The Savage Club.--“From Grave to Gay.”--Malden Crescent.--Irving,
the Hares, the Kendals, the Bancrofts and Tom Robertson.--“The
Dream of Eugene Aram.”--An old dance programme.--Artemus Ward.--Tom
Robertson’s struggle for fame.--My first appearance.--The North London
Collegiate School.--The famous Miss Buss.--Friends for life.--Lady
Carl Meyer.--A Shakespearean failure.--Saint Peter.--The ambitious
writing master.--Henry Pettitt.--Snubbing the leading lady.--The
Grossmiths.--A reluctant model.--Lionel Brough and my mother.--Barry
Sullivan.--A Zeppelin rehearsal.--Rival godparents.--Adelaide
Neilson.--Chirgwin.--The Carlton Dramatic Club.--My father’s fatal
illness.
As I look back and try to revive the memories of childhood, father
seems to me to have been always late, always with his pockets full of
papers, and always surrounded by clever, brilliant friends.
But while I was very proud of his popularity, it had its drawbacks, and
one of my earliest recollections is my indignant expostulation when he
failed to turn up at some children’s party.
“Your father couldn’t possibly get away in time,” explained my mother.
“He is talking business with his clever friends at the Savage Club.”
“I shouldn’t like _my_ husband to be a member of the Savage Club,” I
replied primly.
One of the founders of the Savage Club was my father’s great friend,
the veteran naturalist, W. B. Tegetmeier, who died in 1912 at the
great age of ninety-six. To-day many people seem to imagine that the
name “Savage” was adopted because the members were social or artistic
“savages,” and this idea is kept up by the barbaric weapons which hang
on the walls of the present club, but the “Savage” in the minds of the
club’s godfathers was Richard Savage, the somewhat disreputable and
drunken poet.
The original members used to meet in what would now be called a
pot-house off Drury Lane: most of them were contributors to “The
Train,” edited by Edmund Yates, and when it was proposed that they
should form themselves into a literary club other names were debated,
such as “The Johnson,” “The Addison,” and “The Goldsmith.” It was one
of the Broughs who suggested the name of “Savage.” In its early days
the club moved from tavern to tavern, and at last acquired premises
of its own in a ground floor flat of Savoy Mansions, and the only
qualification for membership was that a candidate must be a “working
man” in literature or art.
Tegetmeier’s books on poultry and on pheasants and pigeons are still
regarded as standard works.
On his sixty-sixth birthday the Savages gave the old gentleman a
dinner, and Horace Lennard, one of the members, later a member of the
staff of the old “Pink ’Un,” and later still one of the four original
members of the staff of “Town Topics”--the others being Colonel
Newnham-Davis, Arthur Binstead (“Pitcher”), and J. B. Booth--addressed
to him some lines of admonition in verse: “From Twenty-six to
Sixty-six,” which were afterwards printed and stuck in the Savage Club
scrapbook.
One verse alluded to Tegetmeier’s connection with “The Queen,” for
which paper he wrote the leader for many years. Some years later, when
the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII) was about to pay a
visit to the Club, an over zealous and over anxious committeeman cut
this verse out of the album, lest it should catch the eye of the Royal
visitor and give offence. That, at least, was his explanation, which
seemed ludicrous. Even in Queen Victoria’s days there were more Queens
than one.
Amongst the Savages my father was known by a curious nickname, which he
acquired in a curious way. Some man who owed him money died, leaving
him as payment for his debt a small monumental mason business at Abney
Park, which eventually turned out to be very prosperous.
This caused an enormous amount of chaff amongst the Savages, for my
father was at that time hard at work on a pantomime, so he was promptly
dubbed: “Charlie Millward, or From Grave to Gay.”
But there were compensations for his membership of the Savage.
With such a father the house at Malden Crescent became a regular
meeting place for many folk who were then or have since become famous:
Irving, the Hares, the Kendals, the Bancrofts--it was at Malden
Crescent that Sir Squire Bancroft first met Tom Robertson--were
constant visitors, and every Sunday evening certain members of the
Savage Club ate a huge hot-pot supper--one Sunday at the Millwards’
house, the next Sunday at Toole’s, the next at the Grossmiths’, and the
next at the Hollingsheads’.
And on the Sundays when the Millwards were entertaining, a small girl,
then known as “Cissie” Millward, would peep over the banisters to
watch the famous ones arrive and depart, and when all was safe steal
downstairs, and crouch outside the drawing-room door to listen to Mr.
Irving as he recited “The Dream of Eugene Aram.”
Later, when I was a little older and allowed inside the sacred room,
I heard him recite the “Dream,” and I can see him now, stretched on
the rug before the fire, his body slightly raised on one shoulder, and
his wonderful face resting on his hand, while his eyes shone in the
firelight like burning coals.
On those evenings little “Cissie” Millward did not always sleep the
peaceful sleep of childhood when she was sent up to bed after the
recitations!
But how she thrilled on those occasions, and how devoutly she
hero-worshipped those famous visitors!
Small wonder that I was early possessed with an intense love of acting,
and looked upon actors and actresses as gods and goddesses.
While turning out some old papers--should one keep old papers,
I wonder? Do the happy recollections always compensate for the
sorrowful?--I came across a little printed relic of a party given in
celebration of one of my very early birthdays, and the programme of
dances evokes a host of memories. Here it is:
The “Barnes” Quadrille.
The “Toole” Polka.
The “Polly Brough” Lancers.
The “Croft” Waltz.
The “Bessy Hollingshead” Quadrille.
The “Hingston” Galop.
The “Cremer” Polka.
The “Wilson” Schottische.
The “Burroughs” Lancers.
“Jessie Millward’s” Quadrille.
The names given to the dances are all those of the closest of the
family friends. Toole’s name needs no explanation: he had, by the way,
been the former tenant of our house.
Dear old “Johnny” Toole. With him died the last of the amusing
practical jokers of the ’sixties and ’seventies. And unlike so many
practical jokes, Toole’s were essentially harmless and amusing.
Everybody who was in Toole’s company for long was bound, sooner or
later, to be made an accessory to his pranks, and most of those
pranks have been written of often enough. Now and again someone would
undertake to show Toole how a practical joke really should be played,
and amongst such instructors was a well-known racing celebrity and
man-about-town.
Going into a Manchester hotel one evening during race week, with Toole
as his guest, the gentleman in his lordliest manner demanded to know
what liquid refreshment was provided for late-comers who were staying
in the hotel. The slightly bewildered night-porter reeled off a list
of the bottles of whisky, brandy, soda, beer and so forth left in his
charge.
“I buy the lot,” said Toole’s host. “Bring them to the smoke-room,” and
the puzzled attendant proceeded to set forth an extraordinary array of
bottles before the two eccentric gentlemen. Presently the late-coming
guests began to arrive, most of them thirsty after a long day’s racing,
and one by one, sooner than go drinkless to bed, they came to the
smoke-room to beg for a whisky and soda, where they were promptly
called upon to “amuse the company” by way of payment.
It was probably one of the quaintest impromptu smoking concerts ever
given, and Toole did his share.
The story got about Manchester, and while he was being shaved in a
local barber’s shop the barber expressed to Toole his delight at
shaving such a celebrity.
“I assure you, sir,” he said, “you’re such a favourite down here that
it’s a pity you can’t always be with us.”
The actor was properly pleased, and thanked his admirer modestly.
“Yes, sir,” continued the artist in soap, “I can assure you that all
you have to do is to settle down in Manchester and keep a public-house
and your fortune would be as good as made.”
The old Pump Room Hotel at Bath, which was the property of the
corporation, was one of Toole’s favourite country hotels, and on one
occasion when he was staying there John Billington, on entering his
room, noticed that the city arms were displayed on all the china.
Commenting on this, Billington remarked that it was not so in his room.
“Have you gout?” asked Toole.
“No, thank heavens.”
“Ah, that explains it,” said the old man. “In this place they only
grant the city arms to those who have gout.”
Which, after all, seems as good a reason for “honours” as most.
And how Toole loved to talk racing. Up to the very end he would have
his little bet every day, just as in the old times, when he would
exclaim, after backing a loser--and many losers did he back--“There
goes another row of stalls!”
There never was an actor-manager more beloved by his “boys and girls”
than John Toole, and he brought out many who came well to the front,
among them poor Lewis Waller, Seymour Hicks and C. M. Lowne, while Miss
Violet Vanbrugh was for long a member of Toole’s company.
On his death, after long years of lingering pain, one who knew him
well wrote of him: “In every sense of the word he was a good man and,
generous to a fault, his benevolence knew no bounds.”
It would be difficult to conceive of a finer or truer epitaph on a
lovable man.
The “Polly Brough” of that dance programme, Lionel Brough’s eldest
daughter, later became famous as that accomplished actress Mary Brough;
the gentleman whose name was borrowed for the lancers was Colman
Burroughs; the “Bessy Hollingshead” was the daughter of “Honest John,”
the founder of the Gaiety burlesque; and “Hingston” was the bosom
friend and agent of Artemus Ward, who was a regular visitor to the
house, and who one day presented my mother with the curious little cane
with which he used to lecture.
And immediately a sad memory arises.
We children were very fond of the thin, frail man with the luminous
eyes. My father heard that the great humorist had died in a hotel at
Southampton of consumption and that his body was to be placed in a
stable for the night, and promptly interfered. So it came about that,
hearing a commotion in the house near midnight, I crept down the
nursery stairs, and looking over the banisters was almost frozen with
fright as I saw a coffin being carried into the drawing-room. The next
morning my father took me to the florist and together we bought a large
bunch of violets. When we got home he took me into the drawing-room and
lifting me up told me to lay the violets on the coffin.
“Where is Mr. Ward’s heart?” I asked, and I placed the flowers where I
was told. Artemus Ward’s body was sent to America, to his mother, Mrs.
Brown, and on the coffin being opened my violets were found where I had
laid them.
One more sad childish memory and then we will turn to lighter things.
A frequent visitor was Tom Robertson, afterwards to achieve such fame
with “Society” and the plays which have given him his place for all
time in theatrical history.
But in those days fame was still out of sight, and poor Robertson was
undergoing a terrible struggle for a bare existence. One day he called
at the house about midday. My father was out, but my mother asked him
to join us at the children’s midday meal--there were seven of us--and
the dishes were appropriately substantial. A huge rice pudding was on
the table, and Robertson, after sitting for a while in silence, burst
into tears.
“My children are starving,” he sobbed, in answer to my mother’s
horrified questioning.
The Millward children had very little rice pudding that day, and my
mother’s larder was ransacked.
Shortly after, the great dramatist’s first wife died, practically of
starvation--and then came the first of his successes. Fate can be
terribly ironic.
But to turn to happier memories.
My positively first appearance on any stage was at the mature age of
five, when I appeared at the Theatre High Hill, 9, Malden Crescent, as
the drummer in “Bombastes Furioso.” The “Theatre High Hill” was the
drawing-room, and I am sorry to say that the drummer mutinied and was
carried off the stage screaming.
For the sake of other names than that of the mutinous drummer the
programme of this historic revival of the terrible tragedy may be
interesting to readers of an older generation, so I give it in full.
The list of dances is, to put it mildly, unusual.
THEATRE HIGH HILL,
9, Malden Crescent.
(Late 5, Eastcott Place.)
FRIDAY EVENING, 5TH JANUARY, 1866.
PROGRAMME.
The Entertainments will commence with
THE ARRIVAL OF THE COMPANY.
After which, the Terrible Tragedy of
BOMBASTES FURIOSO.
Bombastes Mr. Colman Burroughs.
Artax-oh-my-nose Mr. J. C. Brough.
Fusbos Dr. Strauss.
Castle Musician Mr. C. Millward.
Fifer Master Burroughs.
Drummer Miss Jessie Millward.
Distaffina Mrs. Colman Burroughs.
Soldiers, Punchbowl, Pipes, Boots, etc., etc.
THE NEW AND BEAUTIFUL SCENERY
(which must be SEEN to be believed)
By Messrs. Barnes, Brunton, etc.
THE LIMELIGHTS, SQUIBS AND CRACKERS
By Mr. E. Draper.
MASKS AND PROPERTIES
By Messrs. Archer, Prowse and Hood.
THE ELABORATE MACHINERY
By Mr. T. W. Robertson, C.E.
APPROPRIATE (D) MUSIC
By Mr. H. S. Leigh.
THE APPOINTMENTS
By Earl Russell.
COSTUMES by Mr. S. May. WIGS by Mr. Clarkson.
RUSTIC GATHERINGS (first time)
By Mr. Paul Bedford.
MR. J. C. BROUGH AND MR. HOLLINGSHEAD
Will perform several sleight-of-hand tricks in their usual good-natured
and slight-off-hand style.
PRIVATE WILLIAM BARLOW
Introduced by Mr. E. Draper.
MR. ANDREW HALLIDAY
Will oblige.
MR. J. L. TOOLE
Will be “at his Tricks.”
PAUL BEDFORD
Will introduce his Scotch Friends.
LIST OF DANCES.
QUADRILLE The Halliday, Brough and Jefferson.
POLKA The Whitehead, Bingham and Russell.
WALTZ The Nightingale and Pearson.
LANCERS The Croft, Ledger, Walker and Barnes.
POLKA The Archer, Draper, Fryer and Brown.
QUADRILLE The Hobbs, Du Terreaux and Thorpe.
GALOP The Strauss, Hollingshead and Brunton.
POLKA The Byron, Clark, Hare and Bancroft.
QUADRILLE The Toole, Bedford and Billington.
WALTZ The Greenhalgh and Grossmith.
SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY The Hughes, Henderson and Millward.
_Stage Manager_--Mr. Colman Burroughs.
_Prompter_--Mr. J. L. Toole.
_Call Boy_--Mr. Billington.
_Acting Manager_--Mr. C. Millward.
Doors open at 8, Performance commencing at 7, and terminating at
6 o’clock.
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.
But neither the stage-fright nor the resulting mutiny cured me of my
passion for the stage, and in secret I was always acting, living in
a little dream-world of my own, peopled by the most extraordinarily
beautiful and haughty fairy princesses, and the handsomest and humblest
and most devoted knights and squires.
Then came school.
I was sent to the North London Collegiate School, a huge institution
under the head-mistresship of the famous Miss Buss, a great character
in the scholastic circles of those days.
Miss Buss was an austere old maid, plump and excessively dignified, and
did not in the least appreciate my histrionic efforts when one awful
day she caught me imitating her. “Impersonations of celebrities,” now
so popular, were not in the curriculum of the North London Collegiate
School.
Frankly, I loathed school. All my life I have been in a hurry, and I
hated to be compelled to move slowly and by rule.
But my first day at school had its compensations. I found myself
sitting next to a pretty little girl who seemed to be looking at me
with unusual interest.
At last: “What is your name?” she whispered.
Now, at home I had always been known as “Cissie,” but on my first
entrance into public life I had determined to revert to my more
dignified name, so, “Jessie Millward” I whispered.
“Mine’s Kate Morton,” she went on. “How old are you?”
“Nine.”
“You _are_ pretty,” she whispered.
This was the pleasant surprise of my young life, for at home I was
inured to hearing myself described by my brothers--in the usual
brotherly way young brothers have--as “the ugly one,” and “all teeth
and eyes”; so when the pretty little stranger added, “Well, let’s be
friends for life,” I jumped at the proposal. And we have been friends
for life, for Kate Morton, who was the daughter of Charles Morton, of
Palace Theatre fame, and married Wilfred Morgan, is one of my dearest
friends.
After this contract had been entered into, another little girl who sat
on the other side spoke to me.
“My name is Adele Levis,” she said.
“And I am Jessie Millward.”
“I don’t think I want to make friends with a playwright’s daughter,”
she observed.
“And I wouldn’t dream of making friends with an india-rubber man’s
daughter!” I retorted, for I had been told that her people had made
money out of rubber.
Even quite little girls can be cattish, you see, and if they _are_ made
of “sugar, and spice and all that’s nice,” sometimes manage quite
successfully to conceal the fact.
Adele Levis is now Lady Carl Meyer.
But, as I have said, on the whole I detested school life with its rules
and regulations, though my passion for acting and recitation made me
something of a heroine among the other little girls of my age, getting
me into far higher classes than my general knowledge entitled me to,
and I was promoted on the strength of my recitations to a class the
members of which used to give Shakespearean readings.
“Aha!” I said to myself. “I’ll show them how Shakespeare should be
recited!” But pride not only fell but positively bumped.
I was chosen for Gratiano in the trial scene from “The Merchant of
Venice,” and got along swimmingly until I came to the lines:
“A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!
Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip!”
The emphasis, the force, the intensity were all there, but never
was a rousing piece of declamation more indecorously received. For
I pronounced “infidel” with a long second “i,” and amidst roars of
laughter retired in tears of rage, exactly as I had retired from my
earlier part in “Bombastes.”
But school girls are no respecters of persons, even amongst themselves,
and are still less respectful to strangers, if that be possible.
On our way to and from school we used often to meet a blonde-bearded,
distinguished-looking man with a provokingly saintly face at whose
appearance we used to giggle, and whom we nicknamed Saint Peter.
Saint Peter was something of a mystery to us; he was invariably to
be found strolling about at times when all the other menfolk of our
acquaintance were at their business, so we concluded that he must be a
mysterious millionaire.
But some years after the mystery was solved for me, for at my very
first rehearsal at the Lyceum I looked across the stage and recognized
Saint Peter.
He was Andrew Levey, the first violinist in the Lyceum orchestra.
My brothers went to the North London Collegiate School for boys, in the
now unfashionable district of Camden Town, where poor old Cobden stands
in statuesque isolation and mournfully regards the landscape. One day
the young writing master, who had theatrical ambitions which soared
high above his tiny salary as a writing master, took my brother Herbert
aside.
“I hear your father is a literary man,” he said. “I should so much like
to meet him.”
Herbert, by no means sorry to put a taskmaster under an obligation,
spoke to my mother, and the young writing master was invited to one of
the weekly evening parties, where he met Toole, Irving, the Bancrofts,
the Hares and the Grossmiths.
In those days the salary of a writing master at even a big school
did not run into fantastic figures. The hire of a dress suit for the
evening made a large hole in the weekly accounts, but the young man
evidently deemed it worth while, for after a day or two’s serious
thought he called on my mother and asked her advice as to the wisdom of
abandoning the copperplate and pothook line of writing for writing for
the stage.
My dear mother strongly advised him to stick to the unexciting but
certain copperplate form of literature--which advice he did not take.
Some years later, as the story-books say, when the writing master
had become famous as Henry Pettitt, “little Cissie Millward” who had
blossomed into Jessie Millward, played the heroine in “Harbour Lights”
and many other successful plays by the ambitious young man who had
refused to take advice, and who always vowed that the hiring of a dress
suit was the finest investment he ever made, and was the turning point
in his career.
And when, in those later days, I used to complain that the author did
not treat me at rehearsal with the respect due to a “leading lady,” but
would actually address me by my childish name, he would make matters
worse by explaining that somehow or other he could never forget me in
socks. Nor, I am afraid, did I always treat “H.P.” with the respect
due to a famous playwright for a somewhat similar reason, and I well
remember the sternness of his reproof one day at rehearsal when the
vision of a tall, lanky man, with a hooked nose, leaping irritably on
a chair, extending his arms, and snapping: “Imagine this is a tree and
that you are making love under it!” was too much for the leading lady
and she became semi-hysterical with laughter.
“H.P.’s” indignant reproof was up to his best schoolmaster form, and
Jessie Millward, “leading lady” as she was, once more felt very small
“Cissie.”
The Grossmiths, who lived near us at Haverstock Hill, were amongst
our more intimate friends, and my father was godfather to the present
George.
I myself, though a small child, was occasionally useful to
Weedon--Walter, as he was then called--and his brother George.
For example, having adopted photography as a hobby, the two boys called
round one morning with a request to “lend us Cissie for a model for
our camera.”
Cissie was lent, and--it was _not_ the days of instantaneous
photography--was snatched from her play and, with rumpled frock,
scratched knees, and grubby socks, was posed under a mulberry tree for
hours.
Plate after plate was exposed, and the wretched model was left at
intervals, with strict injunctions not to move, while the plates were
hurriedly developed in the stable of their house in Haverstock Hill.
At last she burst into tears of rage in her best “Bombastes” tradition
and demanded to go home.
The sticking-plaster on her knees and the grubby socks were the most
prominent features in those early efforts of the photographic firm of
Grossmith.
A few years later, as a more or less dignified schoolgirl, I stood
outside the church to watch George Grossmith’s wedding leave, and
celebrated the occasion by picking up a lucky sixpence, which was,
perhaps, some small compensation for my trials as a model for the
bridegroom.
Another old friend of the family was Lionel Brough--it was he who was
largely instrumental in persuading my mother to go to a fancy dress
ball at Knightsbridge, given, I think, for members of the stage. My
mother was very dark, and her Spanish costume--which I am sure was the
only fancy dress she ever wore--suited her striking type of beauty to
perfection. My father, who was dressed as a barrister, helped my mother
out of the four-wheeler, and to her surprise went quickly into the
barracks. For a moment she stood bewildered, and was about to follow
him when her arm was seized by a police-constable.
“You ought to know better than that!” said the constable severely.
“What do you mean?” demanded my mother indignantly. “How dare you?”
“Come, come, you ought to know better than that!”
“Charles! Charles! Come back, I am insulted!” called my mother, but my
father had disappeared.
“Now don’t let’s have a fuss,” said her tormentor sternly. “No one
knows better than you that only respectable people are admitted in
there.” Then, seeing the real distress of my poor mother, who in
spite of her Bohemian and theatrical surroundings was respectability
incarnate, and only tolerated the theatre as a necessary evil, the
constable whipped off his helmet and revealed himself as Lionel Brough.
My dear mother’s attitude to the stage was always one of bare
toleration, which to me, as a child, seemed extraordinary and
inexplicable, for so many of my theatrical gods and goddesses were her
intimate and cherished friends.
As individuals she loved them, but their profession left her cold,
and to my infant amazement she never even thrilled when one momentous
afternoon the great Barry Sullivan himself, the typical tragedian of
the old school, with heavy ever-working eyebrows and deep rolling
voice, called to present her with a clock and two candlesticks, each of
which had its own little glass case of the period.
I don’t remember that I was particularly impressed by the articles
under the glass cases, but I positively quivered at the notes of Barry
Sullivan’s voice.
As I have told, Barry Sullivan had been one of my father’s earliest
“subjects” for dramatic criticism in the Liverpool days, and a great
friendship had arisen between the critic and the criticized.
In those early provincial days they frequently acted together, the
great tragedian more than once coming to the assistance of the amateur
dramatic club of which my father was a prominent member. And in this
connection I am reminded of a favourite family story of a certain
production of Richard III, in which the part of Catesby was taken by an
ambitious amateur, and the wicked King was played by Sullivan.
The amateur, either from lack of study or from sheer nervousness, was
none too perfect in his words, but he managed to struggle through the
early portion of the tragedy without disgracing himself, and even drew
enthusiastic applause from his admiring friends.
Then came the great tent scene.
Starting from his knees at the conclusion of the dream:
“Who’s there?” cried the guilty king.
“’Tis--’tis I, my lord, the early village cock----” stammered Catesby
and “dried up.”
Barry Sullivan surveyed his tongue-tied officer for a few moments with
a sardonic grin.
“Then why the devil don’t you crow?” he growled.
Long years afterwards, as the story-books say, when Barry Sullivan was
famous in two continents, a public banquet was given to him at the
Alexandra Palace on the eve of his departure for a tour in the States
in July, 1875. The majority of those present were members of the Savage
Club, of which the actor had recently been made a member, and the Earl
of Dunraven, as the chairman, presented the guest with an illuminated
address, the reading of which was entrusted to my father, who was
then Secretary of the Club. This address bore the names of the Earl
of Dunraven, Lord William Lennox, Andrew Halliday, Charles Millward,
James Albery, E. L. Blanchard, F. B. Chatterton, William Creswick, John
S. Clarke, Ed. Falconer, Joseph Hatton, George Honey, Howard Paul, E.
A. Sothern, Charles Wyndham, John Billington, Benjamin Webster and many
other well-known folk in theatrical, literary and Savage circles.
Another childish memory is of a great explosion by the Regent’s Park
Canal, and of tearing down with my father to see if Joe Hatton and
his family were safe. Several houses had been shattered, but the
Hattons’ was unharmed, although a few doors off the house of the famous
entertainers, the Howard Pauls, was badly damaged, glass from the
windows having been blown in all round Mrs. Howard Paul’s bed, and by
some extraordinary freak her petticoat had been found waving like a
flag from the balcony. At Alma Tadema’s house near by, the windows were
smashed, but a huge vase which stood on his balcony was untouched.
All of which was a mild rehearsal for Zeppelin experiences in
after-life.
A constant visitor to the house in Malden Crescent was Andrew Halliday,
the author of many plays, including “Amy Robsart,” “The Lady of the
Lake,” in which the beautiful Adelaide Neilson appeared, and “For Love
or Money,” a comedy with which the present Vaudeville Theatre opened on
16th April, 1870.
The comedy was not a success, although the part of Alfred Skimmington,
“a handsome West End swell, who is currently reputed to be worth £3,000
a year, but who has not given his attention too closely to morals,” was
played by Henry Irving.
One Sunday Halliday looked into our nursery, which then contained seven
inhabitants, and observed vaguely:
“Let me see, one of you is my godson.”
My brother Harry promptly retorted: “Yes, I am. But you’ve never given
me anything.”
Probably feeling that his responsibilities as a godparent ought to be
no longer neglected: “Learn your catechism,” said Halliday, “and I’ll
give you a watch and chain.”
Harry was a quick study, and was soon in possession of a watch and
chain.
Another frequent Sunday visitor, Stephen Fiske, proprietor of a very
lively journal called “The Hornet,” and a dramatic critic of great
English and American reputation, on hearing of Halliday’s assumption of
a godparent’s responsibilities, felt his conscience smite him.
“By Gad!” he cried remorsefully, “one of them’s my godchild!” But
nobody claimed him.
Nevertheless, next week a little Scotch suit and a watch arrived,
addressed “To my godson.”
The godfather’s intentions were admirable, but, alas! the godson was a
god-daughter--my sister Lil.
The mention of Adelaide Neilson reminds me that she was the first
actress I saw. She was playing Juliet at the Adelphi Theatre and my
father took me round to her dressing-room. I remember that I never
thought anyone could possibly be half so beautiful.
The speechless adoration of the stage-struck schoolgirl must have
touched her, for she took from her neck a large Maltese cross of opals
and gave it to me, saying: “There, little girl, I hope that will be the
heaviest cross you will ever have to bear.”
I wore that cross as Hero in my first success at the Lyceum of Irving’s
day.
As my father had a considerable reputation as a writer of pantomimes
and lyrics, many “stars” of the pantomime stage used to call upon him
bringing with them songs for him to re-write, and as I grew older one
of my delights was to play the accompaniments while the new words were
being “tried over” with the visitor.
Chirgwin, who afterwards achieved music-hall fame as “The White-eyed
Kaffir,” was one such visitor, and I well remember the tiny white dog
which he brought with him and carried in his arms. My powers as a
musician impressed him greatly, for when I had finished he turned to
my mother, saying with the most stately politeness: “Madam, may I be
allowed to embrace your little daughter?”
The song which he had tried over was for his first appearance in
pantomime--a pantomime written by my father for the Theatre Royal,
Birmingham--and in one of his last articles in the “Referee” George R.
Sims referred to him as being extremely nervous but the real success of
the production, and as helping to make the fortunes of Mercer Simpson.
And so passed my childhood and early girlhood, in an atmosphere which
was a fascinating mixture of journalism and the stage, and in a
dream-world in which I played countless imaginary parts.
But quite early I realized that there were material benefits attached
to the drama, on however humble a scale that drama might be.
Once a month we had Dorcas meetings at school, at which the
conscientious and model girls sewed religiously for the benefit of
their souls, and to my delight I was invariably chosen to read aloud
to the sewers and not to sew. My choice of readings and my dramatic
sensibilities must have vastly astonished my audience at times, and
I well remember the whole Dorcas meeting laying down its collective
needle and staring in open-mouthed amazement when one afternoon
I broke down and sobbed, completely overcome at my own reading of
“Misunderstood.”
Needless to say, to a small girl with such tendencies visits to the
theatre were events of delirious interest, but I am afraid that so
little could she foresee the future that even in her wildest dreams the
schoolgirl “Cissie” Millward, when she paid her very first visit to a
real theatre and saw the Vokes family at Drury Lane, never imagined
that she herself would one day be the “leading lady” on that very stage.
Nor later, when she paid her second visit to a real theatre, the
Adelphi, to see her father’s pantomime “Little Snow White,” the girl
who had never seen herself in a looking-glass, in which Mrs. John Wood
played the part of Little Snow White, did the small enthusiast dare to
picture herself as the heroine of Adelphi drama.
The days at Malden Crescent passed happily, and then the Millward
family moved to Crowndale House, Oakley Square, N.W.
By this time I was growing up into a “young lady,” with stage ambitions
as firmly rooted as ever, and I found an outlet for my dramatic energy
in joining the Carlton Dramatic Club.
Then an event occurred which altered our careers.
My father had a paralytic stroke, and it was necessary for us all to
earn our livings.