THE COMMON CHORD
Nancy was considerably startled when Letizia at the age of nineteen
entered the chorus of the Vanity Theatre. She had old-fashioned ideas
about the dignity of her profession, and the chorus of the Vanity did
not appeal to her as a worthy or suitable medium for the début of an
actress who wanted to take her career seriously.
“Oh, but it’s so reassuring, mother,” Letizia exclaimed. “Can’t you
understand how reassuring it is not to be chosen for your talents, but
simply, solely, and entirely for your looks?”
“Yes, but the girls in the Vanity chorus are such a mixed lot. And I
don’t like their outlook on life. It’s nearly always hard, mercenary,
and, well, to speak quite frankly, my dear child, immoral.”
“I’ll be the shining exception,” Letizia vowed.
“Ah, yes, it’s all very well to say that. But you’ll soon be liable
to take your tone from your surroundings, and become like the rest
of them. Dear, it’s no use for me to pretend that your engagement at
the Vanity is anything but a dreadful disappointment to me after your
education, because it is—a dreadful disappointment.”
“Mother, try to believe I know what I’m doing. I’m not proposing to
remain a Vanity girl. But the Vanity chorus is just what I require
after such a careful bringing up. It will cure all the prunes and
prisms of convent life; it will give me poise; and it will teach me the
way of the world, of which at present I’m really hopelessly ignorant.
I’m only just nineteen, and I must look fairly nice already or Mr.
Richards would never have engaged me.”
Nancy contemplated her daughter. She had not turned out so tall as she
gave promise of being when she came back from Belgium. She was a full
inch and a half shorter than her mother, and much, much slimmer. She
had the fine Oriano profile with her mother’s vivid complexion and rich
blue eyes ringed with a darker sapphire, and her mother’s deep-brown
wavy hair. Yes, she certainly did look “fairly nice.” But still, the
Vanity chorus—it was a disappointment. Nancy had made up her mind that
Letizia should begin her stage experience by going out on tour with
some sound Shakespearian or Old Comedy company. She would not earn much
in the way of salary, but that would teach her how to be careful with
money. And then after a couple of years of knocking about the provinces
and playing all sorts of parts she could concentrate upon getting a
London engagement and setting out to be famous. Now without taking
anybody’s advice Letizia had gone off and interviewed John Richards
and been engaged by him for the Vanity chorus. It was obvious that she
could not live on her salary in such surroundings, which meant that her
mother must give her an allowance if she was to be protected against
the difficulty of trying to live up to a standard beyond her means
without being exposed to temptation. And Nancy did grudge her savings
being drawn upon to maintain a position in the Vanity chorus. However,
the harm was done, and she was too wise to offer any more opposition
for fear of making Letizia decide out of contrariness that the Vanity
chorus was the end of an actress’s ambition. So, she offered her an
allowance of £20 a month and put off on tour with a determination
to save an extra pound a week from her own salary of £7. Of course,
she never told Letizia that her allowance was being drawn out of her
mother’s savings, but let her understand that it had been left for that
purpose by her father.
* * * * *
The memory of Lettie Fuller and her short swift career upon the Vanity
stage, bright and light as the dance of a butterfly through the
hours of a Summer morning, should still be so fresh in the minds of
play-goers that there is a kind of embarrassment in writing about it.
Anyway, Lettie Fuller was our Letizia, and in the years 1910 and 1911
she was the spirit of youth and London as no doubt to-day that elusive
and lovable spirit is incarnate in some other young woman. Peace and
beauty and fortune attend her and all those who do adore her!
Letizia had not been six months in the chorus before she attracted
the attention of John Richards by some imitations she gave at a
supper party at which, most unusually for him, he was present. If
John Richards’s eyes seemed exclusively occupied with the personal
appearance of the young women who adorned his theatre, they were not on
that account blind to talent. He asked who the good-looking girl was,
remembered now that he had engaged her himself, was informed that she
came of theatrical stock, and made a note on his cuff that she was to
be given an important understudy. Letizia’s luck held. The lady who
played the part she was understudying was taken ill at Brighton one
Saturday afternoon; and that very night John Richards, who happened
to pay one of his periodical visits to the back of a box in order to
be sure that his company was not letting the show down by slackness,
witnessed Letizia’s performance. He turned to his companion, and asked
what he thought of her.
“I think she’s a marvel.”
“So do I,” said John Richards.
Yet he did not mention a word to Letizia about having seen her. In
fact, neither she nor any of the company knew that the Guv’nor was
in front, for these visits to his theatre were always paid in the
strictest secrecy. However, when in July the musical comedy for the
autumn production was ready for rehearsal, John Richards offered
Letizia a part with three songs that were likely to take London by
storm, if the actress knew how to sing them.
Nancy was acting in Leicester the week that Letizia’s telegram arrived
with its radiant news of the luck her birthday had brought. She went
into the church where twenty-one years ago she and Bram were married,
and there she lighted every candle she could find to Our Lady of
Victories. The pricket blazed with such a prodigality of golden flames
in the jewelled sunlight that the old woman who was cleaning out the
pews came up to find out if this extravagant stranger was a genuine
devotee.
“It’s all right,” Nancy told her. “I was married in this church
twenty-one years ago, and I am thanking Heaven for happiness after much
sorrow.”
The old cleaner smiled so benignly that Nancy gave her half a crown
and begged for her prayers. Then she sought out the priest, and asked
him to say Masses for the soul of Letizia’s great-grandmother and
for herself a Mass of thanksgiving, and still another Mass for the
intention of the Sisters of the Holy Infancy. She gave him, too, alms
for the poor of his parish, and then going home to her lodgings she
knelt beside her bed and wept the tears of unutterable thankfulness,
those warm tears that flow like outpoured wine, so rich are they with
the sunshine of the glad heart.
Letizia’s first night was on the ninth of September. Her mother decided
to give up her autumn engagement, and trust to finding something later
on when the supremely important date was past. She did not want to
worry Letizia during her rehearsals; but her experience might be of
service, and she ought to be near at hand. Nancy stayed at her old
rooms in St. John’s Wood which she had chosen originally to be near
Letizia at school in the days when she herself was a London actress.
Perhaps if she could have mustered up as much excitement about her own
first night in London, she might have been famous now herself instead
of merely being favourably known to a number of provincial audiences.
Yet how much more wonderful to be the mother of a famous daughter in
whose success she could be completely absorbed without feeling the
least guilt of egotism.
The piece that Autumn at the Vanity was only one of a long line
of musical comedies between which it would be idle to attempt to
distinguish; the part that Letizia played was only one of many similar
parts, and the songs she sang had been written over and over again
every year for many years; but Lettie Fuller herself was different. She
was incarnate London, and this was strange, because she had neither a
cockney accent nor, what was indeed unexpected on the musical comedy
stage, a mincing suburban accent. She did not open big innocent eyes at
the stalls and let her underclothes wink for her. She neither pursed
her lips nor simpered, nor waggled her head. But she was beautiful with
a shining naturalness and an infectious vitality; and as Mrs. Pottage
told her mother, she was as fresh as a lilac in Spring.
The old lady—the very old lady, for she was now seventy-five—was
sitting with Nancy in the middle of the stalls. Nancy thought that she
would be less nervous there than in a box, and it would be easier for
Letizia not to be too much aware of her mother’s anguished gaze.
“Well, I’m sorry she’s gone and had herself printed Lettie Fuller,”
said Mrs. Pottage. “Because I’d made up my mind that before I died I
_would_ learn how to spell Letitsia, and I brought my best glasses on
purpose so as I could see the name printed as it should be. And then
she goes and calls herself Lettie, which a baby-in-arms could spell.
And Mrs. Bugbird and pore Aggie Wilkinson was both very anxious to know
just how it was spelt, so they’ll be disappointed. I only hope Mrs. B.
will reckonise her when she comes on, because she won’t know who she is
from Adam and Eve in the programme.”
“Is dear old Mrs. Bugbird here?” Nancy exclaimed.
“Of course she’s here—_and_ pore Aggie Wilkinson, of course. Why, they
wouldn’t have missed it for nothing. It’s only to be hoped that Mrs.
B. don’t fall over in the excitement. She’s in the front row of the
upper circle, and if she did come down she’d about wipe out the front
six rows of the pit. Still, I daresay Aggie will hook one of her pore
crutches in the back of Mrs. B’s bodice which is bound to bust open in
the first five minutes. The last time she and me went to the theatre
she looked more like a tug-of-war than a respectable woman before the
piece was over.”
“The overture’s beginning,” Nancy whispered, for people were beginning
to turn round and stare at the apple-cheeked old lady who was talking
so volubly in the middle of the stalls.
“So any one can see by the airs that conductor fellow’s giving himself.
Why band-conductors should be so cocky I never _could_ fathom. It isn’t
as if they did anything except wave that blessed bit of wood like a
kid with a hoopstick. It’s the same with bus-conductors. They give
theirselves as many airs as if they was driving the blessed bus itself.
That’s it, now start tapping,” she went on in a tone of profound
contempt. “Yes, if he dropped that silly bit of wood and got down
off that high chair and did an honest night’s work banging the drum,
perhaps he might give himself a few airs. Ah, now they’re off, and
depend upon it that conductor-fellow thinks, if he stopped waving, the
band would stop playing, and which of course is radicalous.”
The overture finished. The first bars of the opening chorus were being
played. The curtain rose.
“There she is! There she is!” Mrs. Pottage gasped when from the crowded
stage she disentangled Letizia’s debonair self. “And don’t she look a
picture, the pretty jool!”
When the moment came for Letizia to sing her first song, her mother
shut her eyes against the theatre that was spinning before them like
a gigantic humming-top. It seemed an hour before she heard Letizia’s
voice ringing out clear and sweet and cool across the footlights.
She saw her win the hearts of the audience until they were all turned
into one great heart beating for her. She heard the surge of her first
encore, and then she might have fainted if Mrs. Pottage had not dug her
sharply in the ribs at that moment.
“Did you hear what that old buffer in front of us said?” Mrs. Pottage
whispered hoarsely.
“Something nice about Letizia?” she whispered back.
“He said he was damned if she wasn’t the best girl John Richards had
found for years. And how I didn’t get up and kiss the blessed top of
his bald head I’m bothered if I know.”
The curtain fell on the first act, and the loudest applause was always
for Letizia.
“Oh, she’s knocked ’em,” Mrs. Pottage declared. “She’s absolutely
knocked ’em. But she’s lovely! And, oh, dear, God bless us both, but
how she did remind me of her pore father once or twice.”
The old lady fumbled for Nancy’s hand and squeezed it hard.
“Well, I don’t mind saying she’s made me feel like a girl again,” Mrs.
Pottage went on after a moment or two of silence. “Every sweetheart I
ever had come into my mind while she was singing that song. You know!
It was like riding on the top of a bus in fine weather when they’ve
just watered the streets and the may’s out in flower and you say to
yourself there’s no place like dear old London after all and begin to
nod and dream as you go jogging along, thinking of old faces and old
fancies and the fun you’ve had years ago.”
The curtain rose on the second act, and with every line she said and
with every note she sang Lettie Fuller became nearer and dearer to her
audience that night.
Once, after a sally had been taken up by the house in roars of
laughter, Mrs. Pottage exclaimed to Nancy:
“Hark! did you hear that? That was Mrs. Bugbird’s laugh above the lot.
Oh, I’d reckonise that laugh if I was in my coffin. You mark my words,
she’ll be whooping in a moment. That’s always the way it gets her. But
pore Aggie’ll pat her back if she whoops _too_ hard.”
In spite of the encores—and Letizia always won by far the loudest and
most persistent of them—the curtain fell at last on another thundering
Vanity success.
“Bravo, bravo, my beauty!” Mrs. Pottage stood up to shout when Letizia
took her call. Lots of other people were standing up and shouting, so
her enthusiasm was not so very conspicuous. Nancy felt too weak with
emotion to stand up herself, and sank back in a pale trance of joyful
relief.
“There’s Mrs. B.!” Mrs. Pottage suddenly exclaimed. “And if she claps
much louder, she’ll clap herself out of that new dress of hers for
good and all. And when she gets out in the Strand she’ll be run in to
Bow Street if she isn’t careful. She’s the most excitable woman I ever
_did_ know.”
At last the audience consented to let the performers retire, and a few
minutes later Nancy held Letizia in her arms.
“Darling mother, was I good?”
“Darling child, you were perfect.”
“And where’s Mrs. Pottage?” Letizia asked. “Did she think I was good?”
“The dear old soul’s waiting to be invited into your dressing-room.”
“Mrs. Pottage! Mrs. Pottage!” Letizia cried, hugging the old lady.
“You’re coming back to supper with me, aren’t you?”
“Oh, no, duckie. I’ve got Mrs. Bugbird and pore Aggie Wilkinson waiting
to go back to Greenwich. We’re all going to take a cab to London
Bridge.”
“Oh, but they must both come to supper too. They must really. I’ll get
a car to drive you home. You _must_ all come. I won’t be long dressing.”
And, if it was possible for Nancy to feel any happier that night, it
was when her little daughter showed that success had not made her
heedless of old simple friends.
The very next day Nancy went round to see her agent.
“You don’t mean to tell me you want to get another engagement at once,
Miss O’Finn? Why, I should have thought you would have wanted to stay
and enjoy your daughter’s success. It was wonderful. What notices, eh?
By Jove, it’s refreshing nowadays to hear of anybody clicking like
that.”
“Oh, no, I’ve rested quite long enough,” Nancy said. “I want to be off
on tour again as soon as possible.”
The agent looked at his book.
“Well, I’m awfully sorry, Miss O’Finn, but I don’t believe there’s
anything just at the moment that would suit you.” He paused.
“Unless—but, no, of course, you don’t want to play that line of parts
yet.”
“What line?”
“Why, Charles Hamilton is losing Miss Wolsey who has been playing Mrs.
Malaprop, Mrs. Hardcastle, etc., with him for the last fifteen years.”
“You mean the old women?” Nancy asked.
“Quite—er—quite.”
“I would like to be with Charles Hamilton,” she said pensively. “And at
forty it’s time to strike out in a new line of parts.”
“Well, he’s playing at Croydon this week. If you would consider these
parts, why don’t you go and see him? It’s a pleasant company to be in.
Forty-two weeks, year in year out, and of course he occasionally has a
season in London. Nothing but Shakespeare and Old Comedy.”
Nancy did not hesitate. Now that her daughter was safely launched it
was time for her to be settling down. She went back to her rooms and
wrote a long letter to Mother Catherine about Letizia’s triumph. Then
she wrote to Charles Hamilton for an interview. She went to Croydon,
interviewed him, and a fortnight later she was playing with him at
Sheffield—Mrs. Candour in _The School for Scandal_ on Monday, the
Nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_ on Tuesday, Mrs. Malaprop in _The Rivals_
on Wednesday, Mistress Quickly in _The Merry Wives_ on Thursday,
nothing on Friday when _Twelfth Night_ was performed, but on Saturday
Mrs. Hardcastle in _She Stoops to Conquer_ at the matinée and at night
once more the Nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_.
Nancy no longer worried over her increasing tendency to increasing
portliness, and she never regretted joining Charles Hamilton’s company,
which now that Mrs. Hunter-Hart had retired represented the last
stronghold of the legitimate drama in Great Britain. So long as Charles
Hamilton went out on tour she determined to tour with him. The habit of
saving so much out of her salary every week was not given up because
Letizia was secure; indeed she saved more each week, because now that
she had taken to dowagers she could afford to ignore the changes of
fashion which had made dressing a problem so long as she was competing
for parts with younger women.
And then Letizia Fuller after enchanting London for a year abandoned
the stage for ever in order to marry the young Earl of Darlington.
The following letter to her mother explained her reasons:
125 Gordon Mansions,
Gordon Square,
W. C.
Sept. 15.
My darling darling Mother,
In a few days you will read in the papers that I am engaged to be
married to Lord Darlington. I haven’t said anything to you about this
before, because I wanted to make up my own mind entirely for myself.
He proposed to me first about two months ago, and though I loved him
I wondered if I loved him enough to give up the stage. You don’t
know how much I was enjoying being loved by the public. That’s what
I wondered if I could give up, not the ambition to become a great
actress. But I’ve come to the definite conclusion that I’m not really
so very ambitious at all. I think that simple happiness is the best,
and my success at the Vanity was really a simple happiness. It was
the being surrounded by hundreds of jolly people, every one of whom
I liked and who liked me. But I don’t think I should ever want to be
a wonderful Lady Macbeth, and thrill people by the actress part of
me. I’m not really acting at the Vanity. I’m just being myself and
enjoying it.
Of course, people might say that if marriage with an earl is simple
happiness then simple happiness is merely social ambition. But I
assure you that unless I loved Darlington I would not dream of
marrying him. He’s not very rich, and apart from the pleasure of
being a countess it’s no more than marrying any good-looking, simple,
country squire. The only problems for me were first to find out if
I loved him as much as I loved the public and being loved by them,
and secondly to know if he would agree that all the children should
be Catholics. Well, I do know that I love him more than I love the
public and I do know that I want his love more than I want the love
of the public. And he agreed at once about the children.
Thanks to you, darling, I’m not likely to seem particularly out of
place in my new part. Perhaps it’s only now that I realise what
you’ve done for me all these years. You shall always be proud of me.
I do realise too what dear Mother Catherine and the nuns have done
for me. I’m writing to her by this post to try to express a little of
my gratitude.
Darling mother, I’m so happy and I love you so dearly.
Your own
Letizia.
Three days later, the engagement of the beloved Lettie Fuller gave the
press one of those romantic stories so dear and so rightly dear to
it. Two days after the announcement Nancy received from Caleb Fuller
a letter addressed to her care of Miss Lettie Fuller, at the Vanity
Theatre.
The Towers,
Lower Bilkton,
Cheshire.
Sept. 18, 1911.
My dear Nancy,
I’ve been intending to write to you for a long time now to invite
you and Lettie to come and stay with us. But this new house which I
have just built has taken longer to get ready than I expected. It’s
situated in very pretty country about fifteen miles from Brigham,
and my architect has made a really beautiful miniature castle which
everybody admires. I presented dear old Lebanon House to the Borough
of Brigham to be used as an up-to-date lunatic asylum which was badly
required in the district.
Trixie and I do so very much hope that you and Lettie will come
and stay with us and spend a quiet time before the wedding takes
place, of which by the way we have read. You haven’t met Trixie yet,
and it’s always such a disappointment to her. But I’m sure you’ll
understand what a mess we’ve been in with building. I want you to
meet Norman too. Do you know, he’s fifteen. Doesn’t time fly? He’s at
Rossall, and I’ve made up my mind to give him the chance his father
never had and let him go to the University.
Are you interested in gardening? Trixie is a great gardener and
spends all her time with her roses. Now, I think I’ve given you most
of our news, and we are waiting anxiously to hear you are going to
give us the pleasure of your visit. Poor Aunt Achsah and Aunt Thyrza
are both dead. I would have sent you a notice of the funerals if I
had known your address.
With every good wish for your happiness and for the happiness of dear
little Lettie,
Your affectionate brother-in-law,
Caleb Fuller.
To this Nancy sent back a postcard:
Hell is paved with good intentions, Caleb!
It is tempting to prolong this with an account of Letizia’s wedding and
to relate what Mrs. Pottage wore at it and what she said when Lord
Darlington kissed her good-bye, before he and Letizia set out on their
honeymoon. It is tempting to dwell on the wit and the beauty of Letizia
Darlington and still more tempting to enlarge upon her happiness. But
she and her husband belong too much to the present to be written about
and this tale of over eighty years is already too long. Yet, one more
letter must be printed.
C/o Charles Hamilton’s
Shakespeare-Sheridan Company.
Princess’s Theatre,
Bristol.
Dec. 3, 1913.
Darling Letizia,
I’m so overjoyed you’re glad to have a second little boy, though I
hope you’ll have a little girl soon. You are a dear child to want me
to give up acting and settle down with you at Vipont for the rest of
my life. But you know, I am still comparatively young, only 44, and
from every point of view I think it is better that I should go on
acting. I am very happy with Mr. Hamilton, and the life on tour suits
me. Moreover, it amuses me to feel that one day I may have quite a
nice little nest egg for this new little boy who will be a younger
son, and I know that Vipont requires all the money you’ve got to keep
it up properly. God bless you, my darling, and let me go on acting
quietly in this very pleasant old-fashioned company which is more
like a family party than anything else.
My dear love to all of you.
Your loving
Mother.
And up and down the length of England, in and out of Wales, over
to Ireland, and across the border into Scotland Nancy O’Finn still
wandered.
THE END
—————————————— End of Book ——————————————
Transcriber’s Note (continued)
This book contains many intentional misspellings of words and names.
They appear in the dialogue and correspondence of certain characters
and are used by the author as a literary device. These misspellings
have been left as they appear in the original publication.
Similarly, exclamations and dialogue in Italian have also been left
unchanged.
For the rest of the text, archaic spelling and inconsistencies in
capitalisation or hyphenation have been left unchanged except where
noted below. Other minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note.
Page 19 – “lovebirds” changed to “love-birds” (a cageful of
love-birds)
Page 57 – “sunsplashed” changed to “sun-splashed” (on a sun-splashed
piazza)
Page 149 – “parlour-maid” changed to “parlourmaid” (an elderly
parlourmaid)
There are a small number of footnotes in chapters I and III which
provide an English translation of some Italian word or phrases that
appear in the text. Each footnote is placed immediately below the
paragraph in which it is referenced.