The boy Hamlet failed to attract the public. After two weeks on Broadway
the notice went up. The Company was to reorganize, which, in this
instance, meant reducing expenses--and "back to the woods." Will agreed
to double the King with the Ghost for a small rise of salary and the
condition that I be added to the roster. In return for my railroad fares
I played one of the strolling players and the Player-Queen. The Company
made one night stands only; we made early and long jumps to
out-of-the-way towns, which Will declared were not on the map. The
hotels were often so bad that we were driven to patronizing the village
grocer, and to supplement our meals with chafing-dish messes. Through
rain, snow and slush we plodded our way to the railroad stations;
sometimes there was a hack and the women rode back and forth. The
theatres were cold and the dressing-rooms filthy. The stage entrance
invariably gave upon a foul-smelling alley, and a penetrating draught
swept the stage when the curtain was up. Once, after Will in the
character of the King had been killed by Hamlet and lay dead upon the
stage, he sneezed explosively. The audience appeared to enjoy the
situation. But, in spite of the physical discomforts and the stultifying
grind, we were happy--we were together.
By the end of the season we had saved almost three hundred dollars. Then
Will played a few weeks with a summer stock company--a "summer snap," as
it is termed--and in the autumn we were able to make a stand for the
much-desired joint engagement.
When the Company gathered at the railroad station bound for a city of
the middle West, it more resembled a family party than a theatrical
organization. The manager himself played a part, and his wife was the
lady villain. The comedienne and the stage carpenter were man and wife,
and the leading lady--a girl not much older than I--was chaperoned by
her mother. Will was the leading man and I the ingenue. There was the
prospect of a pleasant season ahead. I smiled a little contemptuously
when I thought of Miss Burton's terrible arraignment of the stage. She
had been unfortunate in her association, that was all, I told myself.
The comedienne and I shared dressing-rooms. She was a beautiful woman
with a strain of Latin blood. I loved her from the first moment I met
her. I was disappointed in her husband; her superior breeding and
education caused me to wonder at her choice. Later, when I better
understood the needs of the woman, I grew to like him; he was
clean-minded and sincere--virtues I later discovered to be rare ones
among actors.
It was about the second week of the season when our family party first
showed signs of incompatibility. There had been some gossip connecting
the leading lady's name with that of the manager, but as she was
protected by her mother it appeared to me ridiculous and unwarranted.
One night, as the curtain fell on the first act, the manager's wife
ordered the leading lady's mother out of the wings. Immediately there
followed a war of high-pitched voices which penetrated the walls of our
aerial dressing-room. The curtain was held and the orchestra played its
third overture.
During the wait Margherita, my dressing-room mate, told me the
circumstances of the case. The leading lady's mother was the "friend" of
the "angel" of the Company; in this capacity she assumed privileges
which were galling to the manager's wife. Adding to this the fact that
her husband was too obviously interested in the leading lady, the
outbreak was not to be wondered at. The manager himself was one of those
round, flabby men, suggestive of a fat, spineless worm. Physique is
often coindicant of character.
This night the mother had been more obnoxious than usual. It was her
habit to stand in the wings while the manager's wife was on the scene,
and by petty distractions to goad the actress to expression.
Gradually members of the Company were drawn into the dissension; it was
an intolerable situation. Our sympathies were with the manager's wife,
but we diplomatically held aloof. Matters finally reached a climax. One
night during the performance there was a stage wait. In vain Will and
the heavy man filled in the hiatus. The manager's wife had surprised the
leading lady in the arms of her husband somewhere behind the scenes, and
thereupon slapped the girl's face. A moment later she came upon the
stage to play her "big" scene; she was labouring under great emotion,
and I thought she had never acted so well. In a speech to me (I played
her daughter)--it was part of the stage business that I take her hand in
mine; I am not sure that I did not press her hand in silent sympathy.
She drew me towards her; in another moment the lady villain was sobbing
in my arms, and there was an emotional storm not indicated in the
manuscript of the author. I led her up stage as the house fairly rose to
her splendid acting. When the storms of applause had died away we went
on with the scene as if nothing had happened.
I wonder why it is that women invariably punish their own sex and exempt
the man? Do they instinctively demand a higher code of honour from their
kind while meekly acquiescent to the conventional license for men?
Subsequently the "angel" joined the Company, and, to all appearances, an
adjustment was reached. For a time peace was restored. The leading lady
assumed an air of injured innocence, and left off rouging her cheeks to
heighten the effect. Then, suddenly--or gradually, I never realized how
it came about--it became obvious to all that the leading lady was
"making a play" for Will. Her attentions became so marked that the men
of the Company chaffed him about it, declaring the manager would
presently challenge him to mortal combat, or--and what was more
likely--discharge him from the Company. Will accepted their allusions in
good part, but I observed the subject was distasteful to him. To me he
called the woman "a little fool," and was irritated with being placed in
so ridiculous a position. Indeed I think Will suffered as much as I did.
Without being rude or boorish, there was nothing he could do to check
her advances. She was planning her _debut_ as a star the following
season, and made Will a proposition to become her leading man; she
consulted him concerning the new plays which were being submitted to
her, and planned for the current season special matinees of classic
plays with which Will was familiar. She called him to preliminary
rehearsal and discussions in her rooms at the hotel; sometimes, between
the acts of the performance, called him to her dressing-room, where she
received him in a state of _neglige_. New bits of stage business were
introduced, or the old elaborated; she would run her fingers through
his hair, or prolong the kisses which the role demanded; or, in his
embrace, she would draw her body close to his and writhe about him to a
point of indecency. In countless, intangible ways she brought her
blandishments to bear upon him. Will declared she was playing him
against the manager, whose relations with her had become strained since
his wife had interfered. In all things she was aided and abetted by her
mother, who fawned on Will and made his position the more equivocal. My
own emotions were confused; it was inconceivable that I should be
jealous of the woman. No, the sensation she aroused was nothing more
than disgust. To be jealous of my husband connoted a lack of faith, and
he had done nothing to betray my trust in him.
Jealousy had always appeared to me a debasing and an undignified
emotion.... I resented the position in which my husband was placed; I
would not add to his discomfiture by hectoring. I had promised myself
when I married that never should I be jealous when I saw my husband
making stage-love to another woman--perhaps in the back of my mind was
the hope that I should always be the other woman, his leading lady.
Nevertheless, I was determined to stand the test without flinching. It
was high time that I began to realize that the conditions which
confronted me were but a part of the game--the _game_! The word was
reminiscent of Miss Burton. I fought down the suggestion blindly,
passionately.... I began to dread going to the theatre; often, while I
was making up, I found Margherita's eyes fastened wistfully upon
me--they told how she longed to comfort me. Unhappily I could not talk
about the thing which was troubling me. What was there to say? There are
emotions which never find tangible expression. Then the idea of asking
my husband to resign from the Company suggested itself. I endeavoured to
look at the question from a material standpoint: it would not be easy to
find another engagement in mid-season, besides, there were the expensive
railroad fares back to New York--we were then touring California--and
probably another separation....
Perhaps it was the strain of hard travel, or it may have been the
certainty of my condition which I had heretofore only suspected, or a
combination of both, which made me lose my self-control. I had always
believed strongly in the influence of suggestion upon the unborn child,
and the unclean atmosphere in which I was living preyed upon my mind
until it became an obsession. I grew to hate the woman and her
witch-like mother. We had had some racking railroad jumps, and the loss
of sleep was telling on every member of the Company; the leading lady
was stimulating on champagne. Her mother stood in the wings, bottle and
glass in hand, and applied the restorative whenever the girl came off
the stage. One night, under the influence of the wine, she became more
brazen in her advances to Will; she took liberties which made even her
mother, watching in the wings, gasp with amusement. Something she said
_sotto voce_ to her mother reached my ears. I began to watch her. As the
act progressed she elaborated the detail with ever-increasing audacity,
and, when the action required her to throw herself in Will's arms, she
flung me a look of laughing defiance, coincident with a broad wink to
her mother--old Hecate of the wings--then fed upon his lips like a
vampire sucking blood.
I am not sure that I responded to the cue which some seconds later
brought her into my arms. (We were fellow Nihilists under arrest.) The
contact of her hand against mine ... Will told me afterwards he would
never have believed me possessed of such physical strength. I choked
her.... I drove my nails into her flesh.... I dragged her to the wings
and beat her with my fists.... I vented upon her the long pent-up
fury.... Oh, the shame, the ignominy of it! I, who resented a vicious
influence upon my unborn child--I, its mother, had descended to the
level of a fishwife!... It was Margherita who brought me back to
consciousness; it was she who restored to me a modicum of my
self-respect. I believe she was secretly pleased at what I had done.
That night, as she sat beside my bed, she told me something of herself.
As a young girl she possessed a wonderful singing voice. Her
parents--poor Italians--who came to America when she was a babe in arms,
could not afford proper masters. She went on the stage to support
herself, hoping to earn enough to pay for her musical education. Her
beauty attracted a patron "of the arts"; at least, that is the way he
was referred to in the newspapers. But it was not Margherita's art that
he cared about--it was the woman. He considered his money a fair
exchange for her body; Margherita was not willing to pay the price. She
struggled on, and one day, after several years of hazardous existence,
she found herself stranded in a far Western city without money, without
friends. In a state of despondency she had walked to the outskirts of
the town, and there in a lonely wood she sat down to fight out a choice
between life and death. In a moment of emotion she burst forth into
song; her troubled soul found solace in Gounod's _Ave Maria_. At the end
her voice broke, and she sobbed. A hand was laid on her shoulder. It was
a big hand, strong and sinewy. The man that went with it was big--"big
all the way through," Margherita said proudly. They were married not
long after; ever since he had remained at her side, helping to fight for
a clean career ... making her life's work his.... Dear Margherita! I can
see you now, with your glorious black eyes, your coronet of raven hair
with the poppies over your pretty ear.... Oh, the pity of it! Weakened
by the hardships and privation her life entailed, she died a few years
later....
When Will came into the room that night, he held a paper in his hand. It
was our resignation. His eyes twinkled with humour when he told
Margherita that he was taking the bull by the horns, and sparing us the
ignominy of dismissal. I was glad to see he was not angry with me. Then
Margherita whispered something into his ear. He came to the bed and took
me in his arms, and what he said concerns only a man and wife....
Margherita stole away, but before she went she kissed us both, and there
were tears in her eyes.
On the way back to New York, Will and I sat hand in hand looking out at
the monotonous stretch of desert-land. "I'm glad to have it over--I'm
glad that's out of our life," he reiterated, pressing my hand. "It was
rotten!" Suddenly he burst out laughing. He continued long and
sonorously. "Do you know, girlie," he said, "do you know that with a
little more fullness of figure and a pair of two-inch heels, you'd make
a grand Lady Macbeth? Phew!" and he laughed again.