"You have ruined the pleasure of my trip."
"Miss Morris, that's the first untruth you ever told me. Here,
please" and he handed me a packet of new books.
"Thanks!" I cried and then flew down the stairs. Glancing up, I saw
him looking earnestly after me. "Did you speak?" I asked hurriedly.
"That gown fits well--don't spoil it with sea-water!"
And half-laughing, half-vexed, but wholly frightened at the charge
laid upon me, I sprang into the carriage, to hold hands with mother
all the way down to the crowded dock.
One day I received in London this note from Mr. Augustin Daly:
"MY DEAR MISS MORRIS: I find no letter here. Impatiently, A. D."
And straightway I answered:
"MY DEAR MR. DALY: I find no actor here. Afflictedly, C. M."
And lo, on my very last night in London, after our return from Paris,
I found the exceptional leading man.
Ten days later, on a hot September morning, I was hurling myself upon
my mother in all the joy of home-coming when I saw leaning against the
clock on the mantel the unmistakable envelope, bearing the impious
black scriggle that generally meant a summons. I opened it and read:
"Cleaners in full possession here--look our for soap and pails, and
report directly at box-office--don't fail! A. DALY."
I confess I was angry, for I was so tired and the motion of the
steamer was still with me, and besides my own small affairs were of
more interest to me just then than the greater ones of the manager.
However, my two years of training held good. In an hour I was picking
my way across wet floors, among mops and pails toward the sanity and
dry comfort of Mr. Daly's office. He held my hands closely for a
moment, then broke out complainingly: "You've behaved nicely,
haven't you? Not a single line sent to tell what you were seeing,
doing, thinking?"
"I beg your pardon--I distinctly remember sending you a line." He
scowled blackly. I went on: "I thought your note to me was meant as a
model, so I copied it carefully."
Formerly this sort of thing had kept us at daggers drawn, but now he
only laughed, and shaking his hand impatiently to and fro, said: "Stop
it! ah, stop it! So you could not find even one leading man worth
while, eh?"
"Yes--just one!"
"Then why on earth didn't you write me?"
"Couldn't--I only found him on our last night in London."
Mr. Daly's face was alight in a moment. He caught up a scrap of paper
and a pencil, and, after the manner of the inexperienced interviewer,
began: "What's he like?"
"Tall, flat-backed, square-shouldered, free-moving, and wears a long
dress-coat--that shibboleth of a gentleman--as if that had been his
custom since ever he left his mother's knee."
Mr. Daly ejaculated "good!" at each clause, and scribbled his impish
small scribble on the bit of paper which rested on his palm.
"What did he do?" he asked eagerly.
"He didn't do," I answered lucidly.
"What do you mean, Miss Morris?"
"What I say, Mr. Daly."
"But if the man doesn't do anything, what is there remarkable about
him?"
"Why, just that. It was what he didn't do that produced the effect."
"A-a-ah," said Mr. Daly, with long-drawn satisfaction, scribbling
rapidly. "I understand, and you thought, miss, that you could not
judge an actor for me! What was the play?"
"Bulwer's 'Money,' and Marie Wilton was superb as--"
"Never mind Marie Wilton," he interrupted impatiently, writing, "but
Alfred Evelyn is such an awful prig."
"Isn't he?" I acquiesced, "but this actor made him human. You see,
Mr. Daly, most Evelyns are like a bottle of gas-charged water:
forcibly restrained for a time, then there's a pop and a bang, and in
wild freedom the water is foaming thinly over everything in sight.
This man didn't kowtow in the early acts, but was curt, cold, showing
signs of rebellion more than once, and in the big scene, well--!"
"Yes?" asked Mr. Daly eagerly.
"Well, that was where he didn't do. He didn't bang nor rave nor work
himself up to a wild burst of tears!" ("Thank God!" murmured Mr. Daly
and scribbled fast.) "He told the story of his past sometimes
rapidly, sometimes making a short, absolute pause. When he reached
the part referring to his dead mother, his voice fell two tones, his
words grew slower, more difficult, and finally stopped. He left some
of his lines out entirely--actually forcing the people to do his work
in picturing for themselves his sorrow and his loss--while he sat
staring helplessly at the floor, his closed fingers slowly tightening,
trying vainly to moisten his dry lips. And when the unconsciously
sniffling audience broke suddenly into applause, he swiftly turned his
head aside, and with the knuckle of his forefinger brushed away two
tears. Ah, but that knuckle was clever! His fingertips would have
been girly-girly or actory, but the knuckle was the movement of a man,
who still retained something of his boyhood about him."
Mr. Daly's gray, dark-lashed eyes were almost black with pleased
excitement as he asked: "What's his name?"
"Coghlan--Charles Coghlan."
"Why, he's Irish?"
"So are you--Irish-American," I answered defensively, pretending to
misunderstand him.
"Well, you ought to be Irish yourself!" he said sternly.
"I did my best," I answered modestly. "I was born on St. Patrick's
Day!"
"In the mornin'?" he asked.
"The very top of it, sor!"
"More power to you then!" at which we both laughed, and I rose to go.
As I picked up my sunshade, I remarked casually: "Ah, but I was glad
to have seen, for once at least, England's great actor."
"This Coghlan?"
"Good gracious, no!"
"What, there is another, and you have not mentioned him--after my
asking you to report any exceptional actor you saw?"
"I beg your pardon, sir. You asked me to report every exceptional
leading man. This actor's leading man's days are past. He is a star
by the grace of God's great gifts to him, and his own hard work."
"Well!" snapped Mr. Daly. "Even a star will play where money enough
is offered him, will he not?"
"There's a legend to that effect, I believe.'
"Will you favour me, Miss Morris, with this actor's name?"
"Certainly. He is billed as Mr. Henry Irving."
Mr. Daly looked up from his scribbling. "Irving? Irving? Is not he
the actor that old man Bateman secured as support for his daughters?"
"Yes, that was the old gentleman's mistaken belief; but the public
thought differently, and laboured with Papa Bateman till it convinced
him that his daughters were by way of supporting Mr. Irving."
A grim smile came upon the managerial lips as be asked. "What does he
look like?"
"Well, as a general thing, I think he will look wonderfully like the
character he is playing. Oh, don't frown so! He--well, he is not
beautiful, neither can I imagine him a pantaloon actor, but his face
will adapt itself splendidly to any strong character make-up, whether
noble or villainous." Mr. Daly was looking pleased again. I went on:
"He aspires, I hear, to Shakespeare, but there is one thing of which I
am sure. He is the mightiest man in melodrama to-day!"
"How long did it take to convince you of that, Miss Morris? One
act--two--the whole five acts?"
"His first five minutes on the stage, sir. His business wins applause
without the aid of words, and you know what that means."
Again that elongated "A-a-ah!" Then, "Tell me of that five minutes,"
and he thrust a chair toward me.
"Oh," I cried, despairingly, "that will take so long, and will only
bore you.
"Understand, please, nothing under heaven that is connected with the
stage can ever bore me." Which statement was unalloyed truth.
"But, indeed," I feebly insisted, only to be brought up short with the
words, "Kindly allow me to judge for myself."
To which I beamingly made answer: "Did I not beg you to do that months
ago?" But he was growing vexed, and curtly commanded:
"I want those first five minutes--what he did, and how he did it, and
what the effect was, and then"--speaking dreamily--"I shall know--I
shall know."
Now at Mr. Daly's last long-drawn-out "A-a-ah," anent Mr. Irving's
winning applause without words, I believed an idea, new and novel, had
sprung into his mind, while his present rapt manner would tell anyone
familiar with his ways that the idea was rapidly becoming a plan. I
was wondering what it could be, when a sharp "Well?" startled me into
swift and beautiful obedience,
"You see, Mr. Daly, I knew absolutely nothing of the story of the play
that night. 'The Bells' were, I supposed, church-bells. In the first
act the people were rustic--the season winter--snow flying in every
time the door opened. The absent husband and father was spoken of by
mother and daughter, lover and neighbour. Then there were
sleigh-bells heard, whose jingle stopped suddenly. The door
opened--Mathias entered, and for the first time winter was made truly
manifest to us, and one drew himself together instinctively, for the
tall, gaunt man at the door was cold-chilled, just to the very marrow
of his bones. Then, after general greetings had been exchanged, he
seated himself in a chair directly in the centre of the stage, a mere
trifle in advance of others in the scene, and proceeded to remove his
long leggings. He drew a great coloured handkerchief and brushed away
some clinging snow; then leaning forward, with slightly tremulous
fingers, he began to unfasten a top buckle. Suddenly the trembling
ceased, the fingers clenched hard upon the buckle, the whole body
became still, then rigid--it seemed not to breathe! The one sign of
life in the man was the agonisingly strained sense of hearing! His
tortured eyes saw nothing. Utterly without speech, without feeling,
he listened--breathlessly listened! A cold chill crept stealthily
about the roots of my hair, I clenched my hands hard and whispered to
myself: 'Will it come, good God, will it come, the thing he listens
for?' When with a wild bound, as if every nerve and muscle had been
rent by an electric shock, he was upon his feet; and I was answered
even before that suffocating cry of terror--'The bells! the
bells!'--and under cover of the applause that followed I said:
'Haunted! Innocent or guilty, this man is haunted!' And Mr. Daly, I
bowed my head to a great actor, for though fine things followed, you
know the old saying, that 'no chain is stronger than its weakest
link.' Well I always feel that no actor is greater than his
carefulest bit of detail."
Mr. Daly's pale face had acquired a faint flush of colour, "Thank
you!" he said, with real cordiality, and I was delighted to have
pleased him, and also to see the end of my troubles, and once more
took up the sun-shade.
"I think an actor like that could win any public, don't you?"
"I don't know," I lightly answered. "He is generally regarded as an
acquired taste."
"What do you mean?" came the sharp return.
"Why, you must have heard that Mr. Irving's eccentricities are not to
be counted upon the fingers of both hands?"
Mr. Daly lifted his brows and smiled a contented smile: "Indeed? And
pray, what are these peculiarities?"
"Oh, some are of the figure, some of movement, and some of delivery.
A lady told me over there that he could walk like each and every
animal of a Noah's ark; and people lay wagers as to whether London
will force him to abandon his elocutionary freaks, or he will force
London to accept them. I am inclined to back Mr. Irving, myself."
"What! What's that you say? That this fine actor you have described
has a marked peculiarity of delivery--of speech?"
"Marked peculiarities? Why, they are murderous! His strange
inflections, his many mannerisms are very trying at first, but be
conquers before--"
A cry stopped me--a cry of utter disappointment and anger! Mr. Daly
stood staring at his notes a moment, then he exclaimed violently:
"D--n! d--n! oh, d--n!!!" and savagely tore his scribbled-on paper
into bits and flung them on the floor.
Startled at his vexation, convulsed with suppressed laughter at the
infantile quality of his profanity, I ventured, in a shaking voice, "I
think I'd better go?"
"I think you had!" be agreed curtly; but as I reached the door he said
in his most managerial tone: "Miss Morris, it would be better for you
to begin with people's faults next time--"
But with the door already open I made bold to reply: "Excuse me, Mr.
Daly, but there isn't going to be any next time for me!"
And I turned and fled, wondering all the way home, as I have often
wondered since, what was the plan that went so utterly agley that day?
Mr. Coghlan he engaged after failing in his first effort, but that
other, greater plan; what was it?