PEOPLE I HAVE MET
“There is so much in Nature—so many sides.”
—_Love and the Man._
If all these “impressions that remain” seem—what, indeed, they are—very
disjointed, remember that Life as one lives it is, after all, a “patchy”
and disjointed business.
MRS. JOHN WOOD.—I have spoken elsewhere of Mrs. John Wood, and the
following incident happened when I was playing under her management at
the Court Theatre. I came to the theatre by Underground, and one night
the train stopped and was held up between Kensington and Sloane Square
Stations. I looked nervously at my watch, and saw the time was rapidly
approaching when I ought to be in my dressing-room. Still the train
remained stationary. I began to feel rather desperate, so decided to do
all I could to “get ready” in the train. I was wearing buttoned boots—I
undid the buttons; I was wearing a dress with many small buttons down
the front—I undid them all, keeping my coat buttoned tight to hide the
state of “undress”. (I remember an unfortunate man who was in the same
carriage, gazing at me, evidently thinking I was a dangerous lunatic and
wondering what I should do next.) At last the train moved, and I got out
and rushed into the theatre, gained my dressing-room, and began to tear
off my clothes. I did not attempt to “make up”—there was no time; I
directed all my energies to getting into my stage frock—which, by the
way, was a dress for a “drawing-room”, with train and feathers all
complete. The stage manager, who was not blessed with the capacity for
doing the right thing at the right moment, chose the moment when I was
struggling into this very elaborate costume to come to the door and to
begin to expostulate with me for being late. “What has made you so late,
Miss Moore?”, “Do you know you should have been in the theatre half an
hour ago?”, “Do you know you’ll be off?”, and so on, until in sheer
exasperation I called to him (and I do not regret it), “Oh! for Heaven’s
sake, _go away_, you fool!” He did. He went and told Mrs. John Wood that
I had been very rude to him, and she sent for me, after the performance,
to “know why”. I told her the whole story, and as it was unfolded to her
I saw her lips begin to quiver and her eyes dance with amused
understanding. When I finished, she gave her verdict. I know she felt
the discipline of the theatre _must_ be upheld at all costs, but she saw
the humour of it. “I understand,” she said. “We will say no more about
it, this time—_but_ it must not happen again!”
[Illustration:
_Photograph by The Dover Street Studios, Ltd., London, W._ To face p.
102
ELIZA
“Eliza Comes to Stay”
]
A MANAGER IN THE SUBURBS.—I had been playing “Eliza”. We had played to
capacity all the week, at a certain suburban theatre which shall be
nameless. On the Saturday night the local manager came to me; he was
very delighted at the “business”, and said so with great enthusiasm. The
play was “great”, I was “great”, the business was equally “great”. “And
now,” he concluded “you will have a little something _with me_, to drink
to your return to this theatre.” I said it was very kind of him, but
that I really didn’t want the “little something”; but he seemed rather
hurt, and so I consented. I do not know exactly what nectar I expected
him to send into my room, but I certainly did not expect a small bottle
of Guinness’s stout, which was what he _did_ send.
SIMONE LE BARGE.—She was playing in London with George Alexander, and
was present at a very representative theatrical lunch. The thing which
struck her most, so she told me, was that everyone was married or going
to be married. There was George Alexander and his wife; Fred Terry and
his wife; Cyril Maude and his wife; H. B. Irving and his wife; Martin
Harvey and his wife; Oscar Asche and Sir Herbert Tree, both with their
wives; Harry and I, and so on. It astonished her! She said, in the tone
of one who sees “strange things and great mystries”: “Dans la
France—c’est impossible!”
A SCOTCH LANDLADY.—I arrived in Glasgow one Sunday, and I feel rather
about Glasgow as poor Dan Leno did. “They tell me this is the second
city of our Empire; when I find a real ‘outsider’, I’m going to back it
for a place!” However, when I arrived by the night train from the South,
I found the landlady cleaning the house with the vigour of twenty women.
I had to sit in her room until my own were cleaned. When finally this
was accomplished to her satisfaction, I was allowed to take possession.
I unpacked and took out some sewing, which was a series of small flannel
garments I was making for Jack, then a baby. She walked into my room,
and saw what I was doing; she fixed me with a “cold eye”. “Sewin’!” she
ejaculated. I explained they were for my baby, etc., but the cold eye
still remained cold. “On the Sawbath!” she said. “Weel, Ah ca’ it
naething but _impious_,” and with that she walked out and left me alone
with my “impiety”.
DAN LENO.—I have no real right to include Dan Leno. I never met him, but
my sister Decima did, and someone else who did told me this story, which
I think is worth repeating. Leno lived at Brixton (I am told that, as
all good Americans go to Paris when they die, so all good music hall
artists go to Brixton when they die), and he used on Sunday mornings to
potter round his garden wearing carpet slippers, an old pair of
trousers, his waistcoat open, and no collar; quite happy, and enjoying
it immensely. He went round, on one of these Sunday mornings, to a
“hostelry” for liquid refreshment, and met there a “swell comedian” who
knew him. This gentleman, who appeared on the halls dressed rather in
the manner of Mr. George Lashwood, was faultlessly dressed in a frock
coat, the regulation dark grey trousers, and looked rather “stagily”
immaculate. He looked at Dan with disapproval, and proceeded to
expostulate with him. “Danny, boy, you shouldn’t come out dressed like
that. After all, you _are_ England’s leading comedian, and—well—you
ought to make yourself look smart. Let people know _who you are_!” Then,
with pride, he added: “Look at me, boy; why don’t you do like I do?”
Leno looked at him gravely. “Like you?” he repeated. “Look like you?—I
_never_ come out in my ‘props’, old boy.”
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones years ago said a thing to Harry that has ever
lived in my memory. They were discussing acting and plays, and Mr. Jones
said “A play is as good as it is acted.” That remark sums up the whole
question. A play can only be seen and valued through the acting; it’s
the only art that has to be judged through the medium of other
personalities, and not by the creator. When I once saw a revival of one
of Harry’s plays, that had not the advantage of his personal
supervision, I realised how completely true Mr. Jones’s remark was.
A SCOTTISH SOLDIER.—It was during the war. I was walking up Regent
Street, and there I saw him, fresh from France, hung round like a
Christmas tree, obviously knowing nothing of London, and, being a Scot,
far too proud to ask his way. I ventured to speak to him, for, as in the
old days girls suffered from “scarlet” fever, during the war I suffered
from “khaki” fever. “Do you want to get to a railway station?” I asked.
“Aye; Paddington.” As it happened, I too was going to Paddington, and I
said so. “I am going there myself; if you will come with me, I can tell
you where to find the platform. We will get on the ’bus that comes
along; I’ll show you the way.” He looked at me, not unkindly, but with
the scorn of a true Scot for the simplicity of a Southerner who
underrates the intelligence of the men from “over the Border”. “Ye wull,
wull ye?” he said. “Aye—well—ye wull _not_. Ah’ve been warrrrned aboot
lassies like you!” And he walked away with great dignity and
self-possession.
ELLEN TERRY.—I have seen her, as you have seen her—and if by chance you
have not done so, you have missed one of the things that might well be
counted “pearls of great price”—on the stage, looking perfectly
beautiful, with the beauty which did not owe its existence to wonderful
features or glorious colouring, but to that elusive “something” that the
limitations of the English language force me to describe as “magnetism”;
but the most lovely picture I carry in my mental gallery is of her in
her own house at Chelsea. A letter, signed by all the actresses of Great
Britain, was to be sent to the Queen concerning a big charity matinée.
It had been most carefully worded, and a most wonderful copy made. Mrs.
Kendal had signed it, and I was deputed to take it to Ellen Terry for
her signature. When I got to her house, she was ill in bed, neuralgia in
her head, and I was shown into her bedroom. I don’t know if you could
look beautiful with your head swathed in flannel, suffering tortures
from neuralgia; I know I couldn’t; but Ellen Terry did. She looked
rather as she did in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. If you can imagine
“Mistress Ford” sitting up in an old four-poster bed, still wearing her
“wimple”, and looking sufficiently lovely to turn Ford’s head, and
Falstaff’s head, and everybody else’s head a dozen times—that was Ellen
Terry as I saw her then. I gave her the letter, this carefully made
“fair copy”, for her to sign. She read the letter, slowly, pen in hand.
Some phrase failed to please her, and saying “No, I don’t think that
will do”, she took her pen, scored through some words, and substituted
others, handing the letter back to me, with “I think that is better,
don’t you?” Have you seen her writing? It is rather large, very black,
very distinct, and very pretty; I did not dare to say that no letter
could be given to the Queen with corrections—a Queen had made them, and
it was not for me to remark on what she did. I said I was sure it was an
improvement, and took my precious letter away for other signatures. What
happened to the letter eventually, whether another copy was made or
not—that has all vanished from my mind; but the picture of lovely
“Mistress Ford” remains.
A ’BUS DRIVER.—In the old days I used to walk from the Strand to
Piccadilly and catch my ’bus there. It saved a penny. One old ’bus
driver—there were horse ’buses then, of course—used to wait for me. I
used to climb on to the top of the ’bus, and he used to talk to me, and
take an enormous interest in “how I was getting on”. Years afterwards I
was at Paddington, and as I came out of the station I saw, seated on the
box of a cab, my old friend of the ’bus. He told me he had “got on”, and
had bought a cab, a four-wheeler; that he had never “lost sight of me”;
and that he still thought of me, and always should think of me, as “his
Miss Moore”. Bless his red face! I wonder what he is driving now. Taxis
and motor ’buses may be very good things in their way, but they lost us
the “real” ’bus driver and the “real” cab driver.
A “TOMMY” FROM THE SECOND LONDON GENERAL HOSPITAL.—I was playing “Eliza”
at the Brixton Theatre, and on the Saturday the manager, the late Newman
Maurice, asked a party of wounded boys from the London General Hospital
to come, as our guests, to the matinée. I, in my turn, asked if they
would come round to my dressing-room, at the end of the play, for tea
and cigarettes; they came, and in a terrific state of excitement, too.
All talking at once, they tried to tell me the reason, and after some
time I began to understand. One of their number had been
“shell-shocked”, and so badly that he had lost his speech; he had been
watching the play that afternoon and suddenly began to laugh, and, a
second later, to the delight Of his companions, to speak! I have never
seen such congratulations, such hand-shakings, such genuine delight, as
was expressed by those boys over their comrade’s recovery. One of the
boys that afternoon was a mass of bandages; you could not see anything
of his face and head but two bright eyes, so badly had he been wounded.
When I went to Canada, two years ago, this man was waiting for me at the
hotel at Vancouver. He was no longer wrapped in bandages, but he had
been so certain that I should not know him again that he had brought
photographs of himself, taken while still in hospital, “complete with
bandages”, to prove his identity! As a matter of fact—how or why, I
cannot say—I did remember him at once.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.—I once rehearsed for a play of his at the Haymarket
Theatre. I remember he used to sit at rehearsals with his back to the
footlights, tilting his chair so far on its hind legs that it was only
by the intervention of heaven that he did not fall into the orchestra.
There he sat, always wearing kid gloves, firing off short, terse
comments on the acting, and rousing everybody’s ire to such an extent
that the fat was in the fire, and finally the production was abandoned,
after five weeks’ rehearsal! It was produced later, and was a very great
success, Henry Ainley playing the lead. When Bernard Shaw and Granville
Barker went into management at the Court Theatre, Harry and I met Shaw
one day, and Harry asked how the season “had gone”. “Well,” said Bernard
Shaw, “I’ve lost £7000, and Barker’s lost his other shirt.”
MRS. KENDAL.—She came to a reception the other day at Sir Ernest and
Lady Wilde’s, to which I had taken my little daughter, Jill. “Look,
Jill,” I said, as she entered the room, “that is Mrs. Kendal.” She
looked, and her comment is valuable, as showing the impression which
“The Old General” made on the “new recruit”: “How perfectly beautiful
she looks.” I lunched with her, not long ago, at her house in Portland
Place, and I remarked how charming her maids looked. She nodded. “When
anyone is coming to see me, I always say to my servants, ‘A clean cap, a
clean apron, look as nice as you can; it is a compliment we owe to the
visitors who honour this house’.” We sat talking of many things, and
Mrs. Kendal said reflectively: “Think of all the things we have missed,
people like you and me, through leading—er—shall we say, ‘well-conducted
lives’! And, make no mistake, we _have_ missed them!” What an unexpected
comment on life from Mrs. Kendal! and yet, I suppose, true enough. I
suppose, as “Eliza” says, one “can be too safe”, and perhaps it might
be, at all events, an experience to “be in danger for once”.
ELLA SHIELDS.—I met her again in Canada. She had come from the States,
where, in common with many other artists who are assured successes in
England, she had not had the kindest reception. Canada, on the other
hand, delighted in her work, and gave her a wonderful ovation wherever
she went. One day we went out walking together, and she gave me the best
lesson in “walking” I have ever had. I have never seen anyone who moved
so well, so easily, and so gracefully. I told her that I wished I could
walk with her every day, to really learn “how she did it”.
ARTHUR BOURCHIER.—When both Harry and I were playing in _Pilkerton’s
Peerage_, Arthur Bourchier suddenly made a rule that no one was to leave
their dressing-room until called by the call-boy, immediately before
their entrance on to the stage. One night the call-boy forgot, and Harry
was not called, as he should have been. Bourchier came off, and there
was a bad “wait”. He turned to me and whispered, in an agonised voice,
“Go on and say _something_”, which I declined to do. At that moment
Harry rushed on to the stage, and, as he tore past Bourchier, very, very
angry at missing his “cue”, shook his fist in Bourchier’s face, saying
fiercely “Damn you!” After his scene he came off, still very angry, and
went up to Bourchier. The storm burst. “There you are!” Harry said; “you
see the result of your damned, idiotic rules——”, and much more in the
same strain. Bourchier, in a soothing voice, said: “It’s all right, it’s
all right, Harry—_I’ve sacked the call-boy!_”
THE GERMAN PRODUCTION OF “OLD HEIDELBERG.”—Before George Alexander
produced this play, it was done at the old Novelty Theatre by a German
company, under the direction of Herr Andresson and Herr Berhens.
Alexander asked me to go and see it, with Mrs. Alexander, which we did.
I have rarely seen such a badly “dressed” play. The one real attempt to
show the “glory” of the reigning house of “Sachsen-Karlsburg” was to
make the footmen wear red plush breeches. The “State apartments” were
tastefully furnished in the very best period of “Tottenham Court Road”
mid-Victorian furniture. After the performance was over, Herr Berhens
came to see us in the box. I did not know quite what to say about the
production, so I murmured something rather vague about the “back cloth
looking very fine.” Herr Berhens bowed. “So it should do,” he said, “the
production cost £25!”
RUDGE HARDING.—He is a “bird enthusiast”, and will sit and watch them
all day long, and half the night too, if they didn’t get tired and go to
roost. Rudge Harding was coming to stay with us at “Apple Porch”—our
house in the country, near Maidenhead. Harry met him at the station,
saying breathlessly, “Thank God you’ve come! We have a _bottle-throated
windjar_ in the garden; I was so afraid it might get away before you saw
it!” Harding said he had never heard of the bird (neither, for that
matter, had anyone else, for Harry had evolved it on his way to the
station). Needless to say, on arriving at “Apple Porch”, the
“bottle-throated windjar” could not be located, but Harry had
“recollected” many quaint and curious habits of the bird. He possessed a
large three-volume edition of a book on birds—without an index—and for
three days Rudge Harding searched that book for the valuable additional
information on the bird which Harry swore it must contain. He might have
gone on looking for the rest of his visit, if Harry had not tired of the
game and told him the awful truth!
MORLEY HORDER.—He is now a very, very successful architect, and is, I
believe, doing much of the planning for the re-building of North London.
He designed “Apple Porch” for us, and when it was in process of being
built we drove over one day with him to see it. We had then a very early
type of car, a Clement Talbot, with a tonneau which was really built to
hold two, but on this occasion held three—and very uncomfortable it
was—Morley Horder, Phillip Cunningham, and I. Horder, a very quiet,
rather retiring man, with dark eyes and very straight black hair, said
not a word the whole journey. Cunningham chatted away, full of vitality
and good humour. When we finally reached “Apple Porch”, Cunningham got
out and turned to Morley Horder. “Now then,” he said, “jump out,
_Chatterbox_!”
ERIC LEWIS.—There is no need to speak of his work, for everyone knows
it, and appreciates the finish and thought which it conveys. He played
“Montague Jordon” in _Eliza_ for us, for a long time, and has been the
“only Monty” who ever really fulfilled the author’s idea. Others have
been funny, clever, amusing, eccentric, and even rather pathetic; Eric
Lewis was all that, and much more. He is, and always has been, one of
the kindest of friends, as time has made him one of the oldest.
FRED GROVE.—Another of the “ideals” of the evergreen play, _Eliza_. He
has played “Uncle Alexander” a thousand times and more, each time with
the same care and attention to detail. He has evolved a “bit of
business” with a piece of string, which he places carefully on the stage
before the curtain goes up; never a week has passed, when he has been
playing the part, but some careful person has picked up that piece of
string and taken it away, under the impression that they were making the
stage “tidy”. What a wonderful memory Fred Grove has, too! Ask him for
any information about stage matters—any date, any cast—and the facts are
at his finger-tips at once. He has made a very large collection of books
on the stage, and among them a copy of the poems written by Adah Isaacs
Menken, the “first female Mazeppa”, who married the famous Benicia Boy,
a great prize-fighter of his day. The poems were considered so beautiful
that some of them were attributed to Swinburne, who declared he had
nothing to do with them beyond giving them his deep admiration. Fred
Grove is one of the people who never forget my birthday; Sydney Paxton
is another.
CLEMENCE DANE.—My sister Ada knew her first, and it was at her
suggestion that I went down to see “Diana Courtis” (the name she used
for the stage) play at Hastings. We were about to produce _Sandy and His
Eliza_, the title of which was changed later to _Eliza Comes to Stay_. I
decided she was exactly the type I wanted to play “Vera Lawrence”, the
actress, and engaged her at once. It was not until she began to write
that she changed her name from “Diana Courtis” to “Clemence Dane”. I
remember we were doing a flying matinée, to Southend, and I took Jill,
then a very tiny girl, with me. All the way there she sat on “Diana
Courtis’s” knee and listened to wonderful stories, Kipling’s _Just So
Stories_. When they came to an end, Jill drew a deep breath and said,
“What wouldn’t I give to be able to tell stories like that!” “Yes,”
responded the teller of the stories, “and what wouldn’t I give to be
able to write them!” She designed and drew our poster, which we still
use, for _Eliza_—Cupid standing outside the green-door, waiting to
enter. I have a wonderful book, which “Clemence Dane” made for me; all
the characters in _Eliza_, everyone mentioned, whether they appear or
not, are drawn as she imagined them. To be naturally as versatile as
this—actress, artist, and writer—seems to me a dangerous gift from the
gods, and one which needs strength of character to resist the temptation
to do many things “too easily” and accomplish nothing great. Clemence
Dane has three books, and what I shall always regard as a great poem in
blank verse, to prove that she has resisted the temptation.