" I cried. "I to play that +child? oh, impossible! No--no! I should be absurd! I--I--I know too +much--oh, you understand what I mean! She is a little convent-bred bit of +innocence--a veritable baby of sixteen years! Dear Mr. Daly don't you +see, I should ruin the play?" + +He answered, rather coldly: "You are not given to ruining plays. The part +does not amount to much. Good heavens! I admit it does not suit you, but +think of my position; give me the benefit of your name as _Alixe_ for one +single week, and on the second Monday night Miss Jewett shall take the +part off your hands." + +"But," I whimpered, "the critics will make me the butt of their ridicule, +for I can't make myself look like an _Alixe_." + +"Oh, no they won't!" he answered, sharply. "Of course you won't expect a +success, but you need fear no gibes for trying to help me out of a +dramatic hole. Will you help me?" And of course there was nothing to do +but swallow hard and hold out my hand for the unwelcome part. + +Imagine my surprise when, on my way to rehearsal, I saw posters up, +announcing the production of the play of "Alixe." I met Mr. Daly at the +door and said: "Why this play was always called 'The Countess of +Somerive.'" + +"Yes," he replied, "I know--but 'Alixe' looks well, it's odd and +pretty--and well, it will lend a little importance to the part!"--which +shows how heavy were the scales upon our eyes while we were rehearsing +the new play. + +Everyone sympathized with me, but said a week would soon pass, and I +groaned and ordered heelless slippers, and flaxen hair parted simply and +waved back from the temples to fall loosely on the shoulders, to avoid +the height that heels and the fashionable chignon would give me, while a +thin, white nun's veiling gown, high-necked and long-sleeved, over a +low-cut white silk lining, buttoned at the back and finished with a pale +blue sash and little side pocket, completed the costume, I prepared for +the character. I was beginning to understand, as I studied her, and +shamefacedly--to love! + +Oh, yes, one often feels dislike or liking for the creature one is trying +to represent. Just at first I said to myself, here is a modern _Ophelia_, +but I was soon convinced that the innocence of _Alixe_ was far more +perfect than had been that of Shakespeare's weakling, who, through the +training of court life, the warnings of a shrewd brother, and the +admonitions of a tricky father, had learned many things--was ductile in +stronger hands and could play a part; could lead a lover on to speech, +without giving slightest hint of the hateful watching eyes she knew were +upon him. + +Poor "Rose of May," whose sweetness comes to us across the ages! As the +garden-spider's air-spun silken thread is cast from bough to twig across +the path, so her fragile thread of life looped itself from father to +lover, to brother, to queen, and all the web was threaded thick with +maiden's tears, made opalescent by rosy love, green hope, and violet +despair. But each one she clung to raised a hand to brush the fragile +thing aside, and so destroyed it utterly. Yet that tangled wreck of +beauty, sweetness, and "a young maid's wits," remains one of the world's +dearest possessions--the fair _Ophelia_! + +But this modern maid was yet unspotted by the world. She found all earth +perfect, as though God had just completed it, and loved ardently and +without shame, as the innocent do love. For this pure flower of crime +was ignorant, to the point of bliss, of evil in the world about her. +While her adored mother was to her as the blessed Madonna herself. + +More and more convincing, as I carefully studied the part, became that +perfect innocence. Not cold or reserved, but alive with faith, quivering, +too, with girlish mirth, yet innocent. And as with roots deep in rankest, +blackest ooze and mud, the lily sends up into the sunlit air its +stainless, white-petaled blossom, to float in golden-hearted beauty upon +the surface of the stream, so all sweet and open-hearted _Alixe_ floated +into view. + +And I was expected to act a part like that! I worried day and night over +it. Should I do this, should I do that? No--no! she was not +coy--detestable word. I recalled the best _Ophelia_ I had ever seen--a +German actress. Would she do for a model? Perhaps--no! she was mystic, +strange, aloof! + +Oh, dear! and then, by merest accident, my mind wandered away to the +past, and I said to myself, it should not be so hard. Every woman has +been innocent. I was innocent enough when my first sweetheart paused at +my side to say to me the foolish old words that never lose sweetness and +novelty. I recalled with what open pleasure I had listened, with what +honest satisfaction I accepted his attention. With a laugh I exclaimed: +"I didn't even have sense enough to hide my gratification and pride, or +to _pretend the least bit_." I stopped suddenly--light seemed to come +into my mind. Innocence is alike the world over, I thought; it only +differs in degree. I sprang to my feet! I cried joyously: "I have caught +the cue, I do believe--_I won't act at all!_ I'll just speak the lines +sincerely and simply and leave the effect to Providence." + +The scales loosened a trifle over Mr. Daly's eyes at the last rehearsal +but one. He was down in the orchestra speaking to the leader when I came +to the end of the act, and the words: "The mother whom I have insulted? +That young girl, then, is my sister--the sister whose happiness I have +stolen? whose future I have shattered? What--is--there--left--for--me to +live for?" + +Mr. Daly glanced up, and said, sharply: "What's that? 'er, Miss Morris, +what are you going to do there as the curtain falls? I--I haven't noticed +that speech before. Go back a bit, Mr. Fisher, Miss Morant, back to the +Count's entrance; let me hear that again." + +We went over the scene again: "H-e-m-m!" said Mr. Daly; "you've not +answered my question, Miss Morris. What do you do at the fall of the +curtain?" + +"Nothing, sir," I answered, "just stare dazedly at space, I +think--swaying a little perhaps." + +"I want you to fall!" he declared. + +"Oh!" I exclaimed, "please, don't you think that would be rather +melodramatic? If she could stand while receiving that awful shock about +her mother's shame she would hardly fall afterward, from mere horror of +her own thoughts?" + +"I know all that, but let me tell you there's always great effect in a +falling body. At any rate you can sink into a chair--and so get the +suggestion of collapse." + +"There is no chair," I answered, cheerfully. + +"Well," he replied, testily, "there can be one, I suppose. Here, boy, +bring a large chair and place it behind Miss Morris." + +"Mr. Daly," I argued, "if I fall heavily, as I must, for effect, the +chair will jump, and that will be funny--see." + +I fell--it did start backward, but Mr. Daly was equal to the emergency. +"Take off the castors and place the chair hard against the end of the +piano; now try!" + +I did; the chair was firm as a rock. It was settled; I did as I was told, +and fell at the end of the act ever after. And Mr. Daly came and patted +me on the back, and said, kindly: "Don't fret; I honestly believe there's +something in the little part after all. That speech made me feel creepy." + +But the scales on my own eyes were still firm and tight, and all I could +see in the play was the strength, power, and passion of the scenes +between the _Count_ and _Countess_, and the probable hit of Mr. Louis +James in his part of the _Duc de Mirandol_. The fate of this play rested +in other hands than mine, thank goodness, and I rejoiced in the freedom +from responsibility my small part gave me, and planned what I would do +when Miss Jewett took _Alixe_. + +The great night came. Another small auditorium awaited the coming of our +patrons. There was a smell of scarce dried paint in front of the curtain +and of scrubbing-soap behind it; but all was bright and fresh, and the +house was soon packed with a brilliant audience. As the play to be +produced had but a small cast, and as Mr. Daly was anxious that the +entire company should share in this house-warming, he had invited Mr. +John Brougham to write a sort of prologue, giving a few apt lines to +every member of the company, and then to proceed to the play. This was +done--but, alas! Mr. Brougham's work was utterly unworthy of him. There +was not one flash of his wonderful wit. He confined himself to comments +upon the fire, after this manner; I spoke, saying: + +"I can't remember half the things I lost, I fear----" + +_Mr. Lewis_ (breaking in). "One article you have not lost----" + +_C. M._ "What?" + +_Lewis._ "'L'Article 47,' my dear." + +Then Miss Jewett came forward to exclaim: + + "My lovely 'peau de soie,' + The sweetest thing in silk I ever saw!" + +It was only spoken one night. But the audience was so heartily kind to us +all that many of us had tears of sheer gratitude in our eyes. We were in +evening dress and were formed in a crescent-like line from box to box, as +the heavy red curtains parted revealing us, and Mr. Daly was very proud +of his family of manly-looking men and gracious women, and the audience +greeted the assembled company heartily. But that was nothing to the +welcome given as each favorite actor or actress stepped forward to +speak--and I was happy, happy, happy! when I found myself counted in as +one of them, with the welcome to the beautiful Davenport, Jewett, Dietz, +to the ever-favored Mrs. Gilbert, no longer, no heartier than my own! And +as I bowed low and gratefully, for just one moment I could not help +wishing that I had an important part to play, instead of the childish +thing awaiting me. + +The prologue being over, Mr. Daly, with a frowning, disappointed face, +told those of the play to make all possible haste in changing their +dresses, that they might get to work and rub out the bad impression +already made. + +Every important occasion seems to have its touch of the ridiculous, and +so had this one. The "bustle"--the big wire affair, extending to the +bottom of the skirt, had reached its hideous apogee of fashion at that +time, yet what possible relation could there be between that teetering +monstrosity and grace or sentiment or tragedy? Surely, I thought, this +girl-pupil, brought straight from convent-school to country-home, might +reasonably be bustleless--and I should look so much smaller--so much more +graceful! But--Mr. Daly? Never--never! would he consent to such a breach +of propriety! Fashion his soul loved! He pored over her plates! he bowed +to her mandates! + +My courage having failed me, when I hurried to my room I put on the +obnoxious structure; but one glimpse of that camel-like hump on the back +of _Alixe_, and the thought of the fall in the chair made me desperate. I +tore the mass of wire off, and decided to keep out of sight till the last +moment, and then make a rush for the stage. + +"Ready, Miss Morris?" + +"Ready!" I answered, as the question was asked from door to door. + +In a few moments the call-boy came back again: "Are you ready? Everyone +is out there but you." + +"Oh, yes!" I said, showing myself to him, but still not leaving the +shelter of my room; and I heard him saying: "Yes, sir, she's all ready, I +saw her." + +The curtain rose. Only a few lines were spoken before my entrance. I +dared wait no longer--heavens! no! for there was Mr. Daly coming for me. +I gathered up my skirts as bunchily as I could and ran out; but I could +not deceive Mr. Daly. In an instant he missed the necessary camel's hump. +"Good heaven and earth!" he shouted, "you've left your bustle!" + +I broke into a run. "Wait!" he cried, loudly. He dashed into my open +room, caught the big bustle up, and dragging it like a great cage behind +him, came plunging down the entrance to me, crying: "Wait--wait!" and +waving the other hand commandingly above his head. + +I heard my music; I sprang to the platform I had to enter from. "That's +me!" I cried. "Wait!" he ordered and reached out to catch me. I evaded +his grasp and skipped through the door, leaving but a fold of my skirt in +his hand. I was on the stage--and joy, oh, joy! I was without a bustle! + +Mr. Daly did not like being laughed at, but when he glanced down and saw +the thing he was dragging behind him, after the manner of a baby's tin +wagon, he had to laugh, and verily there were others who laughed with +him, while the scandalized dresser carried the rejected article back to a +decent seclusion. + +There is no manager, star, or agent alive whose experience will enable +him to foresee the fate of an untried play. A very curious thing is that +what is called an "actor's" play--one, that is, that actors praise and +enjoy in the rehearsing, is almost always a failure, while the managerial +judgment has been reversed so often by the public, that even the most +enthusiastic producer of new plays is apt "to hedge" a bit, with: "Unless +I deceive myself, this will prove to be the greatest play," etc.; while +the mistakes made by actors and managers both anent the value of certain +parts are illustrated sufficiently by E. H. Sothern, C. W. Couldock, +Joseph Jefferson--all three of whom made immense hits in parts they had +absolutely refused to accept, yielding only from necessity or +obligingness, and to their own astonishment finding fame in presenting +the unwelcome characters. And to the misjudged _Lord Dundreary_, _Asa +Trenchard_, etc., that night was added the name of _Alixe_. + +Refined, intensely modern, the play was nevertheless a dread tragedy, and +being French it almost naturally dealt with the breaking of a certain +great commandment. And now--see: we actors thought that the stress and +power of the play would be shown in the confession of the wife and in the +scene of wild recrimination between her and the _Comte de Somerive_, when +they met after eighteen years of separation. But see, how different was +the view the public took. In the very first place then, when I escaped +the bustle, and entered, straight, and slim, art had so reduced my usual +height and changed my coloring, that until I spoke I was not recognized. +The kindly welcome then given me calmed my fears, and I said to myself: +"I can't be looking ridiculous in the part, or they would not do that!" +And women, at least, can understand how my very soul was comforted by the +knowledge. And just then a curious sense of joy seemed to bubble up in my +heart. The sudden relief, the feeling of irresponsibility, the +first-night excitement. Perhaps one, perhaps all together caused it. I +don't know--I only know that meaning no disrespect, no irreverence, I +could have sung aloud from the Benedicite: "_Omnia opera Domini!_" "Bless +ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him forever!" + +And the audience accepted the joyous little maid almost from the first +girlish, love-betraying words she spoke, and yet--so sensitive is an +audience at times--while still laughing over her sweet ignorance, they +thrilled with a nameless dread of coming evil. They seemed to see the +blue sky darkening, the threatening clouds piling up silently behind the +white-robed child, whose perfect innocence left her so alone! Before the +first act ended we discovered that the tragedy was shifting from the +sinful mother and was settling down with crushing weight upon the +shoulders of the stainless child. Indeed, the whole play was like a +dramatization of the awful words: "The sins of the fathers shall be +visited upon the children!" + +As the play went on and the impetuous grief of the child changed into +proud self-restraint, while her agonizing jealousy of her adored mother +developed, Mr. Daly, with wide, bright eyes, exclaimed: "I must have been +blind--stone-blind! Why _Alixe_ is the bone and marrow, the heart and +soul of this play!" + +Certainly the audience seemed to share his belief, for it called and +called and called again for that misunderstood young person, in addition +to the hearty approval bestowed upon the other more prominent characters. +It was a very fine cast, Miss Fanny Morant making a stately and powerful +_Comtesse de Somerive_, while Mr. Louis James gave a performance of the +_Duc de Mirandol_ that I never saw even approached again. Every other +actor made of him either a fool or a brute, while James made of him a +delightful enigma--a sort of well-bred simpleton, rattle-brain, and +braggart, who at the last moment shows himself, beneath all disguise, a +brave and loyal gentleman. + +But the greatest triumph for _Alixe_ followed in that act--the last--in +which she does not speak at all. She had been able to bear loss, sorrow, +renunciation, but as in olden times poison-tests were kept, crystal cups +of such rare purity they shattered under contact with an evil liquid--so +her pure heart broke at contact with her mother's shame. Poor, loving, +little base-born! Pathetic little marplot! Seeing herself as only a +stumbling-block to others, she sought self-effacement beneath the gentle +waters of the lily-pond. And early in that last act, as her drowned body, +carried in the arms of the two men who had loved her, was laid before the +starting eyes of the guilty mother, and the loving, forgiving, pleading +letter of the suicide was read above her, actual sobs rose from the front +of the house. It _was_ a heart-breaking scene. + +But when the curtain fell, oh! what a very whirlwind broke loose in that +little theatre! The curtain shot up and down, up and down, and then, to +my amazement, Mr. Daly signaled for me to go before the curtain, and I +couldn't move. He stamped his foot and shouted: "Come over here and take +this call!" and I called back: "I can't! I am all pinned up, so I can't +walk!" + +For, that my skirts might not fall away from my ankles, when I was being +carried across the stage, I had stood upon a chair and had my garments +tightly wound about me and securely fastened, and unfortunately the pins +were behind--and I all trussed up, nice and tight and helpless. + +Mr. Daly came tearing over to me, and down he went upon his knee to try +to free me, but a muttered "D----n!" told me that he could not find the +pins, and the applause, oh, the precious applause that was being wasted +out there! Suddenly he rose--tossed that extraordinary hat of his off, +picked me up in his arms and carried me like a big property doll to the +curtain's side, signaled it up, and, with his arm about me, supported me +on to the stage. Oh, but I was proud to stand there with him, for in +those days he would not make the simplest speech; would not show himself +even. Why, at the banquet of his own giving, he hid behind a big floral +piece and made Mr. Oakey Hall speak for him. And yet he had been pleased +enough with my work to bring me there himself. I saw his hand upon my +shoulder, and suddenly I stooped my head and kissed it, in purest +gratitude. + +Afterward, when I had been unpinned, as we walked through the entrance +together, he said, with a gleeful laugh: "This is the third and greatest, +but we share it." + +"The third what?" I asked. + +"The third surprise," he answered. "First you surprised the town in 'Man +and Wife'; second, you surprised _me_ in 'L'Article 47'; now 'Alixe'--the +greatest of all--surprises you as well as me!" + +He stopped, stepped in front of me and asked: "What do you most wish +for?" + +I stared at him. He added, "About your home, say?" + +And swiftly I made answer: "A writing-desk; why?" + +He laughed a little and said: "Good-night, now. Oh, by the way, there's a +forfeit against you for not wearing your bustle to-night." + +But I was not greatly alarmed or excited--not half so much as I was next +day, about four o'clock, when some men drove up and insisted upon leaving +in my room a handsome inlaid desk that was taller than I was. At first I +protested, but a card, saying that it was "A souvenir of 'Alixe,' from +your manager and friend, A. Daly," changed my bearing to one of most +unseemly pride. + +In the next ten days I wrote I think to every soul I knew, and kept up my +diary with vicious exactitude, just for the pleasure of sitting before +the lovely desk, that to-day stands in my "den" in the attic. Its +mirror-door, is dim and cloudy, its sky-blue velvet writing-leaf faded to +a silvery gray, but even so it still remains "A souvenir of 'Alixe,' from +A. Daly." + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST + + Trouble about Obnoxious Lines in "Madeline Morel"--Mr. Daly's + Manipulation of Father X: In Spite of our Anxiety the Audience accepts + the Situation and the Play--Mr. Daly gives me the smallest Dog in New + York. + + +The last and fourth success that was granted to me under Mr. Daly's +management was in "Madeline Morel." Of course I played in many plays, +sometimes small, comparatively unimportant parts, sometimes, as in the +two-hundred-night run of "Divorce," I played a long, hard-working part, +that was without any marked characteristic or salient feature to make a +hit with. + +But I only mention "Madeline Morel" because of a couple of small +incidents connected with its production. First of all, let me say that I +believe Mr. Daly, who was an ardent Catholic, was not the first manager +to give benefits to the Orphan Asylums, for I think that had long been a +custom, but he was the first to arrange those monster programmes, which +included the names of every great attraction in the city--bar none. The +result was not merely an Academy of Music literally packed, but crowds +turned from its doors. I remember what excitement there was over the +gathering together in one performance of such people as Fechter, Sothern, +Adelaide Neilson, Aimee, and Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams. I first saw +the beautiful Mary Anderson at one of these benefits, as well as those +two clever English women, Rose Coghlan and Jeffreys Lewis. Later on, when +I was under Mr. Palmer's management, I had an experience at a benefit +that I am not likely to forget. I had consented to do the fourth act of +"Camille" (the ball-room scene), and when I swept through the crowd of +"guests," every word was wiped clean out of my memory, for as they faced +me I recognized in the supposed supers and extras all the various +stars--the leading ladies and gentlemen who had had a place on the +lengthy programme. Working hard, giving of their best, they had all +laughingly joined in this gracious whim of playing supernumeraries in +Dumas's ball-scene. And I remember that Mademoiselle Aimee was +particularly determined to be recognized as she walked and strolled up +and down. Once I whispered imploringly to her: "Turn your back, Madame!" +but she laboriously answered: "Non! I haiv' not of ze shame to be supe +for you, Mademoiselle!" It was a charming compliment, but more than a bit +overwhelming to its recipient. + +Well, Mr. Daly having originated, as I believe, these splendid and +lengthy benefit performances, was, as a result, able to place a goodly +sum of money at the service of the Asylum authorities, and naturally he +received warm thanks from his Church. + +Then, when "Madeline Morel" came along, with the great cathedral scene, +we all stood aghast at what I was called upon to say and do. Everyone was +on the stage, and nearly everyone whispered: "Sacrilege!" I stopped +stock-still, in sheer fright. Mr. Daly pulled nervously at the lapel of +his coat for a moment, and then said, sharply, "Go on!" I obeyed, but +right behind me someone said: "And he calls himself a Catholic!" + +It was a horrid bit, in an otherwise beautiful and impressive act. As a +"sister" who had served the "novitiate," I had just taken the life vows +and had been invested with the black veil. Then the wedding procession +and the Church procession, coming from opposite sides and crossing before +the altar, like a great "X," brought the bridegroom and the black nun +face to face, in dreadful recognition, and in the following scene I had +to drag from my head the veil and swathing white linen--had to tear from +my breast the cross, and, trampling it under foot, stretch my arms to +Heaven and, with upraised face, cry: "I call down upon my guilty soul +the thunders of a curse, that none may hear and live!" and then fall +headlong, as though my challenge had been accepted. + +Nothing was talked of day or night but that scene, and those of the +company who were Catholics were particularly excited, and they cried: +"Why, if we find it so repellant, what on earth will an audience think of +it?" + +Some prophesied hisses, some that the people would rise and leave the +theatre. That Mr. Daly was uneasy about its effect he did not attempt to +hide, and one day he said to me: "I think I'll call on Father X---- (his +confessor and friend) to-morrow evening, and get his--well--his opinion +on this matter." But, unfortunately, rumors had already reached churchly +ears, and the reverend gentleman came that same day to inquire of Mr. +Daly concerning them. I say "unfortunately," because Mr. Daly was a +masterful man and resented anything like interference. Had he been +permitted to introduce the matter himself, no doubt a few judicious +words from the priest would have induced him to tone down the +objectionable speech and action: but the visit to him rubbed him the +wrong way and aroused every particle of obstinacy in him. He described +the play, however, assured his old friend there were no religious +arguments, no homilies in it, but when he came to _the_ scene, the +Father shook his head: "No--no! my son!" said he, "I do not see how that +can be sanctioned." + +Mr. Daly reasoned, argued, almost pleaded; but though it evidently hurt +the good man to refuse, since he was greatly attached to his son in the +church, he still shook his head and at last declared it was a serious +matter, and he would have to bring it to the Bishop's attention. But that +was just what Mr. Daly did not want. "Can you not see, Father," he said, +"these lines are spoken in a frenzy? They come from the lips of a woman +mad with grief and trouble! They have not the value or the consequence of +words spoken by a sane person!" + +The priest shook his head. Suddenly Mr. Daly ceased his arguments and +persuasions. After a little silence, he said: "You cannot sanction this +scene, then, Father?" + +A positive shake of the head. Mr. Daly looked pensively out of the +window. + +"Too bad!" he sighed, "too bad!" + +The kind old man sighed too, companionably. + +"You see, if that scene is not done, the play cannot be done." + +"Dear, dear!" murmured the priest. + +"And if the play is not done, having nothing else at hand, I shall have +to close the season with the old play, and naturally that will mean bad +business." + +"Too bad, too bad!" muttered the voice, comfortably. + +"And if the season ends badly, why, of course, there can be no charity +benefit." + +"What?" sharply exclaimed the erstwhile calm voice. "No benefit for our +poor? Why--why--'er--I--dear me! and the Asylum needs help so +badly!--'er--a 'frenzy' you said, my son? Spoken in +madness?--'er--I--well--I will give the matter serious thought, and I'll +acquaint you with my conclusion," and evidently much disturbed he +retired. + +And when Mr. Daly told me this, he added, with a twinkle in his eye: "He +will get the benefit, surely enough." And when he saw my bewilderment, he +added: "Don't you see? I had my doubts about the Bishop, but dear old +Father X---- will be so anxious about his orphans that he will make +things right for me with him, for their sakes." A view of the matter that +proved to be correct. Verily a clever man was our manager. + +Day after day we rehearsed, and day after day I hoped that the dreadful +bit of business might be toned down. At last my nerves gave way +completely, and after a particularly trying rehearsal I rushed to the +managerial office, and, bursting into tears, begged hard to be excused +from trampling the cross under foot. + +"Surely," I sobbed, "it's bad enough to have to tear off the +veil--and--and--I'm afraid something will happen!" + +"And," said Mr. Daly, "to tell you the truth, I'm afraid, too!" + +He gave me a glass of water, and waiting a moment for me to conquer my +tears, he went on: "I'm glad you have come in, I was just about sending +for you." + +"Oh!" I interrupted, "you are going to cut something out?" But he +answered, gravely: "No! I shall cut nothing out! But look here, you are a +brave girl, and forewarned is forearmed, you know, so I am going to speak +quite plainly. I don't know how the public may receive that bit of +business; perhaps with dead silence; perhaps with hisses." + +I sprang to my feet. "Sit down!" he said, "and listen. You shall not be +held responsible, in the slightest degree, for the scene, I promise you +that. If anything disagreeable happens it shall be fairly stated that you +played under protest. It is, of course, possible that the scene may go +along all right, but I want to warn you that you may prepare yourself for +the storm, should it come. I don't want you to be taken unawares and have +you faint or lose your nerve. So, now whenever you go over your part and +reach that point, say to yourself: 'Here they hiss!' Don't look so pale. +I'm sorry you have to bear the brunt alone, but you will be brave, won't +you?" + +And I rose, and after my usual habit, tried to jest, as I answered: +"Since you alone gave me my opportunity of being _applauded_ in New York, +I suppose it's only fair that I should accept this opportunity of being +_hissed_." + +Excited and miserable I went home. Faithfully I followed Mr. Daly's +suggestion. But no matter how often I went over the scene, whenever I +said: "Here they hiss," my face went white, my hands turned cold as +stone. 'Twas fortunate the first performance was near, for I could not +have borne the strain long. As it was, I seemed to wear my nerves on the +outside of my clothes until the dreaded night was over. + +The play had gone finely; most of the people were well cast. Miss Morant, +Miss Davenport, Miss Jewett, Miss Varian especially so; while Fisher, +Lewis, Lemoyne, Crisp, Clark, and James did their best to make a success +and close in glory the season that had been broken in half by the burning +of the home theatre. The end of the third act had been mine. The +passionate speech of renunciation and farewell had won the favor of the +house, and call after call followed. As I had played the scene alone, I +should have been proud and happy--should have counted the calls with a +miser's gloating satisfaction. But instead my blood was already chilling +with dread of the coming act. + +"Good Lord, child!" said Mr. Daly, "your face is as long as my arm! Don't +anticipate evil--take the good the gods send you. You are making a hit +and you're losing all the pleasure of it. I'm ashamed of you!" + +But he wrung my fingers hard, even as he spoke, and I knew that his words +were, what the boys call a "bluff." + +Then the curtain was rising. The cathedral scene won a round of applause, +and kneeling at the altar, as children say, "I scringed" at the sound. +Then after a little I was coming down the stage and the audience, +recognizing _Madeline_ in the nun, applauded long and heartily, and I +fairly groaned aloud. After that the act proceeded really with stately +dignity, but to my terrified eyes it seemed indecent haste; and as I fell +into line with the Church procession of sisters, of novices, of priests +and acolytes, I felt myself a morsel in a kaleidoscopic picture of bright +colors, the churchly purple and its red and white, the brilliant gowns of +the women of fashion, the golden organ-pipes, the candles burning +star-like upon the altar, the massed flowers, and over all, giving a +touch of floating unreality to everything, the clouds of incense. + +Then suddenly, out of the bluish haze, there gleamed the white, set face, +for love of which I was to sacrifice my very soul! The scene was on, +swift, passionate, and furious, and almost before I could realize it, the +dreadful words had been spoken--and with my foot upon the cross, I stood +in a silence the like of which I had never known before! I had not +fallen--stricken absolutely motionless with terror I stood--waiting. + +In that crowded building even breathing seemed suspended. There reigned a +silence, like to death itself! It was awful! Then without changing my +attitude by the movement of a finger, I pitched forward, falling heavily +at the feet of the dismayed lover and the indignant priest. And suddenly, +sharply as by a volley of musketry, the silence was broken by applause. +Yes, actually by applause, and beneath its noise I heard a voice behind +me gasp: "Well, I'll be blest!" + +When all was ended, and after the final courtesies had been extended and +gratefully accepted, there was an outburst of excited comment, and more +than one experienced actor declared that never again would they even try +to anticipate the conduct of an audience. Old Mr. Fisher told Mr. Daly +he had felt the rising hiss and he was positive it was regard for the +woman that had restrained its expression. + +Mr. Daly patted the old gentleman on the shoulder and answered: +"Perhaps--perhaps! but if for her sake the public has swallowed that +scene one night, the public have got to go on swallowing it every +night--and that's the important point for us." + +Very shamefacedly I apologized for not falling at the proper time, and as +I hurriedly promised to do so the next night, to my surprise Mr. Daly +stopped me with a quick: "No! no! change nothing! I was in front, and +that pause, staring straight up into heaven, was tremendously effective. +It was as if God offered you a moment to repent in--then struck you down! +Change nothing, and to-morrow you shall have your heart's desire." + +I gazed at him in amazement. He laughed a bit maliciously and said: "Old +heat-registers and things carry voices. I hear many things. I have heard, +for instance, about a man named Dovey and a wonderful toy terrier that +weighs by ounces. I wouldn't open my eyes any wider, if I were you; they +might stay that way. Well, will you show me the way to Dovey's by eleven +to-morrow?" + +"But," I faltered, "I'm afraid of the price----" + +"That's my affair," he answered curtly, then added, more kindly, +"Good-night! you have behaved well, Miss Morris, and if I can give you a +pleasure--I shall be glad." + +And next day I owned the tiniest dog in New York, who slept in a +collar-box, by my pillow, that I might not hurt it in the night. Whose +bark was like a cambric needle, and who, within five minutes after her +arrival, challenged to deadly combat my beloved Bertie, who weighed good +four pounds. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND + + I am Engaged to Star part of the Season--Mr. Daly Breaks his + Contract--I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction--I meet Mr. Palmer + and make Contract and appear at the Union Square in the "Wicked World." + + +The third season in New York was drawing to its close, and by most +desperate struggling I had managed just to keep my head above water--that +was all. I not only failed to get ahead by so much as a single dollar, +but I had never had really enough of anything. We were skimped on +clothes, skimped on food, indeed we were skimped on everything, except +work and hope deferred. When, lo! a starring tour was proposed to me. +After my first fright was over I saw a possibility of earning in that way +something more than my mere board, though, truth to tell, I was not +enraptured with the prospect of joining that ever-moving caravan of +homeless wanderers, who barter home, happiness, and digestive apparatus +for their percentage of the gross, and the doubtful privilege of having +their own three-sheet posters stare them out of countenance in every town +they visit. Yet without the brazen poster and an occasional lithograph +hung upside down in the window of a German beer saloon, one would lack +the proof of stardom. + +No, I had watched stars too long and too closely to believe theirs was a +very joyous existence; besides, I felt I had much to learn yet, and that +New York was the place to learn it in; so, true to my promise, off I went +and laid the matter before Mr. Daly--and he _did_ take on, but for such +an odd reason. For though he paid me the valued compliment of saying he +could not afford to lose me, his greatest anger was aroused by what he +called the "demoralization" my act would bring into his company. + +"You put that bee in their bonnets and its buzzing will drown all +commands, threats, or reasons. Every mother's son and daughter of them +will demand the right to star! Why, confound it! Jimmie Lewis, who has +had one try at it, is twisting and writhing to get at it again--even now; +and as for Miss Davenport, she will simply raise the dead over her effort +to break out starring, and Ethel--oh, well, she's free now to do as she +likes. But you star one week and you'll see how quick she will take the +cue, while Miss--oh, it's damnable! You can't do it! it will set everyone +on end!" + +"If you will give me a salary equal to that of other people, who do much +less work than I do, I will stay with you," I said. + +But he wanted me to keep to the small salary and let him "make it up to +me," meaning by that, his paying for the stage costumes and occasional +gifts, etc. But that was not only unbusiness-like and +unsatisfactory--though he undoubtedly would have been generous +enough--but it was a bit humiliating, since it made me dependent on his +whims and, worst of all, it opened the door to possible scandal, and I +had but one tongue to deny with, while scandal had a thousand tongues to +accuse with. + +It was a queer whim, but he insisted that he could not give me the really +modest salary I would remain for, though, in his own words, I should have +"three times its value." Finally we agreed that I should give him three +months of the season every year as long as he might want my services, and +the rest of the season I should be free to make as much money as I could, +starring. He told me to go ahead and make engagements at once to produce +"L'Article 47" or "Alixe"--I to pay him a heavy nightly royalty for each +play, and when my engagements were completed to bring him the list, that +he might not produce "Alixe" with his company before me in any city that +I was to visit. I did as he had requested me. I was bound in every +contract to be the first to present "L'Article 47" or "Alixe" in that +city. I was then to open in Philadelphia. I had been announced as a +coming attraction, when I received startling telegrams and threats from +the local manager that "Mr. Daly's Fifth Avenue Company" was announced to +appear the week before me in "Alixe," in an opposition house. Thus Mr. +Daly had most cruelly broken faith with me. I went to him at once. I +reproached him. I said: "These people will sue me!" + +"Bah!" he sneered, "they can't take what you have not got!" + +"But," I cried, "they will throw over my engagement!" + +His face lit up with undisguised pleasure. He thrust his hand into the +open desk-drawer. "Ah," he smiled, "I have a part here that might have +been written for you. It is great--honestly great, and with this starring +business disposed of, we can get at it early!" + +I rose. I said: "Mr. Daly, you have done an unworthy thing, you have +broken faith with me. If you produce 'Alixe' next week, I will never play +for you again!" + +"You will have to!" he threatened. "I have broken the verbal part of our +contract, but you cannot prove it, nor can you break the written part of +the contract!" + +I repeated: "I shall play for you no more!" + +And he hotly answered: "Well, don't you try playing for anyone else. I +give you fair warning--I'll enjoin you if you do! The law is on my side, +remember." + +"My dear sir," I said, "the law was not specially created for you to have +fun with, and it has an odd way of protecting women at times. I shall at +all events appeal to it to-morrow morning." + +Next morning my salary was sent to me. I took from it what was due me for +two nights' work I had done early in the week, and returned the rest, +saying: "As I am not a member of the company, no salary need be sent me." +And eleven o'clock found me in the office of ex-Judge William Fullerton. + +He declared that my mind showed a strong legal bent, and he congratulated +me upon my refusal of the proffered salary. "If," said he, "you receive a +desirable offer in the way of an engagement, take it at once and without +fear. Mr. Daly will threaten you, of course, but I can't believe his +lawyers will permit him to take this matter into court. In attacking you +he will attack every young, self-supporting woman in New York, in your +person. The New York man will sympathize with you. Public opinion is a +great power, and no manager wishes to see it arrayed against him." + +And thus it happened that I was not legally quite off with the old +manager when I was on with the new--in the person of Mr. A. M. Palmer, my +sometime manager and still my honored friend. Our relations were always +kindly, yet to this hour I squirm mentally when I recall our first +meeting. I was taking some chocolate at a woman's restaurant on Broadway, +and a common friend brought the "Union Square" manager in and introduced +him, simply as a friend, for whatever my secret hope, there had been no +open word spoken about business in connection with this interview. But, +given a meeting between an idle actress and an active manager, a +Barkis-like willingness to talk business is sure to develop. + +Looking up and seeing Mr. Harriott advancing toward my table with a +strange gentleman in tow, I gave a nervous swallow and fixed my attention +upon the latter. His rigid propriety of expression, the immaculately +spotless and creaseless condition of his garments made me expect each +moment to hear the church-bells clang out an invitation to morning +service. Being presented, he greeted me with a gentle coldness of +manner--if I may use the expression--that sent my heart down like lead. +Now extreme nervousness on my part nearly always expresses itself in +rapid, almost reckless speech, and directly I was off at a tangent, +successfully sharing with them the fun of various absurdities going on +about us; until, in an evil moment, my eye fell upon the smug face of a +young rural beau, whose terrified delight in believing himself a very +devil of a fellow was so ludicrously evident, that one wept for the +presence of a Dickens to embalm him in the amber of his wit. + +"Oh!" I said, egged on by one of those imps who hover at the elbow of +just such women as I am, "can't you see he is a minister's son? He has +had more religion given to him than he can digest. He's taking a sniff of +freedom. He has kicked over the traces and he has not quite decided yet +whether he'll go to the demnition bow-wows entirely, or be moderately +respectable. He's a minister's son fast enough, but he doesn't know yet +whether he will manage a theatre in New York or run away with the +Sunday-school funds; and that red-haired young person oppo--opposite----" +And I trailed off stupidly, for judging by the ghastly silence that had +fallen upon my hearers and the stricken look upon Mr. Harriott's face, I +knew I had set my foot deep in some conversational morass. I turned a +frightened glance upon Mr. Palmer's face, and I have always been glad +that I was in time to catch the twinkling laughter in his cool, hazel +eyes. Then he leaned toward me and gently remarked: "I am the son of a +minister, Miss Morris, and the manager of a theatre, but upon my word the +Sunday-school funds never suffered at my hands." + +"Oh!" I groaned. And I must have looked just as a pet dog does when it +creeps guiltily to its mistress's foot and waits to be smacked. I +_really_ must, because he suddenly broke into such hearty laughter. Then +presently he made a business proposition that pleased me greatly, but I +felt I must tell him that Mr. Daly promised to get out an injunction to +prevent my appearance anywhere, and he would probably not care to risk +any trouble. And then there came a little squeeze to Mr. Palmer's lips +and a little glint in his eye, as he remarked: "You accept my offer and +I'll know how to meet the injunction." + +And I can't help it--being born on St. Patrick's Day and all that--if +people _will_ step on the tail of one's coat, why of course they must +expect "ructions." And to tell the honest truth, Mr. Palmer's perfect +willingness to fight that injunction filled me with unholy glee; which +combined beautifully with gratitude for his quick forgiveness of my _faux +pas_--and I signed a contract with Mr. Sheridan Shook and Mr. A. M. +Palmer and was announced to appear in "The Wicked World" at the Union +Square Theatre, and I was pursued day and night by slim young men with +black curly hair, who tried to push folded papers into my unwilling +hands; while life behind the scenes grew more and more strenuous, as +scene-shifters, property-men, and head carpenters, armed with braces and +screw-eyes, charged any unknown male creature that looked as if he could +define the word injunction. + +The night came, and with it an equinoctial gale of perfect fury. Whether +the people were blown in by the storm or fought their way in by +intention, I can't decide. I only know they were there and in numbers +sufficient to crowd the bright and ruddy auditorium. They were a trifle +damp about the ankles and disordered about the hair, but their hands were +in prime working order, their hearts were warm, their perceptions +quick--what more could the most terrified actress pray for in an +audience? + +The play was one of Gilbert's deliciously poetic satires--well cast, +beautifully produced, after the manner of Union Square productions +generally, and Success shook the rain off her wings and perched upon our +banners, and we were all filled with pride and joy, in spite of the young +men with folded white papers who swirled wildly up and down Fourth Avenue +in the storm, and of those other young men who came early and strove +diligently to get seats within reaching distance of the foot-lights, only +to find that by some strange accident both those rows of chairs were +fully occupied when the doors were first throw open. Yes, in spite of all +those disappointed young men, we had a success, and I was not enjoined. +Yet there were two rather long managerial faces there that night. For +unless my out-of-town managers threw me overboard, because of the +trouble about "Alixe," I could remain in this charming play of "The +Wicked World" but two short weeks. And no manager can be expected to +rejoice over the forced withdrawal of a success. + +And right there Mr. Palmer saw fit to do a very gracious thing. After the +first outburst of anger and disappointment from Mr. Thomas Hall (my +Philadelphia manager), instead of breaking his engagement with me, as he +had every right to do, he stood by his contract to star me and at the +same terms, if I could provide a play--any play to fill the time with. I +had nothing of course but the Daly plays, so my thanks and utter +abandonment of the engagement were neatly packed within the regulation +ten telegraphic words, when Mr. Palmer offered me the use of his play, +"The Geneva Cross," written by George Fawcett Rowe. In an instant my +first telegram changed into a joyous acceptance. I was studying my part +at night, my mother was ripping, picking out and pressing at skirts and +things by day. Congratulating myself upon my good fortune in having once +seen the play in New York, I went to Philadelphia, and after just one +rehearsal of this strange play, I opened my starring engagement. Can I +ever forget the thrill I felt when I received my first thousand dollars? +I counted it by twenties, then by tens, but I got the most satisfaction +out of counting it by fives--it seemed so much more that way. I was +spending it with the aid of a sheet of foolscap paper and a long pencil +until after two o'clock in the morning. My mother to this day declares +that that was the very best black silk dress she has ever owned--that one +out of that first thousand she means, and on the wall here beside me +hangs a fine and rare engraving of the late Queen Victoria in her +coronation robes that I gave myself as a memento of that first wonderful +thousand. That, when the other managers saw that Mr. Hall kept faith with +me, and had apparently not lost by his action, they followed suit and all +my engagements were filled--thanks to Mr. Palmer's kindness and Mr. +Hall's pluck as well as generosity. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD + + We Give a Charity Performance of "Camille," and Are Struck with + Amazement at our Success--Mr. Palmer Takes the Cue and Produces + "Camille" for Me at the Union Square. + + +Then came the great "charity benefit," and "Camille"--that "Ninon de l' +Enclos" of the drama, who, in spite of her years, can still count lovers +at her feet. + +It is amazing how much accident has to do with the career of actors. + +Shakespeare says: + + "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them how we will." + +And heaven knows I "rough-hewed" the "Camille" proposition to the best of +my power. I came hurrying back to New York, specially to act at the +mighty benefit, given for the starving poor of the city. Every theatre +was to give a performance on the same day, and a ticket purchased was +good at any one of them. I had selected "Love's Sacrifice," an old +legitimate play, for that occasion and Mr. Palmer had cast it, when an +actress suddenly presented herself at his office declaring she had made +that play _her_ property, by her own exceptional work in it in former +years, at another theatre. Threatening hysterics often prove valuable +weapons in a manager's office, where, strangely enough, "a scene" is +hated above all things. + +I was informed of this lady's claim to a play that was anybody's +property, and at once withdrew in the interest of peace. But what then +was to be done for the benefit? Every play proposed had some drawback. +Mr. Palmer suggested "Camille," and all my objections crowding to my lips +at once, I fairly stammered and spluttered over the expression of them: I +hated! hated! hated! the play! The people who had preceded me in it were +too great! I should be the merest pigmy beside them. I did not think +_Camille_ as vulgar and coarse as one great woman had made her--nor so +chill and nun-like as another had conceived her to be. And the critics +would fall upon me and joyously tear me limb from limb. They would justly +cry "Presumption," and--and--I had no clothes! no, not one stitch had I +to wear (of course you will make the usual allowance for an excited woman +and not take that literally!) and then, oh, dear! I'm dreadfully ashamed +of myself, but to tell the exact truth, I wept--for the first and only +time in my life--I wept from anger! + +We all fumed--we, meaning Mr. Palmer, Mr. Cazauran, that ferret-faced, +mysterious little man, whose clever brain and dramatic instincts made him +so valuable about a theatre; and the big, silently observant Mr. Shook, +and I. Cazauran said he knew all the business of the play and could tell +me it, and began with certain things Miss Heron (the greatest _Camille_ +America had had) had done, and I indignantly declared I would leave a +theatre before I would do as much. I argued it was unnecessary. _Camille_ +was not brutal--she had associated with gentlemen, members of the +nobility, men who were acquainted with court circles. She would have +learned refinement of manners from them. Such brutalities would have +shocked and driven away the boyish, clean-hearted _Armand_. Her very +disease made her exquisitely sensitive to music, to beauty, to sentiment. +If she repelled, it was with cynicism, sarcasm, her evident knowledge of +the world. She allured men by the very refinement of her vice. And as I +paused to take breath, Mr. Shook's bass voice was heard for the first +time, as he asked, conclusively: "Whom can we get for _Armand_ on such +short notice?" + +I turned piteously to Mr. Palmer: "The critics"--I gasped and stopped. He +smiled reassuringly and said: "Don't be frightened, Miss Morris, they +will never attack a piece of work offered in charity. Just do your best +and remember it's only for once." + +"Dear Lord! only for once!" and with wet cheeks I made my way home, with +a copy of the detested play in my hand. Late that evening I was notified +that Mr. Mayo would play _Armand_. + +I had not one dress suited for the part. I knew I should look like a +school-mistress in one act and a stage _ingenue_ in another. I had a +ball-room gown, but it was not a suitable color. I should only be correct +when I got into my night-dress and loose wrapper in the last act. Actress +fashion, I got my gowns together first, and then sat down with my string +of amber beads to study--I never learn anything so quickly as when I have +something to occupy my fingers, and my string of amber beads has assisted +me over many and many an hour of mental labor--a pleasanter custom than +that of walking and studying aloud, I think, and surely more agreeable to +one's near neighbors. + +The rehearsing of that play was simply purgatorial. We went over two acts +on one stage one day and over three acts on another stage the next day, +and we shrieked our lines out against the tumult of creaking winches, of +hammering and sawing, of running and ordering--for every stage was filled +at the rear with rushing carpenters and painters. Yet those were the only +rehearsals that unfortunate play received for the benefit performance, +and, as a result, we were all abroad in the first act, in particular, and +I remember I spent a good part of my time in trying to induce the +handsome young English woman who did _Olympe_ to keep out of my chair and +to go to and from the piano at the right moment. + +The house was packed to the danger-point, the play being given at what +was then called "The Lyceum," which Charles Fechter had just been having +remodeled, and the police discovering that day that the floor of the +balcony was settling at the right, under the too great weight, very +cleverly ordered the ushers to whisper a seeming message in the ear of a +person here, there, and yonder, who would nod, rise, and step quietly +out, returning a moment later to smilingly motion their party out with +them, and thus the weight was lightened without a panic being caused, +though it made one feel rather sick and faint afterward to note the depth +to which the floor had sagged under the feet of that tightly packed +audience. + +James Lewis used to say to me: "Clara is the biggest fraud of a +first-nighter the profession can show. There she'll stand shivering and +shaking, white-sick with fright, waiting for her cue, and when she gets +it, she skips on and waltzes through her scene as if she'd been at it for +a year at least. No wonder Mr. Daly calls her his best first-nighter." + +So at that first performance of "Camille," as Frank Mayo touched my icy +hand and burning brow, and saw the trembling of my limbs, as with +fever-dried lips I waited for the curtain's rise, he said: "God! but you +suffer! I reckon you'll not act much to-day, little woman!" And a few +minutes later, as I laughed and chatted gayly through the opening lines +of the play, I distinctly heard Frank say: "Well, of all the sells! Why +confound her, I'm twice as nervous as she is!" + +The first act went with a sort of dash and go that was the result of pure +recklessness. The house was delighted. The curtain had to go up twice. We +all looked at one another, and then laughingly laid it to the crowd. The +second act went with such a rush and sweep of hot passion between +_Armand_ and _Camille_ that when _De Varville's_ torn letter was cast to +_Nanine_ as _Camille's_ answer, and the lovers leaped to each others' +arms, the house simply roared, and as the curtain went up and down, up +and down, Mayo gasped in amazement: "Well, I'm damned!" But I made +answer: "No, you're not--but you _will_ be if you hammer my poor spine in +another act as you have in this. Go easy, Frank; I can't stand it!" + +The third act went beautifully. Many women sobbed at times. I made my +exit some little time before the end of the act, and of course went +directly to my room, which was beneath the stage, and there began to +dress for the ball-room scene, and lo! after _Armand_ had had two or +three calls for his last speech, something set them on to call for +_Camille_. And they kept at it, too, till at last a mermaid-like +creature--not exactly half fish and half woman, but half ball-gown train +and half dinky little dressing-sack--came bobbing to the curtain side, +delighting the audience by obeying it, but knocking spots out of the +illusion of the play. + +In the fourth act Mr. Mayo played base-ball with me. He batted me and +hurled me and sometimes I had a wild fear that he would kick me. Finally, +he struck my head so hard that a large gold hairpin was driven through my +scalp and I found a few moments' rest in truly fainting from fatigue, +fright, and pain. + +But it all went. Great heaven! how it went! For Mayo was a great actor, +and it was but intense excitement that made him so rough with me. +Honestly we were so taken aback behind the scenes that none of us knew +what to make of the frantic demonstrations--whether it was just the +result of an extreme good nature in a great crowd, or whether we were +giving an extremely good performance. + +The last act I can never forget. I had cut out two or three pages from +the dialogue in the book. I felt there was too much of it. That if +_Camille_ did not die, her audience would, and had built up a little +scene for myself. Never would I have dared do such a thing had it been +for more than one performance. That scene took in the crossing of the +room to the window, the looking-glass scene, and the return to the bed. + +Dear heaven! it's good to be alive sometimes! to feel your fingers upon +human hearts, to know a little pressure hurts, that a little tighter +pressure will set tears flowing. It was good, too, when that madly-rushed +performance was at last over, to lie back comfortably dead, and hear the +sweet music that is made by small gloved hands, violently spatted +together. "Yes, it was 'werry' good." + +And Mr. Palmer, standing in his box, looking at the pleased, moist-eyed +people in front, took up the cue they offered, so promptly that within +twenty-four hours I had been engaged to play _Camille_ at the Union +Square, as one of a cast to be ever proud of, in a handsome production +with sufficient rehearsals and correct gowns and plenty of extra ladies +and gentlemen to "enter all!" at the fourth act. And more still, the new +play that was then in preparation was called in and packed away with +mothballs to wait until the old play had had its innings. + +Such a cast! Just look at it! + + _M. Armand Duval_ MR. CHARLES R. THORNE + _Comte de Varville_ MR. MCKEE RANKIN + _M. Duval (Pere)_ MR. JOHN PARSELLE + _M. Gustave_ MR. CLAUDE BURROUGHS + _M. Gaston_ MR. STUART ROBSON + _Mademoiselle Olympe_ MISS MAUDE GRANGER + _Mademoiselle Nichette_ MISS KATE CLAXTON + _Mademoiselle Nanine_ MISS KATE HOLLAND + _Madame Prudence_ MISS EMILY MESTAYER + +If Mr. Palmer ever eats opium or hashish and has beauteous visions, I am +sure he will see himself making out those splendid old casts again. + +Every theatre-goer knows it's difficult for a stout, romantic actor to +make his love reach convincingly all the way round, and it is almost as +difficult for an actor who has attained six feet of height to make his +love include his entire length of anatomy. But Charles R. Thorne was the +most satisfactory over-tall lover I ever saw. He really seemed entirely +possessed by the passion of love. "My God Thorne" he was nicknamed +because of his persistent use of that exclamation. Of course it did +often occur in plays by authority of their authors, but whenever Thorne +was nervous, confused, or "rattled," as actors term it, or uncertain of +the next line, he would pass his hand across his brow and exclaim, in +suppressed tones: "My God!" and delicious creepy chills would go up and +down the feminine spine out in the auditorium--the male spine is not so +sensitive, you know. A fine actor, hot-tempered, quick to take offence, +equally quick to repent his too hasty words; as full of mischief as a +monkey, he was greatly beloved by those near to him. I worked with him in +perfect amity, albeit I do not think he ever called me anything but +_Johnny_, the name Lou James bestowed upon me at Daly's; and his death +found me shocked and incredulous as well as grieved. He should have +served his admiring public many a year longer, this most admirable +_Armand_. + +And Mr. Parselle, what a delight his stage presence was. He had unction, +jollity, tenderness, dignity, but above all a most polished courtesy. It +was worth two dollars to see John Parselle in court dress, and his +entrance and salutation as _Duval Pere_ in the cottage scene of "Camille" +was an unfailing gratification to me--he was a dramatic gem of great +value. + +Mr. Stuart Robson, by expressing a genuine tenderness of sympathy for the +dying woman in the last act, amazed and delighted everyone. It had not +been suspected that a trained comedian, who hopped about and lisped and +squeaked through the other acts, could lay aside those eccentricities and +show real gentleness and sincerity in the last--a very memorable _Gaston_ +was Mr. Stuart Robson. + +But oh, how many of these names are cut in marble now! Poor Claude +Burroughs! with his big eyes, his water curls, and his tight-waisted +coats. We would not have poked so much fun at him, had we known how +terrible was the fate approaching him. + +And little Katie Holland--she of the knee-reaching auburn locks, the +gentlest of living creatures--God in His wisdom, which finite man may not +understand, has taken and held safe, lo! these many years. + +As an ex-votary of pleasure, _Prudence_ is always more convincing if she +can show some remnant of past beauty; so the statuesque regularity of +feature the Mestayer family was famous for, told here, and the _Prudence_ +of Miss Emily Mestayer was as handsome and heartless a harpy as one ever +saw. + +Then, too, there were the gorgeous Maude Granger, the ruddy-haired +Claxton, and the piratically handsome Rankin; their best opportunities +were yet to come to all three. And with that cast Mr. Palmer achieved a +great success, with the play that, old then, shows to this day the most +astounding vitality. + +The only drawback was to be found in its impropriety as an entertainment +for the ubiquitous "young person," in the immorality of _Camille's_ life, +which was much dwelt upon. Now--oh, the pity of it!--now _Camille_ is, by +comparison with modern plays, absolutely staid. It is the adulteries of +wives and husbands that the "young person" looks unwinkingly upon to-day. +Worse still--the breaking of the Seventh Commandment no longer leads to +tragic punishment, as of yore, but the thunders that rolled about Mount +Sinai at the promulgation of that awful warning: "Thou shalt not commit +adultery!" are answered now by the thunders of laughter that greet the +taking in adultery of false wives and husbands in milliners' many-doored +rooms, or restaurants' _cabinet particulier_. Alas, that the time should +come that this passion for the illicit should so dominate the stage! + +One more delightful production at the Union Square Theatre I shared in, +and then my regular company days were over. + + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH + + "Miss Multon" Put in Rehearsal--Our Squabble over the Manner of her + Death--Great Success of the Play--Mr. Palmer's Pride in it--My _Au + Revoir_. + + +The other day, in recalling to Mr. Palmer a long list of such successful +productions of his as "Led Astray," "The Two Orphans," "Camille," "Miss +Multon," "The Danicheffs," "The Celebrated Case," etc., he surprised me +by emphatically declaring that the performance of "Miss Multon" came +nearer to absolute perfection than had any other play he had ever +produced; and to convince me of that, he simply brought forward the cast +of the play to help prove the truth of his assertion. As we went over the +characters one by one, I was compelled to admit that from the leading +part to the smallest servant, I had never seen one of them quite equaled +since. Mr. Palmer's pride in this production seemed the more odd at +first, because of its slight demands upon the scenic-artist, the +carpenter, and upholsterer. It needs just two interior scenes--a busy +doctor's study in London and a morning-room in a French +country-house--that's all. "But," he will enthusiastically cry, "think of +that performance, recall those people," and so, presently, I will obey +him and recall them every one. + +The play had twice failed in Paris, which was, to say the least, +discouraging. When it was read to me I thought the tremendous passion of +maternity ought to touch the public heart--others there were, who said +no, that sexual love alone could interest the public. Mr. Palmer thought +the French play had needed a little brightening; then, too, he declared +the people wanted to see the actual end of the heroine (one of Mr. Daly's +fixed beliefs, by the way), therefore he had Mr. Cazauran write two +additional short acts--a first, to introduce some brightness in the +children's Christmas-tree party and some amusement in the old bachelor +doctor and his old maid sister; and a last for the death of _Miss +Multon_. + +After brief reflection I concluded I would risk it, and then, just by way +of encouragement, Mr. Cazauran, who had always been at pains to speak as +kindly of my work as that work would allow, when he was critic on the +different papers, declared that all my acquired skill and natural power +of expressing emotion united would prove useless to me--that _Miss +Multon_ was to be my Waterloo, and to all anxious or surprised "whys?" +sapiently made answer: "No children." His argument was, that not being a +mother in reality, I could not be one in imagination. + +Always lacking in self-confidence, those words made my heart sink +physically, it seemed to me, as well as figuratively; but the ever-ready +jest came bravely to the fore to hide my hurt from the public eye, and at +next rehearsal I shook my head mournfully and remarked to the little man: +"Bad--bad! Miss Cushman must be a very bad _Lady Macbeth_--I don't want +to see her!" + +"What?" he exclaimed, "Cushman not play _Lady Macbeth_--for heaven's +sake, why not?" + +"No murderess!" I declared, with an air of authority recognized by those +about me as a fair copy of his own. "If Miss Cushman is not a murderess, +pray how can she act _Lady Macbeth_--who is?" And the laugh that followed +helped a little to scare away the bugaboo his words had raised in my +mind. + +Then, ridiculous as it may seem to an outsider, the question of dress +proved to be a snag, and there was any amount of backing and filling +before we could get safely round it. + +"What are you going to wear, Miss Morris?" asked Mr. Cazauran one day +after rehearsal--and soon we were at it, and the air was thick with +black, brown, gray, purple, red, and blue! I starting out with a gray +traveling-dress, for a reason, and Mr. Cazauran instantly and without +reason condemned it. He thought a rich purple would be about the thing. +Mr. Palmer gave a small contemptuous "Humph"! and I cried out, aghast: +"Purple? the color of royalty, of pomp, of power? A governess in a rich +purple? Your head would twist clear round, hind side to, with amazement, +if you saw a woman crossing from Calais to Dover attired in a royal +purple traveling-suit." + +Mr. Palmer said: "Nonsense, Cazauran; purple is not appropriate;" and +then, "How would blue--dark blue or brown do?" he asked. + +"For just a traveling-dress either one would answer perfectly," I +answered; "but think of the character I am trying to build up. Why not +let me have all the help my gown can give me? My hair is to be +gray--white at temples; I have to wear a dress that requires no change in +going at once to cars and boat. Now gray or drab is a perfect +traveling-gown, but think, too, what it can express--gray hair, white +face, gray dress without relief of trimming, does it not suggest the +utterly flat, hopeless monotony of the life of a governess in London? Not +hunger, not cold, but the very dust and ashes of life? Then, when the +woman arrives at the home of her rival and tragedy is looming big on the +horizon, I want to wear red." + +"Good God!" exclaimed Cazauran; and really red was so utterly unworn at +that time that I was forced to buy furniture covering, reps, in order to +get the desired color, a few days later. + +"Yes, red," I persisted. "Not too bright, not impudent scarlet, but a +dull, rich shade that will give out a gleam when the light strikes it; +that will have the force of a threat--a menacing color, that white +collar, cuffs and black lace shoulder wrap will restrict to +governess-like primness, until, with mantle torn aside, she stands a +pillar of fire and fury. And at the last I want a night-dress and a +loose robe over it of a hard light blue, that will throw up the ghastly +pallor of the face. There--that's what I want to wear, and why I want to +wear it." + +Mr. Palmer decided that purple was impossible and black too conventional, +while the proposed color-scheme of gray, red, and blue seemed reasonable +and characteristic. And suddenly that little wretch, Cazauran, laughed as +good-naturedly as possible and said he thought so, too, but it did no +harm to talk things over, and so we got around that snag, only to see a +second one looming up before us in the question of what was to kill _Miss +Multon_. + +I asked it: "Of what am I to die?" + +"Die? how? Why, just die, that's all," replied Cazauran. + +"But _of_ what?" I persisted; "what kills me? _Miss Multon_ at present +dies simply that the author may get rid of her. I don't want to be +laughed at. We are not in the days of 'Charlotte Temple'--we suffer, but +we live. To die of a broken heart is to be guyed, unless there is an +aneurism. Now what can _Miss Multon_ die from? If I once know that, I'll +find out the proper business for the scene." + +"Perhaps you'd have some of the men carry knives," sneered Cazauran, "and +then she could be stabbed?" + +"Oh, no!" I answered; "knives are not necessary for the stabbing of a +woman; a few sharp, envenomed words can do that nicely--but we are +speaking of death, not wounds; from what is _Miss Multon_ to die?" + +Then Mr. Palmer made suggestions, and Miss Morris made suggestions, and +Mr. Cazauran triumphantly wiped them out of existence. But at last +Cazauran himself grudgingly remarked that consumption would do well +enough, and Mr. Palmer and I, as with one vengeful voice, cried out, +_Camille!_ And Cazauran said some things like "Nom de Dieu!" or "Dieu de +Dieu!" and I said: "Chassez a droite," but the little man was vexed and +would not laugh. + +Someone proposed a fever--but I raised the contagion question. Poison was +thought of, but that would prevent the summoning of the children from +Paris, by _Dr. Osborne_. We parted that day with the question unanswered. + +At next rehearsal I still wondered how I was to die, hard or easy, rigid +or limp, slow or quick. "Oh," I exclaimed, "I must know whether I am to +die in a second or to begin in the first act." And in my own exaggerated, +impatient words I found my first hint--"why _not_ begin to die in the +first act?" + +When we again took up the question, I asked, eagerly: "What are those two +collapses caused by--the one at the mirror, the other at the school-table +with the children?" + +"Extreme emotion," I was answered. + +"Then," I asked, "why not extreme emotion acting upon a weak heart?" + +Mr. Palmer was for the heart trouble from the first--he saw its +possibilities, saw that it was new, comparatively speaking at least--I +suppose nothing is really new--and decided in its favor; but for some +reason the little man Cazauran was piqued, and the result was that he +introduced just one single line, that could faintly indicate that _Miss +Multon_ was a victim of heart disease--in the first act, where, after a +violent exclamation from the lady, _Dr. Osborne_ said: "Oh, I thought it +was your heart again," and on eight words of foundation I was expected to +raise a superstructure of symptoms true enough to nature to be readily +recognized as indicating heart disease; and yet oh, difficult task! that +disease must not be allowed to obtrude itself into first place, nor must +it be too poignantly expressed. In brief, we decided I was to show to the +public a case of heart disease, ignored by its victim and only recognized +among the characters about her by the doctor. + +And verily my work was cut out for me. Why, when I went to the Doctors +Seguin to be coached, I could not even locate my heart correctly by half +a foot. Both father and son did all they could to teach me the full +horror of _angina pectoris_, which I would, of course, tone down for +artistic reasons. And to this day tears rise in my eyes when I recall the +needless cruelty of the younger Seguin, in running a heart patient up a +long flight of stairs, that I might see the gasping of the gray-white +mouth for breath, the flare and strain of her waxy nostrils. Then, in +remorseful generosity, though heaven knows her coming was no act of mine, +I made her a little gift, and as she was slipping the bill inside her +well-mended glove, her eye caught the number on its corner, and, she must +have been very poor, her tormented and tormenting heart gave a plunge and +sent a rush of blood into her face that made her very eyeballs pinken; +and then again the clutching fingers, the flaring nostrils, the gasping +for air, the pleading look, the frightened eyes! Oh, it is unforgettable! +poor soul! poor soul! + +Well, having my symptoms gathered together, they yet had to be sorted +out, toned down, and adapted to this or that occasion. But at least the +work had not been thrown away, for on the first night Dr. Fordyce +Barker--a keen dramatic critic, by the way--occupied with a friend a +private box. He had rescued me from the hands of the specialists in +Paris, and I had at times been his patient. He applauded heartily after +the first two acts, but looked rather worried. At the end of the third +act a gentleman of his party turned and looked at him inquiringly. The +doctor threw up his hands, while shaking his head disconsolately. The +friend said: "Why, I'm surprised--I thought Miss Morris suffered from her +spine?" + +"So she does--so she does," nodded Dr. Barker. + +"But," went on the friend, "this thing isn't spine--this looks like heart +to me." + +"I should say so," responded the doctor. "I knew she wasn't strong--just +a thing of nerves and will--but I never saw a sign of heart trouble +before. But it's here now, and it's bad; for, by Jove, she can't go +through another attack like that and finish this play. Too bad, too bad!" + +And his honest sympathy for my new affliction spoiled his evening right +up to the point of discovery that it was all in the play. Then he enjoyed +the laugh against himself almost as much as I enjoyed his recognition of +my laboriously acquired symptoms. + +And now for Mr. Palmer's beloved cast. + +With what a mixture of pleasure and grief I recall Sara Jewett, the +loveliest woman and the most perfect representative of a French lady of +quality I have ever seen in the part of _Mathilde_. + +Mr. James O'Neil's success in _Maurice de la Tour_ was particularly +agreeable to me, because I had earnestly called attention to him some +time before he was finally summoned to New York. His fine work in +Chicago, where I had first met him, had convinced me that he ought to be +here, and that beautiful performance fully justified every claim I had +made for him in the first place. The part is a difficult one. Some men +rant in it, some are savagely cruel, some cold as stone. O'Neil's +_Maurice_ bore his wound with a patient dignity that made his one +outbreak into hot passion tremendously effective, through force of +contrast; while his sympathetic voice gave great value to the last tender +words of pardon. + +And that ancient couple--that never-to-be-forgotten pair, Mr. Stoddard +and Mrs. Wilkins! The latter's husband, belonging to the English bar, had +been Sergeant Wilkins, a witty, well-living, popular man, who quite +adored his pretty young wife and lavished his entire income upon their +ever-open house, so that his sudden taking off left her barely able to +pay for a sea of crape--with not a pound left over for a life-preserver +or raft of any kind. But on her return to the stage, her knowledge of +social amenities, the dignity and aplomb acquired by the experienced +hostess, remained with her, in a certain manner, an air of suave and +gentle authority, that was invaluable to her in the performance of +gentlewomen; while the good-fellowship, the downright jollity of her +infectious laugh were the crown of her comedy work. Who can forget the +Multon tea-table scene between Mrs. Wilkins and Mr. Stoddard. How the +audience used to laugh and laugh when, after his accusing snort: "More +copperas!" he sat and glared at her pretty protesting face framed in its +soft white curls. He was so ludicrously savage I had to coin a name for +him; and one night when the house simply would not stop laughing, I +remarked: "Oh, doesn't he look like a perfect old Sardonyx?" + +"Yes-m!" quickly replied the property boy beside me; "yes-m, that's the +very beast he reminds _me_ of!" + +Certainly, I never expect to find another _Dr. Osborne_ so capable of +contradicting a savage growl with a tender caress. + +Mr. Parselle, as the gentle old Latin scholar, tutor, and acting +godfather, was beyond praise. He admitted to me one night, coming out of +a brown study, that he believed _Belin_ was a character actually beyond +criticism, and that, next to creating it as author, he ranked the honor +of acting it; but there spoke the old-school actor who respected his +profession. + +And those children--were they not charming? That _Sister Jane_, given so +sweetly, so sincerely by the daughter of the famous Matilda Heron, who, +christened Helene, was known only by the pet name Bijou, in public as +well as in private life. And the boy _Paul_, her little brother. Almost, +I believe, Mabel Leonard was herself created expressly to play that part. +Never did female thing wear male clothes so happily. All the impish +perversity, all the wriggling restlessness of the small boy were to be +found in the person of the handsome, erratic, little Mabel. + +Even the two maids were out of the common, one being played by a clever +and very versatile actress, who had been a friend of my old Cleveland +days. She came to me out of the laughing merry past, but all pale and sad +in trailing black, for death had been robbing her most cruelly. She +wished for a New York engagement and astonished me by declaring she would +play anything, no matter how small, if only the part gave her a foothold +on the New York stage. + +I sought Mr. Palmer and talked hard and long for my friend, but he +laughed and answered: "An actress as clever as that will be very apt to +slight a part of only two scenes." + +But I assured him to the contrary; that she would make the most of every +line, and the part would be a stepping-stone to bigger things. He granted +my prayer, and Louise Sylvester, by her earnestness, her breathless +excitement in rushing to and fro, bearing messages, answering bells, and +her excellent dancing, raised _Kitty_ to a character part, while +_Louise_, the smallest of them all, was played with a brisk and bright +assurance that made it hard to believe that Helen Vincent had come direct +from her convent school to the stage-door--as she had. + +A great, great triumph for everyone was that first night of "Miss +Multon," and one of the sweetest drops in my own cup was added by the +hand of New York's honored and beloved poet, Edmund Clarence Stedman, +for, all nested in a basket of sweet violets, came a sonnet from him to +me, and though my unworthiness was evident enough, nevertheless I took +keenest joy in the beauty of its every line--surely a very sweet and +gracious token from one who was secure to one who was still struggling. +And now, when years have passed, he has given me another beautiful memory +to keep the first one company. I was taking my first steps in the new +profession of letters, which seems somewhat uncertain, slow, and +introspective, when compared with the swift, decisive, if rather +superficial profession of acting, and Mr. Stedman, in a pause from his +own giant labor on his great "Anthology," looked at, nay, actually +considered, that shivering fledgling thing, my first book, and wrote a +letter that spelled for me the word _encouragement_, and being a +past-master in the art of subtle flattery, quoted from my own book and +set alight a little flame of hope in my heart that is not extinguished +yet. So gently kind remain some people who are great. Just as Tomasso +Salvini, from the heights of his unquestioned supremacy--but stay, the +line must be drawn somewhere. It would not be kind to go on until my +publisher himself cried: "Halt!" + +So I shall stop and lock away the pen and paper--lock them hard and fast, +because so many charming, so many famous people came within my knowledge +in the next few years that the temptation to gossip about them is hard to +resist. But to those patient ones, who have listened to this story of a +little maid's clamber upward toward the air and sunshine, that God meant +for us all, I send greeting, as, between mother and husband, with the +inevitable small dog on my knee, I prepare to lock the desk--I pause just +to kiss my hands to you and say _Au revoir_! + + + + +THE END + + + + +By A. Conan Doyle + +THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES + +A Sherlock Holmes Novel + +Illustrated by Sidney Paget + +[Illustration] + +_The London Chronicle_, in a review headed "THE ZENITH OF SHERLOCK +HOLMES," says: + + "We should like to pay Dr. Doyle the highest compliment at our command. + It is not simply that this book is superior in originality and + construction to the earlier adventures of the great detective. Dr. + Doyle has provided a criminal who, as Mr. Holmes admits, is indeed a + foeman worthy of his steel.[*] Hitherto he has found it comparatively + easy to unmask his antagonists. But in the present case he finds + himself checkmated again and again. 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