The Adelphi.--An advertisement record.--A quaint publicity
“stunt.”--The Adelphi audiences.--The “unknown admirer.”--Mysterious
tips.--The people who know everyone and everything.--Jessamine
Cottage.--My gardener, Haddon.--Charles Frohman, William Gillette and
Terriss as rose lovers.--Haddon’s trip to town.--Seymour Hicks and
a rest cure.--A surprise visit.--The rest cure starts.--A bicycle
accident.--Champagne or death.--End of the rest cure.--George
Edwardes’ comment.--Terriss’s fearlessness.--Rescue of a small
boy.--A runaway.--Miss Olga Nethersole.--An enthusiastic social
pioneer.--A trip to the Canaries.--The shot seagull.--The Ancient
Mariner.--The tragic fulfilment.--European fame.--Santa Catalina and
the invalids.--America with Terriss.--Salvini.--Fair play for the
gladiator.--An impresario’s tact.--A tired Othello.--Sir Herbert
Tree.--“Paul Kauvar.”--Sir Augustus Harris.
The first turning-point in my career had been my appearance with Irving
at the Lyceum; the second turning-point was my appearance with Terriss
at the Adelphi.
With the enormous success of “Harbour Lights” the Adelphi drama, as it
was called, came into its own, and from 1885 to 1887 I was identified
with it and with Mr. Terriss in a series of successes which included
“The Bells of Haslemere,” “The Union Jack,” “The Silver Falls,” and
“The Shaughraun.”
But it was “The Harbour Lights” that set the vogue, and I may perhaps
be forgiven if I have a tender spot in my heart for that fine old drama.
[Illustration: JESSIE MILLWARD AND WILLIAM TERRISS IN “THE HARBOUR
LIGHTS.”]
From a sordid business point of view the success of course was immense,
and the theatrical world of the day rang with stories of the huge
sums involved. For example, in the matter of advertising “The Harbour
Lights” created a record in those days, and it may be of interest to
the enterprising modern theatrical manager, such as Mr. Cochran, that
the huge pictorial poster, which caused no small sensation, measured
twenty feet by fourteen--which represented fifty-six double crown
sheets--and was printed in twenty-eight parts and in five colours. One
hundred and forty stones were used, one for each colour, twenty-eight
times. Each stone cost £5 and weighed seven hundredweight. This huge
poster cost something like £600 a thousand, and threepence a sheet was
the charge for posting the bill, so that each time it was displayed
it cost fourteen shillings, and if fifty copies were posted--which is
about the average number used in the large provincial town--the outlay
was £35. This was the cost of one bill, only intended to last a week or
two, so my readers can conceive the amount of capital required even in
those days to take a well-billed play on tour.
But theatrical advertisement is a world of its own, of which, I fear,
I know but very little, but before I forget let me chronicle one
ostentatious proclamation I saw in a Western American town during a
tour with Mr. Terriss. It did not say much for certain of the rival
combinations that this particular show drew an enormous amount of
publicity by its announcement:
“We pay our salaries regularly every week; by so doing we avoid law
expenses, are not compelled to change our folk, and always carry our
watches in our pockets!”
But in those early Adelphi days life was too full of interest--work,
success, fame and joy--for the Jessie Millward of that time to bother
her head about such squalid details as “double-crown posters” and
publicity “stunts.”
The Adelphi soon collected an audience of its own--an audience subtly
distinct from that in any other West End theatre. Just as the Lyceum
had its special and unmistakable atmosphere, just as the _jeunesse
dorée_ gave its peculiar _cachet_ to the old Gaiety, so did the Adelphi
gather its audience from every section and every class, and blend them
into a perfectly recognizable and distinct entity.
And the player must be of a different nature to mine who would not
revel in their whole-souled devotion and their generosity. One was
inspired to give the best that was in one; not to do so seemed a lack
of loyalty, an ingratitude.
Night after night one had almost to fight one’s way to and from the
stage door through the waiting crowds; night after night the same
rapturous welcome greeted one--it must have been a poor and niggardly
heart which did not warm at such whole-souled recognition and
encouragement.
And then there were the quaint and sometimes touching little missives
from the strangers one had pleased.
It was at the Adelphi, for example, that I first experienced the
“unknown admirer.”
Regularly on the eve of a big race--I was blissfully ignorant of the
high mysteries of racing, and at that time had never even seen a
racehorse--as I entered the theatre the stage door-keeper would hand me
a mysterious and rather grubby scrap of paper, twisted into the form of
a cocked hat. Opening it, in an illiterate hand I would find the name
of a horse--and only the name of a horse; no message, no protestations
of eternal love, no word of praise for my art or myself--merely the
name of a horse engaged in the “big race,” and the signature was always:
“From your admirer.”
And what makes the story still more extraordinary is that the horses
generally won.
One evening there was a change in tone. Instead of a tip for the “big
race” the letter contained a tip for the Stock Exchange.
Now if there was one subject in the wide world of which my ignorance
was more abysmal than racing it was the Stock Exchange, and knowing
that Mr. Terriss was an excellent but very cautious judge of stocks
and shares I consulted him about it. He made enquiries from some Stock
Exchange friends, and the report was that the “tip” was an advisable
one, “though how your friend has got to know of it is a mystery. Only
the people on the inside know anything about it.”
Thoroughly mystified, I asked the stage door-keeper what the writer of
these curious love-letters was like.
“He’s a very shabby, and a very little, elderly man, miss,” he replied.
“And he always says ‘There’s no answer’!”
“The next time he comes,” I said, “ask his name, and tell him that I
should like to thank him for his kindness.”
A day or two afterwards I received another of the familiar “cocked
hats”--it was a horse this time, I think--and, on asking the stage
door-keeper if he had delivered my message:
“Yes, miss,” he replied, “but he wouldn’t leave his name. All he said
was, ‘She wouldn’t know me, and she wouldn’t want to.’”
Of course there were Adelphi habitués of quite a different type!
There were, for instance, the people who knew all about one, from one’s
age to one’s favourite breakfast food, and who were only too glad to
impart their knowledge to the occupants of the seats around them. But
this is a type peculiar to no theatre.
On a visit to “The Harbour Lights” my dear mother was the recipient of
some wholly novel information about me.
For some time she had been annoyed by the criticisms of two ladies
seated in the stalls immediately behind her, who, from their
loud-voiced remarks, seemed to be on intimate terms with the actors and
actresses on the stage.
Then I made my first entrance.
“Ah,” said one of the ladies complacently, “there’s Jessie Millward. It
is wonderful how young she keeps, is it not?”
“It is dear,” replied the other loudly. “To look at her no one would
believe that she was the mother of five children.”
This was too much for my poor mother.
Flouncing round in her seat, she interrupted the speakers.
“Madam,” she said, in vast indignation, “I _beg_ your pardon! Miss
Millward is my daughter, and is unmarried!”
Which reminds me that some time later I was sitting in the stalls of
the Lyceum watching the “Lyons Mail,” in which Mr. Terriss appeared as
the dandy, Courriol. He looked splendidly youthful in the Incroyable
costume, which suited his slim figure to perfection, and I was somewhat
astonished to hear the woman on my left observe:
“How wonderfully well Terriss looks, considering his age. I know for a
_fact_ he is well over sixty.”
I could not resist turning to her and blurting:
“And I know for a _fact_ that he is still in his thirties!”
But it is impossible to impress everyone, and there were actually some
people in the world who did not take sufficient interest in the theatre
to invent stories about the ages of the artists. Such a person was my
gardener, Haddon, who lived mainly for his roses at my little country
place, “Jessamine Cottage.”
And Haddon’s roses certainly were wonderful. I think the only time I
ever saw him unbend about them was one glorious summer afternoon when
Charles Frohman, William Gillette and Terriss, who were spending the
day with me, insisted on sending for him to compliment him on his
success. They were all rose lovers, and they and Haddon talked together
as experts.
One day Haddon casually mentioned--as a matter of the utmost
unimportance--that although living for years within a few miles of the
West End and theatre-land he had never visited London.
The revelation appalled me, and, thinking to give him a treat, I
insisted that he should leave his roses and my pony and trap, which
occupied the next place in his affections, and spend a whole day in
London sightseeing.
He consented--without enthusiasm--and I grew quite excited as I mapped
out a day’s round of sights, writing out carefully for him a list of
the things he was on no account to miss, with elaborate directions how
to get from one place to another; the whole expedition was to conclude
with a visit to the theatre, for which I got him a seat.
On the eventful morning, my faithful maid and friend Lottie--Lottie
deserves a place all to herself in these pages, and later she shall
have it--told me that Haddon had left to catch the eight o’clock train
and was “going to make a day of it.” All morning I pictured Haddon let
loose on the wonders of London; Haddon gazing awe-struck at the Crown
Jewels in the Tower; Haddon wandering reverently through the dim Abbey;
Haddon glancing approval at the Life Guards in their scarlet and gold;
Haddon perhaps even having the luck to raise his hat to Royalty itself;
Haddon at the Zoo; Haddon in Rotten Row; Haddon in an A.B.C.--in fact
Haddon obsessed me, and I began to feel the responsibility of plunging
this peaceful rose lover in the whirl of the great city.
After lunch, with cushions and a book I was seeking a shady corner of
the garden when a familiar “click-click-click” reached my ears.
I looked and saw the returned traveller amongst his beloved roses.
“Back so soon, Haddon?” I gasped.
“Yes, miss,” he replied calmly. “I don’t take to that London; it’s too
noisy.”
But even Jessamine Cottage was not always peaceful.
Mr. Terriss had the most wonderful health; the possessor of a fine
constitution, he took the greatest care of it, and always prided
himself on his physical fitness, but the long strain of work without a
real break began to tell on him, and the doctors told him that if he
wanted to avoid a break-down a short rest was essential. After much
persuasion he consented, and it was arranged that he should go to the
Isle of Wight, George Edwardes giving Seymour Hicks, who afterwards
married Ella, permission to leave the Gaiety to go with him. I went
to Waterloo Station to see them off, and, to the astonishment of all
of us, on the platform was Terriss’s brother, dear old Bob Lewin, who
announced his intention of going to the Isle of Wight as well, in
order to help to look after the invalid. Dear Bob was one of those
steady-going, regular, old bachelor souls who never deviate one
hair’s-breadth from the daily routine. It had been a great sacrifice
for him to tear himself away from his usual round, but he considered it
to be his duty to look after his brother and he had made the sacrifice.
It was his duty; he had performed it--but still, it was a sacrifice.
And he greatly resented the presence of the volatile Seymour,
whom he no doubt looked upon as hardly an ideal companion for an
invalid embarking on a rest cure. So there was a heated argument
on the platform between the three of them--the invalid and his two
“nurses”--which lasted until the bell rang, when they all clambered
into the carriage, still arguing at the tops of their voices, and
as the train steamed out the last I heard was the voice of Seymour
proclaiming loudly that _he_, at any rate, was going away for peace and
quiet!
With a sigh of relief I drove off to the Adelphi for the Saturday
matinée, and throughout the _matinée_ and the evening performances
looked forward to a quiet week-end at Jessamine Cottage with my
brother. He and I caught the midnight train from Paddington, and were
met at Windsor by the faithful Haddon with the pony and trap, and soon
drove the four miles to Winkfield.
On opening the cottage door, which led directly into my sitting-room, I
was horrified to see three dirty pairs of men’s boots in front of the
fireplace.
My brother and I looked at one another in silence.
There was a slight movement upstairs.
“Burglars!” I whispered.
Firmly clutching his stick, my brother made for the staircase, and I
followed him.
At the sound of our steps, three bedroom doors burst open
simultaneously, and three figures appeared on the landing, all speaking
at once, and all arguing at the tops of their voices--Bob, Terriss and
Seymour.
My sympathies were with poor Seymour.
“Seymour,” I said firmly, “come down and tell me all about it. As for
you, Willie and Bob, I will hear your account to-morrow. Go to bed!”
And then Seymour came downstairs and told me all about the start of the
rest cure.
The train left with the travellers arguing hotly; they argued for
miles, and when they reached Portsmouth the compartment contained three
travellers who were not on speaking terms. On the Portsmouth platform
Terriss had an idea.
“I won’t go to the Isle of Wight,” he said firmly. “Beastly hole, the
Isle of Wight; not a soul to speak to. Why not give Jessie a surprise
and all go back to Jessamine Cottage?”
“Anything for a quiet life,” said Seymour, with a savage glance at
poor Bob Lewin. So catching a train to Woking, the trio then hired
a dilapidated station landau, which broke down from sheer old age
half-way to Ascot, and there was a delay for repairs. Having left
Waterloo at ten in the morning, they finally reached Jessamine Cottage,
via Portsmouth, at ten o’clock at night, and by the time poor Seymour
had finished the recital of his adventures it was four o’clock in the
morning. I told him to go to bed, and, worn out, he slept till one
o’clock in the afternoon.
After lunch, as it seemed time to start the rest cure, I suggested that
Mr. Terriss should lie down, that Seymour should run over to Staines,
where Ella was staying, and that my brother and Bob should go for a
bicycle ride, my brother on my bicycle and Bob on Terriss’s. The last
two said it seemed a good idea; that they were not used to bicycling,
but that it might be amusing.
So, having disposed of the surplus population of the cottage, I curled
myself up in a garden chair on the lawn, feeling that I had had a very
strenuous time. I had dozed for about half an hour I suppose when the
gate clicked, and, opening my eyes, I saw Bob and Percy entering the
garden festooned with broken bicycles, which they were carrying on
their shoulders. It seemed that shortly after starting Bob had made for
a ditch, and out of pure sympathy my brother on a lady’s bicycle had
followed him. The ditch and the collision in the ditch explained the
broken bicycles.
But the end of the rest cure was not yet.
Barely had we started our evening meal when again the inexorable
“click” of the gate was heard, and looking up: “Good Lord!” groaned Bob
Lewin dejectedly, “here’s Seymour!”
Into the room in his best _jeune premier_ manner, full of life and
buoyancy, burst Seymour.
“Hullo, everybody!” he cried breezily. “How well you’re all looking!
Splendid! Capital! Nothing like a rest cure! Jessie, I had such a
ripping night’s rest that I want you to put me up again to-night!”
So for the second night my brother slept on the sofa, and I could not
blame him when he left by an appallingly early train on the Monday
morning, saying he had an important breakfast appointment in the city.
But the peaceful week-end in the country was not over.
As I had been eaten out of hearth and home, I explained that anybody
who wanted lunch would have to go to Windsor for it, so we drove over
through the forest.
When the Castle came in sight, Bob meaningly suggested that he and
Terriss should go _quietly_ over it. Seymour and I at once understood
that we were not wanted, so wandered on to the hotel to order lunch.
The meal ordered, we sat in the lounge waiting for the return of the
sightseers, and Seymour was unusually silent. Suddenly he burst out:
“Jessie,” he exclaimed solemnly, “if I don’t have some champagne I
think I shall die!”
“Then for goodness’ sake have it!” I begged him.
“But I’ve come out without any money.”
“Never mind; I’ll pay for it. You deserve it.”
The champagne arrived, and hardly had it been uncorked before:
“Here they are!” I exclaimed, and Seymour promptly hid the bottle
beneath the table, knowing that Bob Lewin strongly disapproved of such
wild extravagance.
To my surprise, Willie seemed quite his old self again; all traces
of fag and nerviness were gone, and he threw himself into a chair
announcing that he felt simply splendid, and would like nothing in the
world better than a glass of champagne.
Seymour and I looked at one another.
“Seymour,” I said, “lift up the champagne!”
Which was the end of the only nervous break-down I ever knew Mr.
Terriss to have, for that night, to the surprise of everybody and to
the disgust of his understudy, he appeared at the Adelphi, and, to the
astonishment of George Edwardes, Seymour appeared at the Gaiety.
And I heard afterwards that when George Edwardes was told the story, he
observed: “I knew that there would be something original about a rest
cure personally conducted by Seymour!”
It seemed absurd to connect Mr. Terriss with “nerves” and the necessity
for a rest cure, for he was blessed with a superb constitution, of
which he took the utmost possible care. A lover of the “open” and the
“simple life,” he was always in the pink of condition, and late hours
and lavish meals made not the slightest appeal to him.
It was his perpetual state of being “in training” that made possible
many of the incidents which at times startled his friends, but of
which he himself seemed to think little or nothing. In her book Miss
Terry has told of his jumping into the river to save life, and, on
his arrival dripping wet at the theatre, replying merely “Looks like
it” to someone’s query as to whether it was raining, and I myself was
on two occasions the witness of feats for which most men would, quite
pardonably, have assumed a fair amount of credit.
Once, during a tour of costume recitals which we made together, I was
walking with him on the pier at Eastbourne when we heard cries, and
looking over we saw that a small boy who had been climbing on the
supports under the pier had somehow managed to get wedged between the
planks and had been reached by the rising tide. Instantly Terriss threw
off his hat and coat and gave one leap from the pier into the water. I
honestly confess that I dared not look until I heard his voice crying:
“It’s all right. I’ve got him.”
And then I saw that he had extricated the boy and was swimming towards
the shore. Picking up his hat and coat, I flew along the pier, arriving
just in time to see them land, and the rescuer give the rescued a good
shake, a short sharp lecture, and send him flying home to change his
wet clothes.
Where he himself was concerned, Terriss was, physically, absolutely
fearless.
On another occasion I was walking with him by the side of the Row in
Hyde Park. It was two o’clock; there were very few people about; and
suddenly a horse, ridden by a lady, came galloping furiously down the
Row. The brute had got the bit in its teeth and the rider had lost all
control, and her groom was pounding along behind in the vain hope of
catching it. As soon as he caught sight of it Terriss darted into the
path of the runaway, made a wild snatch at the bridle as the beast
passed him, caught it, and was dragged for some distance before he
managed to pull the animal up, and the groom came to his assistance.
For some time after that little episode he was obliged to carry his arm
in a sling, and gave evasive answers to enquirers at the theatre who
wanted to know what had happened to it.
It was during the series of plays which followed “The Harbour Lights”
at the Adelphi that I first acted with Miss Olga Nethersole, who made a
sensational success in the part of Lola in the Sims and Pettitt play,
“The Silver Falls.”
Lola was a fascinating adventuress, and much curiosity had arisen in
the theatre as to the dresses she was to wear. They did not appear at
the dress rehearsals--they were not quite ready, we heard--and it was
not until Miss Nethersole went on the stage on the first night that
the mystery was solved. They were superb, and so was her performance.
During the play Mr. Terriss came to me in some excitement, saying that
his dresser, whom he had sent into the gallery between the acts to
report on the effect the play was producing on the “gods,” had told
him that there was a “claque,” but, whether this was so or not, Miss
Nethersole once more exemplified the truth of the perverted proverb: “A
good performance needs no claque.”
Many years afterwards, after my marriage to Mr. Glendinning, I met Miss
Nethersole again in America. She had taken up social work very keenly,
and was interested in all sorts of domestic problems. After talking
together for some time, she seized my hand.
“You are married?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Then promise me one thing,” she begged earnestly.
“What is that?”
“That you will have a _large_ family!”
But then most social pioneers are tremendous enthusiasts!
Those days at the old Adelphi were days of strenuous work, and the few
holidays I was able to take were events to be marked with white stones.
One such holiday was a somewhat eventful trip to the Canary Islands
with my sister. My passion for the sea was responsible for our journey,
but when we sailed from Liverpool in a blinding snowstorm, and were
battened down and confined to our state-room throughout the crossing of
the Bay of Biscay, my seafaring enthusiasm began to wane.
One terrible day in the Bay I shall always remember in connection with
a weird and grim incident.
In the morning the ship’s doctor, a young Irishman, whose first voyage
it was, shot a seagull, and an old shellback of a sailor, possibly to
frighten him, assumed the rôle of the ancient mariner, and told him
that it was the worst of bad luck, and that the gulls were the souls of
drowned sailors.
All that day the storm grew worse, and in the afternoon, as the young
doctor was visiting us in our deck state-room--and I am afraid his
services were needed--a huge sea burst open the door and flooded the
room. At that moment there was a wild cry for the doctor.
Two sailors had been badly hurt by the sea, and, promising to return,
the young Irishman rushed off to attend to them. Barely had he reached
the deck when another huge sea buried the vessel, and when she rose,
the water pouring from her decks, the doctor was missing, and another
“swept overboard” tragedy was added to the long list of tragedies of
the terrible Bay. More than once did I discuss the awful happening with
the old sailor who had prophesied bad luck, and nothing on earth could
convince him that the accident was not the direct consequence of the
shooting of the gull.
Three days later we arrived in brilliant sunshine at the lovely
islands, to find that grave fears had been entertained about our safety
and that our people had been frantically cabling to the British Consul,
who came off to satisfy himself that we were alive and took us ashore
to breakfast at Madeira.
Then Portuguese guides, looking like toreadors in their black knee
breeches, red sashes and white shirts, placed us in conveyances which
resembled four-post bedsteads drawn by four oxen, and conducted us to
the highest point in the island, from which the view was superb, and
I remember that in the harbour at our feet, glistening like a jewel,
lay Lord Brassey’s beautiful yacht, “Sunbeam.” The descent was made in
a weird kind of basket sleigh on rollers, a most undignified form of
conveyance, for the pace and “bumpiness” was terrific, and when the man
next to me cried: “Hang on to me!” I cast dignity to the winds, and
gasping “I will!” hung on like a combination of the leech, grim death,
the income-tax collector, and all the other unpleasant things that are
supposed to hang hardest.
Our next port was Teneriffe, and there I tasted for the first time
what I might humbly call European fame, for in the lounge of the hotel
was an illustrated paper, and on the front page was a large picture
of--Jessie Millward.
From Teneriffe we sailed away to Santa Catalina, and I freely admit
that Santa Catalina, lovely and semi-tropical as it was, gave me the
horrors. We spent three weeks there, and when one morning I heard that
there was a cargo ship in the bay willing to take passengers, although
we were to be the only women on board we rushed down to book our
passages.
Lovely Santa Catalina was full of invalids--poor souls in the last
stages of consumption--and the frequency with which one was told, if
one enquired after a missing face: “Oh, he died yesterday evening and
is to be buried this afternoon,” made it hideously depressing for
rudely healthy folk like my sister and myself.
And so back to the Adelphi.
My first long stay at the Adelphi came to an end in 1889, when Mr.
Terriss and I sailed for America, and for some months we toured the
United States under the management of Augustin Daly and J. Miner, who
owned Miner’s Theatre, New York, playing in “Roger la Honte,” the play
which Terriss had bought in Paris in the way I have described. It was
in America that I first saw that truly great actor Salvini. There has
surely never been an Othello like his, but when I saw him the effect
of the play as a whole was spoiled, to my poor mind, by this big,
magnificent creature, with the tremendous voice, playing in volcanic
Italian, while the rest of the company gave Shakespeare’s lines in a
very quiet English-American.
Perhaps it was to prevent audiences who did not understand Italian
from becoming weary of listening to a foreign tongue that an
English-speaking company was engaged to support Salvini in America, but
the effect was certainly quaint.
There were innumerable stories told of his experiences in the States.
A play in his repertoire that was a great favourite with the Americans
was “The Gladiator,” and when this play was put on in any large town
with a handy Zoo some real lions were hired to place in the cages
in the Coliseum scene, which was the big “set” of the play, but on
“one-night stands” small boys, with cardboard lion-heads and yellow
skins over their shoulders, were employed to sway gently about in
mysterious gloom behind the bars.
One night out West this scene offended a cowboy’s sense of fair play,
so, shouting that _he_ wasn’t going to sit there in comfort and watch
one man set upon by half a dozen lions, he climbed over the footlights,
a “gun” in each hand, to help the gladiator.
Whereupon the “lions” promptly stood up on their hind legs, threw away
their heads, and with frantic squeaks bolted for the wings.
Another Salvini story that used to be told, as an object lesson to
impresarios confronted with the difficult task of dealing with rival
stars, was of the great tragedian’s appearance in the same cast with
Adelaide Ristori and Ernesto Rossi. Rossi and Salvini were of equal
celebrity, and in composing the announcements the impresario was
confronted with a terrible difficulty.
Which name was to have the precedence?
Ristori, being a lady, naturally came first, but what of the two
tragedians, stars of equal magnitude?
After a long and anxious consultation with a resourceful printer, the
tactful impresario solved the difficulty thus:
T
O I
M S
A S
S O
O R
O S
T A
S L
E V
N I
R N
E I
But perhaps the most striking Othello in the gallery of my memory--for
a different reason--is that of a once-distinguished American actor whom
I met at Denver, Colorado, on one of my visits with my husband, John
Glendinning.
I had seen him, and admired him tremendously, for he was a handsome,
courteous gentleman, and a great actor, but he had one sad failing,
which was known only too well to his audiences, who towards the end of
his career used to watch and wait for the effect--not inspiration.
One eventful night Othello made his entrance in the bedchamber scene,
but his mind was not on smothering the unhappy Desdemona. Seeing the
bed ready prepared, he hiccoughed an exclamation of delight, made
straight for it, laid himself down, and with a grunt of relief settled
himself comfortably for a sleep. Meanwhile, the startled Desdemona,
with a little shriek of dismay, had hurriedly climbed out on the other
side of the bed, and slipped from the stage.
Which, as someone said, was not exactly a Shakespearean climax, if
realistically domestic.
And here let me tell an “Othello” experience of my very own.
The only time I ever acted with the late Sir Herbert Tree was in a
performance of the “handkerchief” scene at a benefit performance at the
old Gaiety, in which Tree played Iago, Terris Othello, and I was the
Desdemona.
My maid had gone up to the gallery to watch the scene, and found
herself next to two old habitués of the Gaiety, who were utterly at
sea as to the play, and wondered vaguely who were the presumptuous
newcomers poaching on the sacred ground of Nellie Farren and Fred
Leslie.
My white dress and pearl embroidery bothered them a little, and they
were entirely unable to place Iago, but when Terriss entered as Othello
the old man gave a sigh of relief and turned to the old woman.
“It’s all right, Mary,” he said. “It won’t be long now. The black man
and the fairy queen are going to finish with a song and dance.”
As I have said, this was the only occasion on which I acted with
Sir Herbert Tree, but it was impossible to meet him and to act with
him even once without being impressed by that extraordinarily vivid
personality which made Tree an outstanding figure in other worlds than
that of the theatre.
Irving and Tree, utterly dissimilar in so many ways, had in common an
amazing vitality, a relentless energy, which went far to make their
achievements possible.
And, of course, about Tree a whole mythology of stories has arisen, and
many of them are true. And, unlike so many stories of celebrities, many
of them are amusing. I remember a luncheon party at the Waldorf in New
York at which Mr. Oscar Asche kept the table in roars over a recital of
Treeisms.
The luncheon party included Lord Rosslyn, who under the _nom de
theatre_ of James Erskine was playing with me in “There’s Many a Slip”
at the Garrick Theatre, New York, and was at that time dividing his
attentions between the stage and some infallible system of breaking the
bank at Monte Carlo. Later, financed, I believe, by Sir Hiram Maxim, he
did endeavour to break the bank, with the usual result. One explanation
I heard of the failure of the infallible system was, to say the least
of it, ingenious.
[Illustration: JESSIE MILLWARD AS PAULINE IN “THE LADY OF LYONS.”
_Photo. by Elliott & Fry_]
“You see,” said the man who was explaining it all, “on the very last
day there were two dashed great bluebottles in the rooms, and
they kept jumping on the wheel and off again, apparently under the
impression that it was a flies’ merry-go-round, with nothing to pay,
and that upset everybody’s balance.”
Mr. Asche told a delightful little story of a rehearsal of “Julius
Cæsar,” which dragged along from 11 a.m. on Friday until 3 a.m. on
Saturday. Knowing well what might happen if the supers were allowed to
leave the theatre, the considerate actor-manager ordered in hundreds of
sandwiches and a large barrel of Bass’s beer, which was broached for
the benefit of his humbler brethren. The humbler brethren thoroughly
enjoyed the rest, and consequently, when the rehearsal was resumed,
it was a distinctly beer-logged band of Romans who shambled on to the
stage with flaming flambeaux, and indignant cries of: “O mos’ nobl’
Cæsar! O trait’rs! Vill’ns! O bloody day!” in the scene before the
forum.
Tree gazed at them hopelessly, but like a true philosopher made the
best of it.
“Splendid! Fine! A magnificent bit of realism!” he exclaimed. “Your
simulation of the intoxicating effects of Casca’s foul blow on the
citizens of Rome is Zolaesque--but please return your torches, all
of you, to the property master before you set fire to my beautiful
scenery!”
Two of the best of Mr. Asche’s stories were of a rehearsal of Stephen
Phillips’ “Ulysses.”
A “vision” in the Hades scene was of Prometheus chained to his
rock, with the vulture pecking at his vitals through all eternity.
(The vulture was, of course, stuffed.) The actor who played the
deep-thinking part of Prometheus was a conscientious youth with a
slightly Hebraic accent.
“Mister Dree! Mister Dree!” he called. “Am I to dake any nodice of the
bird?”
“Yes, my lad,” said Tree blandly; “hiss back.”
Another gentleman who “thought” the same part found it a trifle
strenuous at rehearsal.
To a group of admiring friends, Tree was pointing out the beauty and
ingenuity of the lighting and the triumph of the mechanism of the bird.
Again and again the mechanical effect was repeated and admired, and all
the while Prometheus lay supine and neglected on his rock.
At last he could stand it no longer. Professional jealousy overcame
him, and, raising his head: “I say, guv’nor, suppose the ---- bird and
me changes parts,” suggested Prometheus.
Another rehearsal story was of “Drake.” Queen Elizabeth was to be
entertained, and the table was spread with a cloth which, to put it
mildly, was not fresh from the laundry.
“Her Majesty is served,” said the actor, at the proper cue.
“D----d badly,” said Sir Herbert, surveying the dirty table-cloth.
Yet another story of Sir Herbert was of an occasion on which he wished
to engage a young and comparatively untried actress, who was, however,
the daughter of famous parents.
“I want your beautiful daughter to play in my beautiful theatre,” he
announced, and the parents were delighted. Then the sordid question of
terms arose.
“Forty pounds a week!” cried Tree, when he heard the parents’
suggestion. “Good God! I could get Little Tich for that!”
At times Tree dared even to repress the Press.
On one of his American tours a reporter strolled into his
dressing-room, and, without troubling to remove his hat, licked his
pencil and prepared for copy. Tree fixed the offending hat with a cold
blue eye. Then, picking up his own top-hat from his dressing-table,
Marcus Antonius “covered” himself.
“Let us talk as equals,” said the voice of Tree, though the robes were
those of Anthony.
Another Tree story--the mine is inexhaustible, and before they are
forgotten some intimate friend of the dead actor should collect a
volume of Treeisms and sift the real from the apocryphal.
At a supper in the Dome, conversation turned on a well-known writer and
his physical resemblances to great ones of the past.
“Yes,” said Tree, in his deliberate, dreamy manner--no one in reality
was more acute--“the _upper_ part of his head is like Our Lord; the
_lower_ part distinctly resembles Shakespeare--and the rest of him is
just himself.”
Another point of resemblance between Tree and Irving was their loyalty
and tenderness to friends, and one who saw it told me that never would
he forget Tree’s explosion of anger over a slight to poor Coleridge
Taylor, who composed the music for more than one production at His
Majesty’s.
The play, I fancy, was “Herod,” and Coleridge Taylor, who was of a
dark complexion, was refused admittance by some under-strapper at the
stage door, who told him that it was no use waiting; all the “coloured
gentlemen’s” parts had been filled. Taylor, a sensitive soul, went away
hurt, and when at last, after he had repeatedly asked for the composer,
Tree was told what had happened, he exploded right royally.
A Tree story he used to tell against himself was not one of the least
amusing.
On a provincial tour, on arrival at his hotel he gave the cabman half a
crown. The man looked at the coin and then at Tree.
“I recognise you, Sir ’Erbert,” he said ingratiatingly. “The last
time Sir ’Enry Irving was ’ere I drove ’im, too, and he gave me five
shillings.”
Pause, during which Tree dreamily commenced to ascend the hotel steps.
“An’ you’re a deal better actor than ’e was!”--Tree still ascending
steps, and cabby’s voice rising to a hopeless roar--“in your own
bloomin’ estimation!”
But, after all, perhaps the best Tree story is that told by Mr. Arthur
Bourchier. There had been some slight difference of opinion between
the two actors, speedily composed, and one evening, while the little
estrangement persisted, a terrific explosion shook the windows in the
Haymarket.
“What was that explosion?” asked Tree of his dresser, when he left the
stage.
“A gas meter in Charing Cross Road, I believe, sir.”
“Oh,” said Tree, “I thought it was the bursting of Bourchier’s head.”
And as Mr. Bourchier himself tells the story I am sure that there is no
harm in my repeating it.
But to return to America and “Roger la Honte.”
During the tour of “Roger la Honte” Mr. Terriss and I were entertained
at dinner by Judge Gildersleeve, who took us on to the Grand Opera
House, then owned by George Gould, the husband of that beautiful and
accomplished member of the Daly Company, Edith Kingdom, and there we
saw one of the most successful plays in the States, “Paul Kauvar,” of
which our host owned the rights.
Mr. Terriss was so impressed with the piece that he at once secured the
English rights, and on our arrival in London arranged with Sir Augustus
Harris to produce “Paul Kauvar” at Drury Lane. The play was produced on
May 12, 1890, and with its production commenced my association with the
National Theatre.