Life on the Stage Part 22

When a woman knows she is an "object," words of welcome for the unexpected visitor are apt to come haltingly from the tongue, and that I was an "object" no one can deny. A loose, pink dressing-gown was bad, a knit white shawl huddled about the shoulders was worse, but, oh, worst of all, my hair was all scrambled up to the top of my head (hair was dressed low then), and a broad handkerchief bandage concealed from the eye, but not from the nose, the presence of a remedial poultice of flour and brandy.

Truly it is such acts as this that brings many a well-meaning but apparently demented husband into the divorce court. Now any friend, relative, or servant would have bravely but politely prevaricated to the last gasp rather than have admitted a caller to me in that state, but husbands have no discretion, husbands have no--well, that's too large a contract, so I'll keep to that call.

I was aghast for a moment, but the warm pressure of Mr. Barrett's hand, his brightening eye gave me such an impression of sincerity in his pleased greeting that I forgot I was an "object," and asked him to sit down for a chat, as eagerly as though I had had all my war-paint on.

We were soon exchanging memories of the past, and Mr. Harriott, having a business engagement ahead, excused himself and withdrew. Mr. Barrett, calling after him: "I'll join you in a moment," resumed his conversation.

There still stood on the table a pot of tea and a plate holding two pieces of toast. They had been meant for my lunch, but neuralgia had the call, and lunch had been ignored; so, as we talked on and on, presently Mr. Barrett, seeing my bandage sliding down over my eyes, rose, and, without pausing in his rapid description of a certain picture he had seen abroad in its creator's studio, he pa.s.sed behind me, tightened the knot of the handkerchief, put the sofa-pillow behind my head, a stool under my feet, and resumed his seat.

Then I talked and talked, and grew excited, then thirsty. I drew the tray nearer and poured out a cup of tea.

"Give me some," said Mr. Barrett, who was now telling me about a sitting of Parliament in London.

"Let me order some that's fresh," I replied.

"No, no!" he cried, impatiently, "that will be such an interruption--no, no!"

I gave him then a cup of cold tea. Presently I broke off a bit of the stiff and repellant toast, with its chilled, pale gleam of b.u.t.ter, and nibbled it. His hand went forth and broke off a bit also. We were on a new poem then, and Mr. Barrett seemed thrilling to his fingertips with the delight of it. He repeated lines; I questioned his reading; we experimented, placing emphasis first on this word, then on that. We generally agreed, but we came an awful cropper over Gladstone.

How fiercely we clashed over the grand old man those who knew Mr. Barrett will guess from the fact that during the fray he excitedly undid two b.u.t.tons of his tight frock-coat. The ends of his white silk m.u.f.fler now hung down his back, fluttering when he moved like a small pair of white wings. I have a recollection, too, of his rising, and, apparently unconscious of his act, lighting the gas, while he pa.s.sionately demanded of me the reason why d.i.c.kens could not create a real woman.

At last we came up hard and fast against _Hamlet_. The air was thick with stories. Part of the time we talked together in our eagerness. Mr.

Barrett's coat was quite unb.u.t.toned; the curl on his wide brow had grown as frizzly as any common curl might grow. Two round, red spots spread over his high cheek-bones, his eyes were hungrily glowing; he had just taken a long breath and made a start on an audience with the Pope, when Mr. Harriott entered and said: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrett, there's a man outside who is very anxiously inquiring for you."

"For me?" exclaimed Mr. Barrett, with astonishment, "that's rather impertinent, it seems to me!"

Suddenly he noticed the gas-light. He started violently, he pulled out his watch, then sprang to his feet, crying: "Good G.o.d! Harriott, that's my dresser looking for me--I ought to be in my dressing-room. What will Mr. Booth think has become of me, and what, in heaven's name, do you think of me?"

He hastily b.u.t.toned himself into rigidity, rescued the flying ends of his m.u.f.fler, and holding my hands for a moment, he laughed: "You are not only 'just Clara,' but you are the only Clara that would make me so utterly forgetful of all rules of etiquette. Forgive, and good-by!" and he made an astonis.h.i.+ngly hasty exit.

That "call," that lasted from one till seven, with the accompanying picture of the stately Lawrence Barrett drinking cold tea and eating stiff cold toast, while he talked brilliantly of all things under heaven, is one of my quaintest memories.

One loves to think of those years of his close relations with Mr. Booth.

Artistically, the combination was an ideal one; commercially, it was a most successful one; while it certainly brought out qualities of gentleness and devotion in Mr. Barrett that the public had not accredited him with.

The position of manager and co-star was a difficult one, and only Barrett's loving comprehension of Booth's peculiarities, as well as his greatness, made that position tenable. Mr. Booth loathed business details; he was sorrowful and weary; he had tasted all the sweets the world had to offer, but only their under tang of bitterness was left upon his lips. He had grown coldly indifferent to the call of the public, but Mr. Barrett believed that under this ash of la.s.situde there still glowed the clear fire of genius, and when they went forth to try their great experiment, Mr. Booth found himself respected, honored, guarded as any woman might have been. He was asked no questions about scene or scenery, about play or percentage--his privacy and peace were ever of the first consideration. Mr. Barrett was his agent, manager, stage-manager, friend, co-worker, and dramatic guardian angel--all he asked of him in return was to act.

And how splendidly Mr. Booth responded the public can well remember. As he said laughingly to a friend, at the end of the first season: "Good work, eh? well, why should I not do good work, after all Barrett has done for me. Why, I never knew what c-o-m-f-o-r-t spelled before. I arrive--someone says: 'Here's your room, Mr. Booth.' I go in and smoke.

At night, someone says: 'Here's your dressing-room, sir,' and I go in and dress, yes, and smoke, and then act. That's all, absolutely all that I have to do, except to put out my hand and take my surprisingly big share of the receipts now and then. Good work, eh? well, I'll give him the best that's in me, he deserves it."

And in the beautiful friends.h.i.+p that grew up between the melancholy, gentle Booth and the nervously energetic Barrett I believe each gave to the other the best that was in him.

Before leaving the Barretts I should like to mention an odd happening connected with Joe and my visit to New Orleans, where the theatre was under the management of Lawrence Barrett and Mr. Rogers. The company had taken for me one of those quick likings peculiar to our people; princ.i.p.ally, I think, because being a temporary star (by the grace of Mr.

Daly's will) they had expected me to be haughtily dictatorial, instead of shy to the point of misery, and because of their mistake they treated me like a long-sought sister, instead of the stranger I was.

They publicly presented me with a gift on my last night, and almost in a body saw my mother and myself off on our Sunday night start for home.

Everyone had left the car but big, hearty Joe Barrett--he still clung silently to my hands, though my mother begged him to go before he met with an injury. The train was out of the depot--the speed increasing rapidly, before he dropped off, safely landing just beneath a light, high above his head. His hat was off, his empty hand held out toward me, and in that light his face was as the face of the sorrowful dead. It chilled me, all my high spirits flattened down suddenly; I turned, and said: "Did _you_ see, mother?" and she answered: "It was the light, and his unhappiness, that made him look so like a--so sad," so I knew she had seen him as I had.

Our journey was saddened by an accident, and when the train backed to take up the creature it had crushed, not knowing what had happened, by chance, I glanced down from the window, full into the face of the victim as they bore him past. He had been a large, broad-shouldered man, and the still, white face was so like Barrett's that I almost fainted. Everyone in the car seemed to feel some measure of culpability for the mishap; and at every unusual jolt or jar we looked with frightened eyes from the windows, dreading lest another stretcher might be borne into view. At last we were at home, and in work I regained my usual spirits.

A few weeks, three or four, had pa.s.sed. One morning I awakened myself from a dreamless sleep by my own singing. I faced the blank wall. I smiled sleepily at the absurdity of the thing, then I grew more awake, and as I sang on, I said to myself: "What is it--why, what can it be, that I am singing?"

There were no words to this mournful, heart-breaking air, that ended with a wail, long and weird.

"Mother," I called, the door being open between our rooms, "Mother, did you hear me singing just now?"

"Well, yes," she replied, "since I am not deaf, I heard you very plainly."

"Oh," I cried, "can you tell me what it was I sang?"

My mother raised her head and looked in at me surprisedly: "Why, what is the matter with you, child--aren't you awake, that you don't know what you are doing? You were singing 'the lament' Joe Barrett sang in the French cemetery."

"Oh!" I cried, in late-coming recognition, "you are right." I scrambled up, and thrusting back my hair from my face, started to sing it again, and lo! not a note could I catch. Again and again I tried; I shut my eyes and strove to recall that wail--no use. Then, remembering what a memory my mother had for _airs_ heard but once or twice, I called: "Dear, can't you start 'the lament' for me, I have lost it entirely?"

She opened her lips, paused, looked surprised, then said, positively: "I might never have heard it, I can't get either its beginning or ending."

I sprang from the bed, and in bare, unslippered feet, ran to the piano in the front room--no use; I never again heard, waking or sleeping, another note of "the lament."

Mother called out presently: "Do you know what time it is? Go back and finish your sleep, it's not quite six o'clock."

As I obediently returned to my room, I said, in a troubled voice: "What do you suppose it means, mother?" and as she snuggled her head back upon her pillow, she laughingly answered: "Oh, I suppose it's a sign you are going to hear from Joe Barrett soon. If you do, I hope it won't be anything bad, poor fellow!" for mother liked the "big Irish boy," as she called him.

I fell asleep again, but was up and ready at nine for our rather-foreign breakfast of coffee, rolls, and salad. Now in our partners.h.i.+p mother was mistress of the house, and I, doing the outside work, being the wage-winner, was the _man_ of the house, and as such had the master's inalienable right to the morning paper with my coffee. That the mistress occasionally peeped at the headlines before the _master_ rose was a fact judiciously ignored by both, so long as the paper was ever found neatly folded beside the waiting coffee-cup. Imagine then my surprise when, coming into the room, I found my mother sitting at table with the badge of authority in her own hands, and my cup standing shorn of all its dignity. She avoided my eye, and hastily pouring coffee, said: "Drink it while it's hot, dear, and--and I'll just glance at the paper a moment."

I sat back and stared, and I was just beginning to laugh at our small comedy when I discovered that mother, she of the rock-steady nerves, was trembling. Without looking up, she said again: "Drink your coffee--I'll give you the paper presently."

I sipped a little and watched. She was not reading a line. I put down the cup. "Mother," said I, "is there anything in that paper that will interest me?"

She looked up hastily: "Drink your coffee, and I'll----"

"Is there?" I broke in.

Tears rose in her eyes. "Y-y-yes," she stammered, "there is something here that will interest--rather that will grieve you, but if you would please take your coffee!"

I caught up the cup and emptied it at a draught, then held out my hand.

Mother gave me the paper and left the room; as her first sob reached my ear, I read: "Sudden death of the actor, Joseph Barrett." I sat staring stupidly, and before I saw another word there came to my ears the s.h.i.+vering of leaves, and a grave voice, saying: "It is a message from the dying or--the dead--believe that."

"What," I asked, dully, "what is a message?" and then the blood chilled at my heart as I recalled "the lament," Joe had said: "It is a message from the dying--or the dead."

After rehearsal, Mr. Daly wished to see me in his bit of a staircase-office in front of the house. He desired help in deciding about several scenes he meant to have built from old engravings. Suddenly he came to a stand-still. "What's the matter with you?" he cried; "where are your splendid spirits? you have been absent and heavy all morning--what's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing much," I began, when he angrily interrupted: "For heaven's sake, spare me that senseless answer. If you won't tell me, say so.

Refuse me your confidence, if you choose, but don't treat me as though I were a fool by saying _nothing_, when you look as if you'd seen a ghost!"

"Oh, don't!" I cried, and astonished my irate manager by bursting into tears. He instantly became gentle, and forcing a thimbleful of _Chartreuse_ (which I loath) upon me, he once more asked what was the matter.

And then I told him of the dying emigrant--of Joe's feeling for me--of the singing of "the lament," and at Joe's words: "It's a message from the dying, or the dead."

Mr. Daly's fingers trembled like aspen leaves, his eyes dilated to perfect blackness, and almost he whispered the words: "Well, child--well?"