I was at an age--nearly eighteen now--when girls want and need chums and
confidantes. I was bubbling over with impulses that needed an outlet,
and only foolish young things like myself were capable of understanding
me. With Ellen gone, I sought and found girl friends I believed to be
congenial.
My sister Ada, because of her superiority in age and character to me,
would not condescend to chum with me. Nevertheless, she heartily
disapproved of my choice in friends, and constantly reiterated that my
tastes were low. Life was a serious matter to Ada, who had enormous
ambitions, and had already been promised a position on our chief
newspaper, to which she had contributed poems and stories. To Ada, I was
a frivolous, silly young thing, who needed constantly to be squelched,
and she undertook to do the squelching, unsparingly, herself.
“Since we are obliged,” said Ada, “to live in a neighborhood with people
who are not our equals, I think it a good plan to keep to ourselves.
That’s the only way to be exclusive. Now, that Gertie Martin” (Gertie
was my latest friend) “is a noisy American girl. She talks through her
nose, and is always criticizing the Canadians and comparing them with
the Yankees. As for that Lu Fraser” (another of my friends) “she can’t
even speak the Queen’s English properly, and her uncle keeps a saloon.”
Though I stoutly defended my friends, Ada’s nagging had an unconscious
effect upon me, and for a time I saw very little of the girls.
Then one evening, Gertie met me on the street, and told me that, through
her influence, Mr. Davis (also an American) had decided to ask me to
take a part in “Ten Nights in a Bar Room,” which was to be given at a
“Pop” by the Montreal Amateur Theatrical Club, of which he was the head.
I was so excited and happy about this that I seized hold of Gertie and
danced with her on the sidewalk, much to the disgust of my brother
Charles, who was passing with his new wife.
Mr. Davis taught elocution and dramatic art, and he was a man of
tremendous importance in my eyes. He was always getting up concerts and
entertainments, and no amateur affair in Montreal seemed right without
his efficient aid. The series of “Pops” he was now giving were
patronized by all the best people of the city and he had an imposing
list of patrons and patronesses. Moreover the plays were to be produced
in a real theatre, not merely a hall, and so they had somewhat the
character of professional performances.
To my supreme joy, I was given the part of the drunkard’s wife, and
there were two glorious weeks in which we rehearsed and Mr. Davis
trained us. He said one day that I was the “best actress” of them all,
and he added that although he charged twenty-five dollars a month to his
regular pupils he would teach me for ten, and if I couldn’t afford that,
for five, and if there was no five to be had, then for nothing. I
declared fervently that I would repay him some day, and he laughed, and
said: “I’ll remind you when that ‘some day’ comes.”
Well, the night arrived, and I was simply delirious with joy. I learned
how to “make up,” and I actually experienced stage fright when I first
went on, but I soon forgot myself.
When I was crawling on the floor across the stage, trying to get
something to my drunken husband, a voice from the audience called out:
“Oh, Mar-ri-on! Oh, Ma-ri-on! You’re on the bum! You’re on the bum!”
It was my little brother Randle, who, with several small boys had got
free seats away up in front, by telling the ticket man that his sister
was playing the star part. I vowed mentally to box his ears good and
hard when I got home.
When the show was over, Mr. Davis came to the dressing room, and said,
right before all the girls:
“Marion, come to my studio next week, and we’ll start those lessons, and
when we put on the next ‘Pop,’ which I believe will be ‘Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,’ we will find a good part for you.”
“Oh, Mr. Davis,” I cried, “are you going to make an actress of me?”
“We’ll see! We’ll see!” he said, smiling. “It will depend on yourself,
and if you are willing to study.”
“I’ll sit up all night long and study,” I assured him.
“The worst thing you could do,” he answered. “We want to save these
peaches,” and he pinched my cheek.
Mr. Davis did lots of things that in other men would have been
offensive. He always treated the girls as if they were children. People
in Montreal thought him “sissified,” but I am glad there are some men
more like the gentler sex.
So I began to take lessons in elocution, and dramatic art. Oh! but I was
a happy girl in those days. It is true, Mr. Davis was very strict, and
he would make me go over lines again and again before he was satisfied,
but when I got them finally right and to suit him, he would rub his
hands, blow his nose and say:
“Fine! Fine! There’s the real stuff in you.”
[Illustration: And what with Nora crying with sympathy and
excitement.]
He once said that I was the only pupil he had who had an atom of promise
in her. He declared Montreal peculiarly lacking in talent of that sort,
though he said he had searched all over the place for even a “spark of
fire.” I, at least, loved the work, was deadly in earnest and, finally,
so he said, I was pretty, and that was something.
We studied “Camille,” “The Marble Heart” and “Romeo and Juliet.” All of
my spare time at home, I spent memorizing and rehearsing. I would get a
younger sister, Nora, who was absorbedly interested, to act as a dummy.
I would make her be Armand or Armand’s father.
“Now, Nora,” I would say, “when I come to the word ‘Her,’ you must say:
‘Camille! Camille’!”
Then I would begin, addressing Nora as Armand:
“You are not speaking to a cherished daughter of society, but a
woman of the world, friendless and fearless. Loved by those whose
vanity she gratifies, despised by those who ought to pity
her--her--_Her_--”
I would look at Nora and repeat: “Her--!” and Nora would wake up from
her trance of admiration of me and say:
“Camel! Camel!”
“No, no!” I would yell, “_That_ is--” (pointing to the right--Mr.
Davis called that “Dramatic action”) “_your_ way! _This_ way--”
(pointing to the left) “is mine!”
Then throwing myself on the dining-room sofa, I would sob and moan and
cough (Camille had consumption, you may recall), and what with Nora
crying with sympathy and excitement, and the baby generally waking up,
there would be an awful noise in our house.