Life on the Stage Part 36

Mr. Daly never spoke a word. He had not released my fingers, and so we stood, hand in hand, watching silently over the torment of his beloved theatre--the destruction of his gathered treasures. I looked up at him.

His face gleamed white in the firelight; his eyes were wide and strained; his fingers, icy cold, never lessened their clinching grasp on mine. Then came the warning cry firemen are apt to give when they know the roof is going. I had heard it often, and understood that and their retreating movement. Mr. Daly did not, and when, with a crackling crash, the whole roof fell into the roaring depths, his hand, his body, relaxed suddenly; a sort of sobbing groan escaped his pale lips. But when the column of glowing sparks flew high into the air he turned away with a s.h.i.+ver and gave not one other look at the destroyed building.

Not one word was spoken on the subject. Glancing down he noticed I had no rubbers on and that streams of water were running in the street:

"Go home, child!" he said, speaking quickly and most kindly. A crowd of reporters came up to him: "Yes," he said, "in one moment, gentlemen,"

then to me: "Hurry home, get something to eat--you could have had no dinner!"

He gave one heavy sigh, and added: "I'm glad you were with me, it would have been worse alone." He pushed me gently from him. As I started down the street he called: "I'll send you word some time to-night what we're to do."

I left him to the reporters; I had not spoken one word from the moment I had begged to enter my dressing-room. I felt strangely sad and forlorn as I dropped, draggled and tired, into a chair. I said to mother: "It's gone! the only theatre in New York whose door was not barred against me, and--I--I think that at this moment I know just how a dog feels who has lost a loved master," and, dropping my face upon my hands, I wept long over the destruction of my first dramatic home in New York, the little Fifth Avenue Theatre.

CHAPTER FORTIETH

We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New Theatre--Our Astonis.h.i.+ng Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a Great Triumph.

My first thought on awaking the next morning was one of dismay, on recalling the destruction of the little "P.H.C."--that being the actors contraction of Mr. Daly's somewhat grandiloquent "Parlor Home of Comedy."

My grief over the burning of the pretty toy theatre was very real, and I would have been an astonished young woman had anyone prophesied that for me, personally, the disaster was to prove a piece of unqualified good luck.

And, by the way, that expression "good luck" reminds me of one of the incidents of the fire. That morning, when the firemen went to the ruins to examine into the state of the standing front wall, they looked upward, and there, all alone, on the burned and blackened s.p.a.ce, smiling down in friendly fas.h.i.+on upon them, was the picture of Clara Morris--a bit charred as to frame and smoky as to gla.s.s, but the photograph (one taken by Kurtz), absolutely uninjured, being the one and only thing saved from the ruins. The firemen very naturally wanted it for their engine-house, and Mr. Daly said that for it many were claiming, pleading, demanding, bartering--but all in vain. His superst.i.tion was aroused. Not for anything in the world, he cried, would he part from his "luck," as he ever after called the rescued picture. So there again appeared the malice of inanimate things, for how else could one account for the plunging of that line, the entire length of the staircase, of splendidly framed pictures of loveliness, into the fiery depths, while the plain and unimportant one kept its place in calm security?

Mr. Daly had a very expensive company on his hands. He had amazed other managers by his "corner" on leading men. With three already in his company he had not hesitated to draw on Boston for Harry Crisp, and on Philadelphia for Mr. Louis James; and when he added such names as George Clark, Daniel Harkins, George DeVere, James Lewis, William Lemoyne, William Davidge, A. Whiting, Owen Fawcett, George Parkes, F. Burnett, H.

Bas...o...b.., J. Beekman, Charles Fisher, George Gilbert, etc., one can readily understand that the salary of the men alone must have made quite an item in the week's expenses, and added to the sharp necessity of getting us to work as quickly as possible. And in actual truth the ruins of the little theatre were not yet cold when Mr. Daly had, by wire, secured a week for us, divided between Syracuse and Albany, and we were scrambling dresses together and buying new toilet articles--rouge, powders, and pomades, and transforming ourselves into "strolling players"; though, sooth to say, there was precious little "strolling"

done after we started, for we were all rus.h.i.+ng for rooms, for food, for trains, through a blizzard that was giving us plenty of delaying snow-drifts. And while the company was cheerfully "barn-storming," Mr.

Daly was doing his best to find shelter for us in New York, engaging the little one-time church on Broadway. He had painters, paper-hangers, scrub-women, upholsterers, climbing over one another in their frantic efforts to do all he desired to have done in about one-half the regulation time allowed for such work; and while they toiled day and night with much noise and great demonstration of haste, he sat statue-still in a far corner, mentally reviewing every ma.n.u.script in his possession, searching eagerly for the one that most nearly answered to the needs of the moment. Namely, a play that required a strong cast of characters (he had plenty of men and women), little preparation, and scanty scenery (since he was short of both time and money). And, finding "Alixe," then known as "The Countess de Somerive," he stopped short. The action of the play covered but one day--that was promising. There were but three acts--good; but two scenes--better! A conventional chateau garden-terrace for one act, and a simply elegant morning-room or stately drawing-room, according to managerial taste, could stand for the other two acts. A strong and dramatic work--requiring the painting of but two scenes. The play was found! The company was ordered home to rehea.r.s.e it.

Now at that time, to my own great anxiety, I was by way of standing on very dangerous ground. The public had favored me almost extravagantly from the very first performance of _Anne Sylvester_, but the critics, at least the most important two, seemed to praise my efforts with a certain unwilling drag of the pen. Nearly all their kind words had the sweetness squeezed out of them between "buts" and "ifs," and, most wounding of all, my actual work was less often criticized than were my personal defects.

Occasionally an actress's work may be too good for her own welfare. You doubt that? Yet I know an actress, still in harness, who in her lovely prime made so great a hit, in the part of an adventuress, that she has had nothing else to act since. Whenever a play was produced with such a character in it, she was sent for. But if she was proposed for a loyal wife, a gentle sweetheart, a modern heroine, the quick response invariably was: "Oh, she can't play anything but the adventuress."

There is nothing more fatal to the artistic value, to the future welfare of a young player, than to be known as "a one-part actress"; yet that was the very danger that was threatening me at the time of the burning of the home theatre. Following other parts known as strong, _Jezebel_, the half-breed East Indian, a velvet-footed treachery and twice would-be murderess, and _Cora_, the quadroon mad-woman, were in a fair way to injure me greatly. Already one paper had said: "Miss Morris has a strange, intuitive comprehension of these creatures of mixed blood."

But worse than that, the most powerful of the two critics I dreaded had said one morning: "Miss Morris played with care and much feeling. The audience wept _copiously_" (to anyone who has long read the great critic, that word "copiously" is tantamount to his full signature, so persistently does he use it), "but her performance was flecked with those tigerish gleams that seem to be a part of her method. She will probably find difficulty in equaling in any other line her success as _Cora_."

No animal had ever a keener sense of approaching danger than I had, when my professional welfare was threatened, and these small straws told me plainly which way the wind was beginning to blow, and now, looking back, I am convinced that just one more "tigerish part" at that time would have meant artistic ruin to me, for, figuratively speaking, pens were already dipped to write me down "a one-part actress."

Then, one bitter cold day we returned to New York and Mr. Daly, sending for me, said he must ask a favor of me. A form of speech that literally made me "sit up straight"--yes, and gasp, too, with astonishment. With a regretful sigh he went on: "I suppose you know you are a strong attraction?"

I smiled broadly at his evident disapproval of such knowledge on my part, and he continued: "But in this play there is no part for you--yet I greatly need all my strongest people in this first cast. Of course as far as ability is concerned you could play the _Countess_ and make a hit, but she's too old--so you'll not play the mother to marriageable daughters under my management, even in an emergency. Now I have Miss Morant, Miss Davenport and Miss Dietz, but--but I must have your name, too."

I nodded vigorously--I understood. And having seen the play in Paris, where it was one of the three pieces offered for an evening's programme, I mentally reviewed the cast and presently made answer, cheerfully and honestly: "Oh, yes! I see--it's that--'er--_Aline?_ _Justine?_ No, no!

_Claudine?_ that's the name of the maid. You want me to go on for that?

All right! anything to help!"

He leaned forward, asking, eagerly: "Do you mean that?"

"Of course I do!" I answered.

"Ah!" he cried, "you don't guess well, Miss Morris, but you've the heart of a good comrade, and now I'm sure you will do as I ask you, and play _Alixe_ for me?"

I sprang to my feet with a bound. "_Alixe?_" I cried. "I to play that child? oh, impossible! No--no! I should be absurd! I--I--I know too much--oh, you understand what I mean! She is a little convent-bred bit of innocence--a veritable baby of sixteen years! Dear Mr. Daly don't you see, I should ruin the play?"

He answered, rather coldly: "You are not given to ruining plays. The part does not amount to much. Good heavens! I admit it does not suit you, but think of my position; give me the benefit of your name as _Alixe_ for one single week, and on the second Monday night Miss Jewett shall take the part off your hands."

"But," I whimpered, "the critics will make me the b.u.t.t of their ridicule, for I can't make myself look like an _Alixe_."

"Oh, no they won't!" he answered, sharply. "Of course you won't expect a success, but you need fear no gibes for trying to help me out of a dramatic hole. Will you help me?" And of course there was nothing to do but swallow hard and hold out my hand for the unwelcome part.

Imagine my surprise when, on my way to rehearsal, I saw posters up, announcing the production of the play of "Alixe." I met Mr. Daly at the door and said: "Why this play was always called 'The Countess of Somerive.'"

"Yes," he replied, "I know--but 'Alixe' looks well, it's odd and pretty--and well, it will lend a little importance to the part!"--which shows how heavy were the scales upon our eyes while we were rehearsing the new play.

Everyone sympathized with me, but said a week would soon pa.s.s, and I groaned and ordered heelless slippers, and flaxen hair parted simply and waved back from the temples to fall loosely on the shoulders, to avoid the height that heels and the fas.h.i.+onable chignon would give me, while a thin, white nun's veiling gown, high-necked and long-sleeved, over a low-cut white silk lining, b.u.t.toned at the back and finished with a pale blue sash and little side pocket, completed the costume, I prepared for the character. I was beginning to understand, as I studied her, and shamefacedly--to love!

Oh, yes, one often feels dislike or liking for the creature one is trying to represent. Just at first I said to myself, here is a modern _Ophelia_, but I was soon convinced that the innocence of _Alixe_ was far more perfect than had been that of Shakespeare's weakling, who, through the training of court life, the warnings of a shrewd brother, and the admonitions of a tricky father, had learned many things--was ductile in stronger hands and could play a part; could lead a lover on to speech, without giving slightest hint of the hateful watching eyes she knew were upon him.

Poor "Rose of May," whose sweetness comes to us across the ages! As the garden-spider's air-spun silken thread is cast from bough to twig across the path, so her fragile thread of life looped itself from father to lover, to brother, to queen, and all the web was threaded thick with maiden's tears, made opalescent by rosy love, green hope, and violet despair. But each one she clung to raised a hand to brush the fragile thing aside, and so destroyed it utterly. Yet that tangled wreck of beauty, sweetness, and "a young maid's wits," remains one of the world's dearest possessions--the fair _Ophelia_!

But this modern maid was yet unspotted by the world. She found all earth perfect, as though G.o.d had just completed it, and loved ardently and without shame, as the innocent do love. For this pure flower of crime was ignorant, to the point of bliss, of evil in the world about her.

While her adored mother was to her as the blessed Madonna herself.

More and more convincing, as I carefully studied the part, became that perfect innocence. Not cold or reserved, but alive with faith, quivering, too, with girlish mirth, yet innocent. And as with roots deep in rankest, blackest ooze and mud, the lily sends up into the sunlit air its stainless, white-petaled blossom, to float in golden-hearted beauty upon the surface of the stream, so all sweet and open-hearted _Alixe_ floated into view.

And I was expected to act a part like that! I worried day and night over it. Should I do this, should I do that? No--no! she was not coy--detestable word. I recalled the best _Ophelia_ I had ever seen--a German actress. Would she do for a model? Perhaps--no! she was mystic, strange, aloof!

Oh, dear! and then, by merest accident, my mind wandered away to the past, and I said to myself, it should not be so hard. Every woman has been innocent. I was innocent enough when my first sweetheart paused at my side to say to me the foolish old words that never lose sweetness and novelty. I recalled with what open pleasure I had listened, with what honest satisfaction I accepted his attention. With a laugh I exclaimed: "I didn't even have sense enough to hide my gratification and pride, or to _pretend the least bit_." I stopped suddenly--light seemed to come into my mind. Innocence is alike the world over, I thought; it only differs in degree. I sprang to my feet! I cried joyously: "I have caught the cue, I do believe--_I won't act at all!_ I'll just speak the lines sincerely and simply and leave the effect to Providence."

The scales loosened a trifle over Mr. Daly's eyes at the last rehearsal but one. He was down in the orchestra speaking to the leader when I came to the end of the act, and the words: "The mother whom I have insulted?

That young girl, then, is my sister--the sister whose happiness I have stolen? whose future I have shattered? What--is--there--left--for--me to live for?"

Mr. Daly glanced up, and said, sharply: "What's that? 'er, Miss Morris, what are you going to do there as the curtain falls? I--I haven't noticed that speech before. Go back a bit, Mr. Fisher, Miss Morant, back to the Count's entrance; let me hear that again."

We went over the scene again: "H-e-m-m!" said Mr. Daly; "you've not answered my question, Miss Morris. What do you do at the fall of the curtain?"

"Nothing, sir," I answered, "just stare dazedly at s.p.a.ce, I think--swaying a little perhaps."

"I want you to fall!" he declared.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, "please, don't you think that would be rather melodramatic? If she could stand while receiving that awful shock about her mother's shame she would hardly fall afterward, from mere horror of her own thoughts?"

"I know all that, but let me tell you there's always great effect in a falling body. At any rate you can sink into a chair--and so get the suggestion of collapse."

"There is no chair," I answered, cheerfully.

"Well," he replied, testily, "there can be one, I suppose. Here, boy, bring a large chair and place it behind Miss Morris."

"Mr. Daly," I argued, "if I fall heavily, as I must, for effect, the chair will jump, and that will be funny--see."