First visit to America.--A family party.--Terriss as an ancient
mariner.--Collapse of the ancient mariner.--His seafaring
career.--Sir Martin and Lady Harvey.--William Haviland.--Charles
Hunt Helmsley.--New York.--“It is I!”--The Jew and the Polish
Jew.--A tone-deaf singer.--Irving’s anger.--A Trilby in real
life.--Terriss buys the rights of “Trilby.”--Gives them to me.--A
Haymarket “scene.”--“The Man’s Shadow.”--The infant prodigy and
the Trees.--The juvenile leading lady and Terriss.--A lesson from
a critic.--Irving gets his “effect.”--Perverted Shakespeare.--The
nigger and the “troupe.”--Norman Forbes.--A burglary.--Chicago.--The
Kendals.--Augustin Daly.--Ada Rehan.--Daly’s Theatre.--George
Edwardes.--Stephen Fiske.--William Winter.--An accident at Niagara.--A
triumphal home-coming.--Terriss as a hypnotist.
In 1883 an American tour was something in the nature of a great
adventure--it was, I know, for one youthful member of the Lyceum
Company--and it was a very happy and excited family party that embarked
on the “City of Rome.”
And it was a “family party” in something more than the conventional
sense, for in the ninety or more members which composed the expedition
were fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, and even a pair of twins,
the property of Mr. Houseman, the musical director and his wife.
No sooner had we stepped on board, and before the liner cast off from
the stage, than Mr. Terriss assumed command of the expedition. (Irving
and Miss Terry had sailed in the “Britannic.”)
To begin with, Mr. Terriss had been a real sailor: with the rest of
us, our knowledge of the sea had been confined to occasional passages
across the Channel, and deep-sea voyaging in a big ship was a high and
holy mystery.
So when he whispered in my ear: “Understand, it is a rule of the sea
that women and children go first, and you shall be the first; I’ve a
pistol in my pocket!” I was impressed.
“Good heavens, are we going to be wrecked?” I blurted.
“One never knows!” he replied darkly.
I thought that, being a sailor, he knew, and that the risks we were
taking were rather awful.
Ten minutes or so later, when I saw him climb a mast and reach the
dizzy height of the crow’s nest I felt still more convinced that he
must know, and my confidence was not in the least shattered when the
captain, catching sight of him, sternly ordered him down.
I of course put the captain’s indignation down to professional jealousy.
But when we at last sailed, and on reaching the open sea Mr. Terriss
was invisible for two days, and it was whispered that he had been
deathly ill, I reluctantly concluded that perhaps after all the captain
knew his business best.
Later Mr. Terriss confessed to me the whole extent of his seafaring
experiences as a professional seaman.
His mother had had him trained for the merchant service, and when at
last he received his cadetship he was so proud of his new uniform
that for days he paraded Westbourne Grove in the neighbourhood of his
Bayswater home, to his own immense admiration and that of others.
At last the day came for him to join his ship.
He bade long and fervent farewells to his family and his friends, and
embarked on his new career. The first night at sea was a stormy one,
and when at dawn the ship hove to off Plymouth and a bumboat came
alongside with an old woman selling vegetables, the new sailor slipped
over the side, bribed the proprietress of the bumboat and rowed ashore,
arriving the same evening at his mother’s house in Bayswater, to the
amazement of his sorrowing family.
And so ended Mr. Terriss’s career as a professional sailor.
However, rough as the passage was, we all recovered in time to
assist in the concert in aid of the Seamen’s Orphanage, and at the
supper which followed Mr. Terriss again distinguished himself as an
experienced traveller by moving an amendment to one of the toasts.
“The President of the United States!” announced the proposer.
“And his wife!” cried Terriss warmly.
Unfortunately the President at that time was a widower.
I have said that the company on that first American tour was a family
party, and in that family party were more novices than Jessie Millward.
Amongst them were a young couple, Martin Harvey and his sweetheart
Nellie de Silva, now Sir Martin and Lady Harvey, who, playing tiny
walking-on parts, seemed to spend all the time on our long journeys in
reading and studying together. Two more earnest students of their art
were never seen, and I wonder if even then they dreamed of what the
future held for them.
Playing small parts was that fine actor William Haviland, and other
youthful “tourists” were Charles Hunt Helmsley--who afterwards gave up
acting, and was for many years the kind, genial and courteous manager
for Sir George Alexander, and is, at the moment I write, with Mr.
Arthur Bourchier--and my brother Herbert, freed from his apprenticeship
with the White Star Line, who came to chaperon me, and subsequently
became assistant stage manager to David Belasco.
We landed at New York in the midst of the Indian summer--another
novelty for most of us--and the heat, the bustle, the skyscrapers, the
“elevated,” the cable cars, and last, but very far from least, the
appalling ordeals at the customs, were all sufficiently bewildering and
exciting to the young actress whose furthest journey had hitherto been
as far as to Boulogne.
Irving’s first appearance in America was at the Star Theatre, New York,
on the evening of Monday, 28th October, 1883, in “The Bells,” and his
first words on the American stage were those of Mathias:
“It is I!”
Irving’s Mathias in “The Bells” was a revelation in tragic acting to
the American public, and few who saw it remained as unimpressed as the
Jew of whom Lal Brough used to tell.
A brother Hebrew was extolling Irving’s magnificent performance, and
exhausting superlatives of admiration while his friend remained cold.
“Wonderful! Wonderful! The most wonderful thing in the world!” he kept
repeating, until the friend got tired of his enthusiasm.
“Wonderful?” he repeated irritably. “_That_ ain’t wonderful! Could
Irving buy steel pens at tenpence a gross an’ sell ’em at a bob a
dozen? _That’s_ vat I calls wonderful!”
From the reception that first night in New York there were few Jews in
the steel pen industry amongst the audience.
“The Bells” was the only piece played on that memorable occasion, and
I had no part in it, though on several occasions afterwards during the
tour I played the part of Annette. Now, Annette had to sing a little
Tyrolean air at the finish of the second act, and though everyone told
me that I had a capital singing voice I myself knew only too well that
I was absolutely incapable of singing in tune. As a child my inability
to sing “Kathleen Mavourneen” in tune had been a family joke, but
Irving insisted that it was a mere matter of training and made me take
singing lessons from the first violinist, Andrew Levey.
Levey did his best, but after several trials was obliged to admit that
I was right. So long as he played the note I was in tune, the moment he
stopped I lost the key. He said it was unusual, but at the same time it
was a horrid fact, and on his reporting to Irving it was arranged that
the snatch of song should be sung “off.”
During the American tour this was done whenever I played Annette, until
one day the girl who sang broke down with a bad cold, and as there was
no one else available I said that I would sing myself. All afternoon I
practised that wretched song with kind old Mrs. Pauncefort, who played
Catherine. For hours we rehearsed it together: she sang it to me, I
sang it to her, and at last, in an agony of nervousness, I sang it in
the performance.
Owing to sheer nervous tension I managed to get through it--all except
the last note, which I knew I could not achieve, and which I didn’t
attempt--and the moment the curtain fell to a sound of applause,
Irving jumped to his feet and said that the song had never been so
well sung before.
He was really angry; it had all been pure affectation on my part, he
declared; he would have no more of such silly nonsense, and he wound up
by calling a rehearsal of the scene for the next morning.
The next morning came; I sang my poor little best--but I was never
asked to sing again!
I had been so terrified that on that occasion only I had been a sort of
Trilby, hypnotized into singing in tune.
And the singing of that song “for one night only” had a curious sequel.
When Mr. Du Maurier’s novel “Trilby” was published and instantly became
famous, Mr. Terriss bought the dramatic rights for Great Britain and
gave them to me, as a tone-deaf Trilby in real life.
In his brilliant essay on his brother, Mr. Max Beerbohm tells how he
went to see Paul Potter’s version in Philadelphia as an emissary of
Sir Herbert to report on it, and how his report was an adverse one.
Later, in New York, two nights before he sailed for England, Sir
Herbert thought that, as he had an evening to spare, he might as well
go and see “Trilby” himself, and, as Max slily observes, “it was on the
proceeds of ‘Trilby’ in England that His Majesty’s presently began to
arise.”
Many people were then after the dramatic rights of Du Maurier’s book.
Mr. Willard had cabled over for them, but Sir Herbert, as soon as he
reached England and heard that the rights were mine, came straight on
to the theatre, and in my dressing-room begged me to let him have them.
He had them, and his magnificent performance of Svengali is now stage
history.
Soon after its production at the Haymarket, Mr. Terriss and I went to
a _matinée_ of “Trilby”--or rather I went, and was joined after the
curtain had risen by Terriss, who, like most men, was occasionally
late. The house was crowded and I was annoyed at his lateness, and
was more annoyed at the extreme deliberation with which he proceeded
to place his hat under the seat, and, still standing, slowly begin to
take off his coat. The play was continuing, and, to make matters worse,
there began to be whispers of “There’s Terriss! There’s Terriss!” from
enthusiastic admirers who had recognized him.
“You’re very late,” I snapped. “For goodness’ sake sit down!”
The whispers grew, heads were turned in our direction, but, pretending
not to hear or care, with maddening slowness he continued to fold his
coat, and placed it carefully under his seat; then, after taking a
prolonged view of the house, he at last prepared to sit down.
But the “tip-up” seat, to my intense and rather malicious joy, had been
slowly “tipping” during that view of the house, and when he at last
condescended to sit down he sat gently on the floor.
It is curious that I should have been connected with two of the plays
which became famous under the Tree regime at the Haymarket--“Trilby”
and “A Man’s Shadow,” the latter of which, under its French title
of “Roger la Honte,” Mr. Terriss and I played many times in the
States. When “Roger la Honte” was produced in Paris there was a rush
of managers over to buy it. Mr. Charles Cartwright and Mr. Terriss
were first and bought the English rights, which they sold to Sir
Herbert--who was a few hours late--reserving the American rights of the
play, which was played in America under Augustin Daly. So popular was
it in the States that a pirate version, “The Spider’s Web,” sprang
into existence.
By the way, à propos “The Man’s Shadow,” Sir Herbert Tree was fond of
telling a story of a little incident which occurred at one of the early
rehearsals of the play.
The small girl who played the part of Suzanne was watching the progress
of the rehearsal one morning, and being, like most small children,
intensely observant and critical, turned suddenly to her mother and
demanded:
“Who is that young lady who seems so familiar with Mr. Tree?”
“Hush, dear,” was the reply. “That is Mrs. Tree.”
“Well,” observed the child, with the air of one who is the repository
of all the worldly wisdom of all the ages. “I wonder, if she is so
disrespectful to her manager now, how on _earth_ she ever expects to
get on in her profession!”
Playing the same part in America on my tour with Mr. Terriss with the
play under its original title of “Roger la Honte” was another very
self-possessed small child.
She was quite a brilliant little actress--and she knew it. But, a
trifle spoilt as she was, she had occasional fits of modesty. For
instance, one day when Mr. Terriss chaffingly told her: “You’re the
star of this play, my dear,” she replied, almost with diffidence: “Oh,
no, Mr. Terriss! _You_ are the star; I’m only the leading lady!”
But to return to that wonderful first American tour of Henry Irving.
The Irving methods, the Irving acting, and the Irving productions were
a revelation to the American play-going public of that day. There were,
of course, great actors and actresses in the States, but nothing like
the elaborate finish of the ensemble had ever been seen.
But if the critics were enthusiastic they were exacting, and I had one
little lesson from a very great critic which I hope did me good.
I was, of course, very young, and I suppose rather frivolous, which
may be some excuse for a bad habit I had of giggling on the stage at
anything that amused me when I thought no one was looking. I realized
it was a bad habit and tried to check it, but one or two other members
of the company were wicked enough to encourage me in it. I used to beg
of them: “Please don’t make me laugh!” but without much success, as I’m
afraid the appeal was too often only a half-hearted one.
But one evening I was fairly frightened into seriousness.
Miss Payne, who was playing Ursula in “Much Ado about Nothing,”
suddenly convulsed me in the middle of the garden scene by holding up
her thumbs, on the nails of which she had painted two comic little
faces. I all but collapsed, but managed to get through the scene, and
at the fall of the curtain flattered myself that no one had noticed my
wickedness.
As I was leaving the theatre that night a note was placed in my hands.
It was from a very great critic indeed, and it ran:
“Dear Miss Millward,--I have admired all your performances greatly,
and think you one of the most charming and promising young actresses I
have seen for a long time, but--the next time I see you laugh on the
stage I shall stand up in the stalls and denounce you.”
Another lesson, of a rather different nature, I received from Irving
himself. (That first American tour was full of lessons for me!)
I was playing the part of Lady Anne in “Richard III,” in the place of
Miss Terry, and in the wooing scene, when Gloucester places the ring
on Lady Anne’s finger, do what I could I always _anticipated_, and
thus entirely spoiled the effect Irving intended. Again and again he
explained it, but somehow or other I invariably “missed fire,” but one
night he got his effect.
And he got it in the simplest way--by a sudden pinch at the crucial
moment! My start of surprise and horror was realism itself, and at the
end of the act he sent his valet Walter round to my dressing-room to
congratulate me.
“Mr. Irving hopes he didn’t hurt you, miss,” said Walter, “but he says
you were splendid, and it was just the effect he wanted.”
Another “Richard III” memory is of a ghastly mistake made by the actor
who played the small part of the officer in command of the guard placed
over the coffin of the dead king.
When Gloucester intercepts him, his lines according to Shakespeare--who
certainly should know best what he intended his characters to
speak--are:
“Stand back, my lord, and let the coffin pass.”
But on this occasion, from nervousness or “fluffiness,” the player gave
an entirely new reading, and scored a somewhat equivocal success with:
“Stand back, my lord, and let the parson cough.”
Which is almost, if not quite, as bad as the story poor Wilson Barrett
used to tell of the Portia who saluted the Antonio with the blithe
announcement:
“Joy, joy, Antonio! Your ships are all sunk!”
Which in turn reminds me of a deliberate perversion of the original
text of that same play, “The Merchant of Venice,” by Mr. Terriss.
Needless to say, it occurred when Irving was not on the stage.
In the eyes of the American public the Lyceum Company could do no
wrong, and, partly because they looked upon us as perfection, and
partly, perhaps, because of their ignorance of the popular English
seaside resorts, they accepted without a murmur an entirely novel
reading by Terriss.
Bassanio’s lines in the casket scene, on learning that the ships are
lost, are:
“What, not one hit,
From Tripolis, from Mexico, from England?”
Never shall I forget Miss Terry’s expression, as the “revised” version
caught her ears:
“What, not one hit,
From Margate, Ramsgate, Deal and Dover?”
As I say, it was fortunate for everyone concerned that Irving was not
within hearing, but the audience took it all as gospel.
After the big success in New York the tour became a sort of triumphal
progress; at every stop crowds were waiting on the station to see the
Lyceum Company, and Irving and Miss Terry were constantly obliged to
appear on the platforms to receive the welcome of “prominent citizens.”
And it was not only the “prominent citizens” who were anxious to see
the visitors.
On one long journey I had a “section” to myself--which meant that
when the upper berth was closed I had quite a comfortable little
compartment--and I was dawdling over my morning toilet after an
all-night run when the train stopped for a moment at some wayside
station. There was nothing unusual in that, but what was unusual was
that my window was suddenly opened, and a round-eyed, white-toothed
nigger’s head appeared, and a nigger’s voice demanded:
“Say, are yew the troupe?”
It was also a trifle disconcerting--until one got used to it--to find
crowds of reporters trooping through the “sections” at all hours on
their way to Irving’s car, and the first time it occurred at night
poor Miss Payne, who had retired to rest and did not realize that
the invaders were representatives of the all-powerful press, put out
a tousled head from between her curtains and remarked icily that,
whatever might be the custom in America, _she_ didn’t think it moral
for men to go tramping through ladies’ bedrooms at all hours of the
night.
But most of the members of the company speedily adapted themselves to
American customs, even if we did not all go to the length of Mr. Norman
Forbes, who, on our arrival at Chicago, asked a group of pressmen, in
what he fondly imagined to be an American accent:
“Say, you guys, is this Shycawgo?”
The effort was well meant, and it was unkind of a newspaper gentleman
to report in print that “there is a member of the Irving Company who
not only cannot talk English, but cannot pronounce the name of our
city.”
The hot trains and the long journeys of that first tour were very
trying to the novices--on the subsequent tours the journeys were
differently arranged--but we contrived to enjoy ourselves, for the
novelty of our experiences never seemed to pall. And whatever comforts,
not to say luxuries, could be provided were there for us, for Irving
always “did things” in a princely way, for others as well as for
himself. He was generosity incarnate, even to those who presumed on his
generosity, as I am afraid I did on one of those long journeys.
My “section” was next to the kitchen, and one night--we had been
travelling from midnight the night before--I happened to open the
door between and saw a nice little dinner being prepared, and on the
table a dish of quails. I returned and reported what I had seen to
another frivolous member of the company, who promptly made me a bet
that I would not bring something nice out of that kitchen. My gambling
instinct properly roused--to say nothing of my appetite--I darted back
to the empty kitchen, popped one of the plump little quails on a plate
and was in the act of leaving with the spoil when I heard a well-known
voice say kindly:
“Take two, my dear--take two.”
I dropped the quail as if it had been red-hot and bolted, feeling
like a naughty schoolgirl. In a few minutes, as I was in the midst of
telling the horrible story to my accomplice, a porter arrived bearing
two quails on a dish, “with Mr. Irving’s compliments to the burglar.”
But Irving never interfered with the innocent amusement of the members
of his company--if burglary can be called innocent! And he declined to
interfere when two male members, after a serious quarrel, came to blows
in the green-room during a _matinée_, saying that it was a domestic
affair which did not concern him.
But that same evening he so contrived matters that the two antagonists
had to appear on the stage together arm-in-arm as bosom friends, and
the sheer ridiculousness of the situation put an end to any lingering
ill-feeling. That little episode and our first visit to Chicago are
my only two unpleasant memories of the tour, and it was not Chicago’s
fault that I was not happy there.
It is true that the city was very dingy and drab, badly lighted, and
built on charred wood, not having wholly recovered from the terrible
effects of the great fire, but my most vivid memory of it is connected
with a bad attack of malaria. As I went on the stage as the girl Julie
in Louis XI I heard Miss Terry, who was not playing, say: “The girl
looks very ill.”
“Don’t tell her so,” said Irving. “She will have a rest the next few
days, but she must get through to-night.”
It was an understood thing at the Lyceum that business was always
first, and I struggled through our first night at Chicago somehow or
other. The next morning Irving sent his doctor round to me.
Considering the difference in climate, the terribly long and trying
journeys, the very hot theatres and hotels, it was wonderful that there
was little or no illness in the company. In fact, we were monotonously
healthy, and throve on the hard work and the tremendous enthusiasm with
which we were everywhere received.
Financially, of course, the tour created a record, and the next English
tourists to come anywhere within sight of it were the Kendals, on their
first visit under Daniel Frohman in 1889, but Irving’s figures were
considerably the larger. Curiously enough, as Irving’s first words to
the American public had been “It is I!” Mrs. Kendal’s were: “Well, here
I am, good people!”
On my later visits to the States I used to hear much of the impression
the matron of the drama had made on the somewhat frivolous Americans,
and a favourite story that used to be told of her was in connection
with a brooch which, it was said, had been presented to her by Royalty
as a souvenir of a command performance.
It was a very modest little piece of jewellery, with a monogram and a
crest, and at a big luncheon party a very beautiful little American
actress commented on it.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Kendal--or so the story ran--“That was given to me by
a great lady for being the most virtuous and most domesticated woman on
the British stage.”
“Do tell!” cried the beautiful little American lady, fingering a huge
rope of pearls. “An’ these pearls were given to me for being the most
beautiful and the--er--the most _popular_ woman on the American stage.”
That, at any rate, is how the story was told, but I don’t vouch for it.
_Si non e vero_, etc.
It was during that Irving tour that Mr. Terriss first saw the wonderful
Augustin Daly Company, and arranged to bring them over to London
to open at Toole’s Theatre in 1884 with a repertoire of farces. So
successful was the visit that the company later returned to London to
the Gaiety with Ada Rehan and John Drew in “The Taming of the Shrew”;
still later, Daly’s Theatre was built, and opened with the same play.
It was a hobby with Terriss to buy plays and to dabble in theatrical
speculation, and he was generally successful, for he was a very sound
business judge of the value of a play, and, unlike more than one
well-known actor, never made the mistake of regarding any and every
play as a possible background to his own personality and methods.
Augustin Daly was a curious individual: possessing undoubted theatrical
capacity, he was also an expert in the gentle art of making enemies,
and was too much oppressed with a sense of the importance of being
Augustin Daly to become really popular. In his theatres members of his
companies were warned against approaching him without due ceremony and
due notice, although he did not always observe the same etiquette in
approaching others, and on one memorable occasion was ordered out of
Drury Lane by Augustus Harris, who certainly had good reason for his
action. But, whatever his faults, he had the wit to realize the genius
of that truly great actress Ada Rehan, and he deserves to be remembered
if only for her successes under his management, though I often wonder
what the modern Shakespearean purists would say to Daly’s system of
“cutting” Shakespeare to suit his own ideas. With few exceptions, the
critics of his day endured the Daly version of Shakespeare without
protest, and one of those exceptions was Mr. William Archer, who
suggested that “Daly” should be spelt “Dele.” The manager’s methods
were too often a curious mixture of false modesty and sheer pruriency,
and will a modern generation believe that in his version of “The
Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Daly’s the most magnificent lines in the
whole play were docked from Oberon’s speech:
“Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Aegle break his faith
With Ariadne and Antiopa?”
While Daly was a chartered libertine where Shakespeare was concerned,
it is strange to think that Irving, whose reverence for the poet
approached idolatry, was always fiercely attacked by his English
critics for the slightest rearrangements of the plays, rearrangements
which were often essential for reasons of time alone.
The story of Daly’s Theatre is not uninteresting.
After bringing Ada Rehan to London Daly discovered that he wanted a
permanent theatre there, in which he could run a regular season when
his New York Theatre was closed.
On hearing this, George Edwardes said to him: “I’ll build you a
theatre, and let you have a long lease of it at five thousand pounds a
year.”
In those happy pre-war days the theatre only cost some forty thousand
pounds to build, but Daly could not make it pay, and then Edwardes came
forward and offered to find the entertainment on percentage terms. The
result was very profitable for Daly, and afterwards for his executors,
the percentage which they drew being far in excess of the rent they
had to pay. After litigation the arrangement came to an end, and the
theatre passed entirely into George Edwardes’ possession. At one time
it was said that he had settled the theatre on his son D’Arcy, who was
a captain in the 1st Dragoons, and shortly before his death he told a
friend of mine that there were two things in the world that had given
him supreme satisfaction.
“The first,” he said, “is that my boy D’Arcy has never caused me a
moment’s anxiety, and the second is that I have never had to put my
hand in my pocket for one single penny for the Ballykisteen stud farm.
On the other hand, Ogbourne has cost me a lot of money, but I’ve always
had full value out of my racing.”
Curiously enough, the American critics were much more laudatory of
Irving at this time than certain of his countrymen, and in particular
my father’s old friend Stephen Fiske, who was then writing for
“The Spirit of the Times,” and William Winter wrote wonderful and
understanding appreciations of the great actor’s aims and art. William
Winter, a man of strong likes and dislikes, and by no means easy to
please, became not only a friend but a whole-hearted devotee of Irving
and the Lyceum methods, and expressed his appreciation both in prose
criticism and in graceful verse.
These men were quick to see and appreciate Henry Irving’s whole-souled
and semi-fanatical devotion to his art at a time when it was still the
fashion among certain of his fellow-countrymen to sneer at and belittle
him as “the fashionable tragedian.”
New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Chicago,
St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Detroit, Toronto,
Washington--city vied with city in the warmth of its welcome, and
perhaps it was as well that the incessant hard work and the desire to
deserve these welcomes gave us no time to acquire that uncomfortable
complaint born of too much leisure--swollen head.
Only one holiday did we take, “a day off” to visit Niagara Falls---a
holiday which was nearly marked by a tragedy, for as Mrs. Pauncefort,
Miss Payne, Mr. Terriss and myself were walking under the Falls,
Terriss slipped, fell, and nearly lost his life. He only just managed
to save himself, and was by far the least concerned of the party; in
fact, his only comment was: “Bill’s luck! Bill’s luck!” and a shrug of
the shoulders.
The closing night of the tour in New York was a memorable one, both
for hard work and late hours, for we were to sail early next morning,
and the programme consisted of acts from four plays, “The Merchant of
Venice,” “Louis XI,” “Charles I,” and “Much Ado about Nothing.” What
with the ensuing speeches, the supper parties, the farewells, it was a
miracle that Bram Stoker was able to shepherd his little army on board
in time for sailing, and long after the ladies of the company were
asleep in their state-rooms, male members of the “troupe,” as the darky
had called it, kept turning up from farewell functions at clubs and
hotels.
However, at last “The City of Chester” sailed with all on board, no
doubt to the immense relief of the faithful Bram Stoker, who was in
charge of the voyagers, Irving and Miss Terry sailing later in the
“Aurania.”
It was a happy and triumphant home-coming, and the voyage was
appropriately happy and ueneventful, save for an experiment in
hypnotics by Mr. Terriss.
Hypnotism was at that time a fashionable craze, and one day in the
smoke-room Terriss declared that he possessed great and mysterious
hypnotic powers, the extent of which even he himself did not
understand, which was probably true.
Several of us were in the secret, including Bram Stoker, and a little
scene was arranged.
One morning when I was sitting on deck Terriss kept passing to and fro
in front of me, glaring fiercely each time he passed, and naturally
soon attracted the attention of a good many passengers. Poor old Mrs.
Pauncefort, who was sitting beside me knitting, became quite alarmed,
thinking perhaps he had temporarily gone off his head, and every time
he approached with a ferocious stare she would whisper timidly: “Oh,
here he comes again! Don’t look at him, my dear! Don’t look at him!”
Presently I fell forward as arranged, and people rushed to my
assistance, but it was not until Terriss had made some mysterious
passes over my face that I was supposed to come out of the trance.
The “believers” amongst the audience were tremendously impressed, and
to his secret horror Mr. Terriss was approached by a deputation who
formally invited him to give a lecture on hypnotism in the salon.
This was rather more than he had bargained for, but it was too late
for him to back out, and with the assistance of Bram Stoker a lecture
was hurriedly concocted, and delivered with immense success, the
“demonstrations” being particularly impressive. Needless to say, the
“subjects” were carefully chosen and had also been carefully rehearsed,
thus carrying out to the last the “Lyceum thoroughness” which had so
impressed America.