"And when are you coming back--when will the Lyceum be in its rightful
hands again? I refuse to go there till you come back...."
* * * * *
One of those little things almost too good to be true happened at
the close of the Drury Lane matinée. A four-wheeler was hailed for
me by the stage-door keeper, and my daughter and I drove off to Lady
Bancroft's in Berkeley Square to leave some flowers. Outside the
house, the cabman told my daughter that in old days he had often
driven Charles Kean from the Princess Theatre, and that sometimes the
little Miss Terrys were put inside the cab too and given a lift! My
daughter thought it such an extraordinary coincidence that the old
man should have come to the stage door of Drury Lane by a mere chance
on my Jubilee day, that she took his address, and I was to send him a
photograph and remuneration. But I promptly lost the address, and was
never able to trace the old man.
[Illustration: 150 GRAFTON STREET
THE HOUSE WHERE HENRY IRVING LIVED DURING THE PERIOD OF HIS LYCEUM
MANAGEMENT]
I was often asked during these Jubilee days, "how I felt about it all,"
and I never could answer sensibly. The strange thing is that I don't
know even now what was in my heart. Perhaps it was one of my chief joys
that I had not to say good-bye at any of the celebrations. I could
still speak to my profession as a fellow-comrade on the active list and
to the public as one still in their service.
All the time I knew perfectly well that the great show of honour and
"friending" was not for me alone. Never for one instant did I forget
this, nor that the light of the great man by whose side I had worked
for a quarter of a century was still shining on me from his grave.
* * * * *
It is commonly known, I think, that Henry Irving's health first began
to fail in 1896.
He went home to Grafton Street after the first night of the revival
of "Richard III." and slipped on the stairs, injuring his knee. With
characteristic fortitude, he struggled to his feet unassisted and
walked to his room. This made the consequences of the accident far more
serious, and he was not able to act for weeks.
It was a bad year at the Lyceum.
In 1898, when we were on tour, he caught a chill. Inflammation of the
lungs, bronchitis, pneumonia followed. His heart was affected. He was
never really well again.
When I think of his work during the next seven years, I could weep!
Never was there a more admirable, extraordinary worker; never was any
one more splendid-couraged and patient.
The seriousness of his illness in 1898 was never really known. He
nearly died.
"I am still fearfully anxious about H," I wrote to my daughter at the
time. "It will be a long time at the best before he gains strength....
But now I do hope for the best. I'm fairly well so far. All he wants is
for me to keep my health, not my head. He knows I'm doing that! Last
night I did three acts of Sans-Gêne and Nance Oldfield thrown in! That
is a bit too much--awful work--and I can't risk it again.
"A telegram just came: 'Steadily improving.' ... You should have seen
Norman[I] as Shylock! It was not a bare 'get-through.' It was--the
first night--an admirable performance, as well as a plucky one.... H.
is more seriously ill than anyone dreams.... His look! Like the last
act of Louis XI."
[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS BECKET
THE PART IN WHICH IRVING MADE HIS LAST APPEARANCE ON OCTOBER 13, 1905,
THE NIGHT OF HIS DEATH]
In 1902, on the last provincial tour that we ever went together, he
was ill again, but he did not give in. One night when his cough was
rending him, and he could hardly stand up for weakness, he acted so
brilliantly and strongly that it was easy to believe in Christian
Science "treatment." Strange to say, a newspaper man noticed the
splendid power of his performance that night and wrote of it with
uncommon discernment--a _provincial_ critic, by the way.
In London, at the time, they were always urging Henry Irving to produce
new plays by new playwrights! But in the face of the failure of most of
the new work, and of his departing strength--and of the extraordinary
support given him in the old plays (during this 1902 tour we took
£4,000 at Glasgow in one week!)--Henry took the wiser course in doing
nothing but the old plays to the end of the chapter.
I realised how near, not only the end of the chapter, but the end of
the book was when he was taken ill at Wolverhampton in the spring of
1905.
We had not acted together for more than two years then, and times were
changed indeed.
I went down to Wolverhampton when the news of his illness reached
London. I arrived late and went to an hotel. It was not a good hotel,
nor could I find a very good florist when I got up early the next
day and went out with the intention of buying Henry some flowers. I
wanted some bright-coloured ones for him--he had always liked bright
flowers--and this florist dealt chiefly in white flowers--_funeral_
flowers.
At last I found some daffodils--my favourite flower. I bought a bunch,
and the kind florist, whose heart was in the right place if his flowers
were not, found me a nice simple glass to put it in. I knew the sort of
vase that I should find at Henry's hotel.
I remembered, on my way to the doctor's--for I had decided to see the
doctor first--that in 1892, when my dear mother died, and I did not
act for a few nights, when I came back, I found my room at the Lyceum
filled with daffodils. "To make it look like sunshine," Henry said.
The doctor talked to me quite frankly.
"His heart is dangerously weak," he said.
"Have you told him?" I asked.
"I had to, because, the heart being in that condition, he must be
careful."
"Did he understand _really_?"
"Oh, yes. He said he quite understood."
(Yet, a few minutes later when I saw Henry, and begged him to remember
what the doctor had said about his heart, he exclaimed: "Fiddle! It's
not my heart at all! It's my _breath_!" Oh, the ignorance of great men!)
"I also told him," the Wolverhampton doctor went on, "that he must not
work so hard in future."