"MARY-GIRL."
"I'm not going to give up my daily bath!" In these pregnant and moving
words rang the _cri de coeur_ which was to precipitate the tragedy of
_Mary Sheppard_. To you the attitude of mind which provoked this cry
may seem as natural as it was sanitary. But you must understand that
it ran directly counter to _Ezra Sheppard's_ ideal of the simple
God-fearing life. Godliness with him came first, and cleanliness
followed where it could. In his view a tub once a week was all that
any sane person should need. Apart from this hebdomadal use its proper
function was to hold dirty dishes and soiled clothes for the washing.
And indeed this had at one time been _Mary's_ own view (though
tempered by vague aspirations towards a softer existence, as we might
have guessed from the elegance of her brown shoes) before a year of
the higher life had shaken her content. Let us go back.
[Illustration: Mr. MCKINNEL (_Ezra Sheppard_) to Miss MAY BLAYNEY
(_Mary Sheppard_). "You've been lying again! You know how I hate it--I
told you so in this very theatre when we were playing in _Between
Sunset and Dawn_."]
_Ezra Sheppard_ was by profession a market-gardener, and his favourite
recreation was preaching in a barn. We have the picture of a frugal
but happy interior, with a new-born infant (_off_). The trouble began
with an offer made to his wife of a situation as foster-mother to
the baby (also _off_) of a neighbouring Countess. The wages were to
be high and she was to be delicately entreated; but there were hard
conditions. She was not to hold communication with her husband or
child for twelve months. I am sorry to say that _Mary_ did not flinch
from these conditions quite so much as I could have hoped. _Ezra_,
however, rejected them for her with manly scorn, until he was reminded
that the high wages would speed the end of his own ambitions--namely,
to replace his barn with a conventicle of brick. So he let his wife
loose into Eden with the Serpent.
And now we see _Mary_ seated in the lap of luxury, with soft gowns to
wear, and peaches to eat and instant slaves at her beck. You will, of
course, expect her virtue to fall an easy prey; but you will be wrong.
The Earl's attitude is pleasantly parental, and the attentions of
the Countess's cavalier--an author--are confined to the extraction
of copy. And anyhow _Mary's_ instincts are sound. Now and again she
remembers to pity the loneliness of her husband, whose cottage light
she can see from the window of her bower; and once, by a ruse, she
gets him to break the conditions and visit her; but when he learns
that the invitation came from her, and not, as alleged, from the
Countess, his conscience will not permit him to take advantage of his
chance. So you have the unusual spectacle of a true and loving wife
pleading in vain for the embraces of her true and loving husband.
But if her virtue, in the technical sense, remained intact, the
Serpent had overfed her with _pommes de luxe_. On her return
home--where the restoration of her child might have helped matters,
but it doesn't know who she is and refuses to part from its
foster-mother--we find her lethargic, off her feed, indifferent to the
claims of menial toil, and clamorous (as I have shown) for her rights
of the daily bath.
In the first joy of conjugal reunion _Ezra_ consents to tolerate the
discomfort of this change, but in the end he loses patience and hits
her. She leaves for London the same afternoon.
Six black months pass over the husband's bowed head, and then, on a
very windy night (the wind was well done), she makes a re-entry, and
confesses that, under stress of need, she has lapsed from virtue. This
is bad news for _Ezra_, but he is prepared to forgive a fault in which
he himself has had a fair share. Only there must be a sacrifice of
something, if moral justice is to be appeased. So he chooses between
his wife and his chapel and does execution on the latter. He goes
out into the storm and sets the thing alight. His conscience is thus
purified by fire, the gale being favourable to arson.
It is a pity that so excellent an object as a brick chapel should be
the evil genius of the play. Yet so it is. Built of the materials of
Scandinavian drama, it is always just round the corner, heavy with
doom. We never see it, but we hear more than enough about it, and in
the end it becomes a bore which we are well rid of.
The theme of the perils of foster-motherhood is not new, but Mrs.
MERRICK has treated it freshly and with a very decent avoidance of its
strictly sexual aspects. But her methods are too sedentary. She kept
on with her atmosphere long after we knew the details of the cottage
interior by heart; while a whole volume of active tragedy--_Mary's_
six months in London--was left to our fevered imagination. And the
sense of reality which she was at such pains to create was spoiled by
dialogue freely carried on in the immediate vicinity of persons who
were not supposed to overhear it.
The chief attraction of _Mary-Girl_ (a silly title) was the engaging
personality of Miss MAY BLAYNEY. Always a fascinating figure to watch,
she showed an extraordinary sensitiveness of voice and expression.
As for that honest and admirable actor, Mr. MCKINNEL, who made the
perfect foil to her charms that every good husband should wish to
be, he seems never to tire of playing these stern, dour, semi-brutal
parts. That more genial characters are open to him his success in
_Great Catherine_ showed. Miss MARY BROUGH, as a charwoman, supplied a
rare need with her richly-flavoured humour and its clipped sentences.
All the rest did themselves justice. Miss HELEN FERRERS was a shade
more aristocratic than the aristocrat of stage tradition; and it
was not the fault of Miss DOROTHY FANE (as her daughter, _Lady
Folkington_) that she was required to behave incredibly in the
presence of her inferiors. I have not much to say for the manners
of Society in its own circles; but it is probably at its best in its
intercourse with humbler neighbours. Mrs. MERRICK's picture of the
_Countess_ on a visit to the _Sheppards'_ cottage might have been
designed for a poster of the Land Campaign.
There was no dissenting note, I am glad to say, in the reception of
Mrs. MERRICK's charming self when she appeared after the fall of the
curtain.
"A pretty authoress!" said an actress in the stalls.
"Is that your comment on the play?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said.