On the Stage—and Off/Chapter 15
Chapter XV.
Revenge!
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ore extracts:—
" . . . I'm afraid I shall have to trouble you to get me another wig. I thought my own. hair would do for modern juvenile parts, but it isn't considered light enough. 'Be virtuous and you will have hair the colour of tow,' seems to be the basis of the whole theatrical religion. I wish I could be as economical in wigs as our First Old Man is. He makes one do for everything. He wears it the right way when he is a serious old man, and hind part foremost when he wants to be funny.
"Talking of wigs puts me in mind of an accident our manager had the other night. He is over fifty, but he fancies he is a sort of Charles Mathews, and will play young parts. So on Saturday evening he came on as the lover in an old English comedy, wearing one of those big three-cornered hats. Who is that handsome young man with the fair hair?' says the heroine to her confidante.
"Oh, that, why that is Sir Harry Monfort, the gallant young gentleman who saved the Prince's life. He is the youngest officer in the camp, but already the most famous.' 'Brave boy,' murmurs the heroine; 'I would speak a word with him. Call him hither, Leonora.' So Leonora called him thither, and up he skipped. When the heroine spoke to him, he was quite overcome with boyish bashfulness. 'Ah, madam,' sighed he, taking off his hat and making a sweeping bow—'What the devil's the matter? What are they laughing at? Oh my ———'
"He had taken his wig off with his hat, and there was the 'brave boy's' poor old bald head exposed to the jeers of a ribald house.
"I'd half a mind to rush up to town last week. I was out of the bill for three nights running. But the mere railway fare would have cost me nearly half a week's salary, so I contented myself with a trip over to R——— and a look in at the show there. I met W———. He's married little Polly ———, who was walking lady at ———. She is up at Aberdeen now, and he hasn't seen her for over three months. Rather rough on a young couple who haven't been married a year. The old ones bear up against this sort of thing very well indeed, but poor W——— is quite upset about it. They kept together as long as they could, but business got so bad that they had to separate, and each take the first thing that offered. . . . "
"You remember my telling you how our prompter got me fined for not attending a rehearsal some time ago. I said I would serve him out, and so I have. Or rather we have—I and one of the others who had a score against him—for he's a bumptious, interfering sort of fellow, and makes himself disagreeable to everybody. He is awful spoons on a Miss Pinkeen, whose father keeps an ironmonger's shop next door to the theatre. The old man knows nothing about it, and they are up to all kinds of dodges to get a word with each other. Now, one of our dressing-room windows is exactly opposite their staircase window, and he and the girl often talk across; and, once or twice, he has placed a plank between the two windows, and crawled along it into the house when her father has been away. Well, we got hold of a bit of this girl's writing the other day, and forged a letter to him, saying that her father had gone out, and that she wanted to see him very particularly, and that he was to come over through the window and wait on the landing till she came upstairs. Then, just before rehearsal, we went out and gave a stray boy twopence to take it in to him.
"Of course, no sooner did we see that he was fairly inside the house, and out of sight, than we pulled the board in and shut our window. It got quite exciting on the stage as time went by. 'Where's ———?' fumed the stage manager. "Where the devil's ———? It's too bad of him to keep us all waiting like this.' And then the call-boy was sent round to four public houses, and then to his lodgings; for he had got the book in his pocket, and we couldn't begin without him. 'Oh, it's too bad of him to go away and stop like this,' cried the stage manager again at the end of half an hour. I'll fine him five shillings for this. I won't be played the fool with.' In about an hour, he came in looking thunder and lightning. He wouldn't give any explanation. All we could get out of him was, that if he could find out who'd done it, he'd jolly well wring his neck.
"From what the ironmonger's boy told our call-boy, it seems that he waited about three-quarters of an hour on the stairs, not daring to move, and that then the old man came up and wanted to know what he was doing there. There was a regular scene in the house, and the girl has sworn that she'll never speak to him again for getting her into a row, and about four of her biggest male relatives have each expressed a firm determination to break every bone in his body; and the boy adds, that from his knowledge of them they are to be relied upon. We have thought it our duty to let him know these things."
I find nothing further of any theatrical interest, until I come to the following, written about four months after the date of my entering the company:—
"I was far too busy to write last week. It's been something awful. We've got ———[1] down here for a fortnight. His list consists of eighteen pieces—eight 'legitimate,' five dramas, four comedies, and a farce; and we only had a week in which to prepare. There have been rehearsals at ten, and rehearsals at three, and rehearsals at eleven, after the performance was over. First, I took all the parts given me, and studied them straight off one after the other. Then I found I'd got them all jumbled up together in my head, and the more I tried to remember what belonged to which, the more I forgot which belonged to what. At rehearsal I talked Shakspeare in the farce, and put most of the farce and a selection from all the five dramas into one of the comedies. And then the stage manager went to put me right, and then he got mixed up, and wanted to know if anybody could oblige him by informing him what really was being rehearsed; and the Leading Lady and the First Low Comedy said it was one of the dramas, but the Second Low Comedy, the Soubrette, and the Leader of the orchestra would have it was a comedy, while the rest of us were too bewildered to be capable of forming any opinion on any subject.
"The strain has so upset me, that I don't even now know whether I'm standing on my head or my heels; and our First Old Man—but I'll come to him later on. My work has been particularly heavy, for, in consequence of a serious accident that has happened to our Walking Gentleman, I've had to take his place. He was playing a part in which somebody—the Heavy Man—tries to stab him while he's asleep. But just when the would-be murderer has finished soliloquizing, and the blow is about to fall, he starts up, and a grand struggle ensues. I think the other fellow must have been drunk on the last occasion. Anyhow, the business was most clumsily managed, and R———, our Walking Gent., got his eye cut out, and is disfigured for life. It is quite impossible for him now to play his old line, and he has to do heavies or low comedy, or anything where appearance is of no importance. The poor fellow is terribly cut up—don't think I'm trying to make a ghastly joke—and he seems to be especially bitter against me for having slipped into his shoes. I'm sure he need not be; whatever good his ill wind has blown me has brought with it more work than it's worth; and I think, on the whole, taking this star business into consideration, I would rather have stopped where I was. I knew a good many of the parts I should have had to play, but, as it is, everything has been fresh study.
"Well, I was going to tell you about our old man. He had always boasted that he hadn't studied for the last ten years. I don't know what particular merit there was in this, that he should have so prided himself upon it, but that he considered it as highly clever on his part there could not be the slightest doubt; and he had even got to quite despise any one who did study. You can imagine his feelings, therefore, when sixteen long parts, eleven at least of which he had never seen before, were placed in his hand, with a request that he would be letter perfect in all by the following Thursday. It was observed that he didn't say much at the time. He was a garrulous old gentleman as a rule, but, after once glancing over the bundle, he grew thoughtful and abstracted, and did not join in the chorus of curses loud and deep which was being sung with great vigour by the rest of the company. The only person to whom he made any remark was myself, who happened to be standing by the stage-door when he was going out. He took the bundle of parts out of his pocket, and showed them to me. 'Nice little lot, that—ain't it?' he said. 'I'll just go home and study them all up—that's what I'll do.' Then he smiled—a sad, wan smile—and went slowly out.
"That was on Saturday evening, and on Monday morning we met at ten for rehearsal. We went on without the old man until eleven, and then, as he hadn't turned up, and was much wanted, the boy was despatched to his lodgings to see if he were there. We waited patiently for another quarter of an hour, and then the boy returned.
"The old man had not been seen since Sunday.
"His landlady had left him in the morning, looking over the 'parts,' and when she returned in the evening, he was gone. A letter, addressed to her, had been found in his room, and this she had given the boy to take back with him.
"The stage manager took it and hurriedly opened it. At the first glance, he started and uttered an exclamation of horror; and when he had finished it, it dropped from his hand, and he sank down in the nearest chair, dazed and bewildered, like a man who has heard, but cannot yet grasp, some terrible news.
"A cold, sickly feeling came over me. The strange, far-away look, and the quiet, sad smile that I had last seen on the old man's face came back to me with startling vividness, and with a new and awful meaning. He was old and enfeebled. He had not the elastic vigour of youth that can bear up under worry and work. His mind, to all seeming, had never at any time been. very powerful. Had the sudden and heavy call upon its energies actually unhinged it? and had the poor old fellow in some mad moment taken up arms against his sea of troubles, and by opposing ended them? Was he now lying in some shady copse, with a gaping wound from ear to ear, or sleeping his last sleep with the deep waters for a coverlet? Was what lay before me a message from the grave? These thoughts flashed like lightning through my brain as I darted forward and picked the letter up. It ran as follows:—
"Dear Mrs. Hopsam,—I'm off to London by the 3.30, and shan't come back. I'll write and let you know where to send my things. I left a pair of boots at Jupp's to have the toe-caps sewn—please get 'em; and there was a night-shirt short last week—if's got a D on it. If they send from the theatre, tell them to go to the devil; and if they want sixteen parts studied in a week, they'd better get a cast-iron actor. Yours truly, D———.'
"This was a great relief to me, but it didn't seem to have soothed the stage manager much. When he recovered from his amazement, he said what he thought of the old man, which I will not repeat. There was a deuce of a row, I can tell you. Our Leading Man, who had consoled himself for being temporarily ousted from his proper position by the thought of having nothing to do all the time, and being able to go in front each night and sneer at the 'star,' had to take the First Old Man's place, and a pretty temper he's in about it. It's as much as one's life's worth now, even, to sneak a bit of his colour. Another old man joins us after next week, but of course that is just too late for the hard work. ——— will be gone then. . . . "
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- ↑ A "Star" from London.