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.