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“A good deal more work for all of us, my lord.”

—Love and the Man.

The year 1894 found me playing in The Gay Widow, the first play in which I ever worked with Charles (now, of course, Sir Charles) Hawtrey. I do not remember very much about the play except that I wore most lovely clothes, and that Lottie Venne played “my mother”.

This year does, however, mark a very important milestone in our lives—Harry’s and mine; it was the first time we attempted management on our own, and also his first play was produced. We, Harry and I, with G. W. Elliott, greatly daring, formed a small syndicate. We took the St. James’s Theatre for eight weeks while George Alexander was on tour, and presented Harry’s play Bogey. (In those days all big London managers went on tour for a few months, taking their London company and production.)

First, let me say that, whatever the merits or demerits of the play, we were unlucky. We struck the greatest heat wave that London had known for years; and that, as everyone knows, is not the best recipe in the world for sending up the takings at the box office. As for the play, George Alexander said—and, I think, perhaps rightly—the “play was killed by its title.” It was a play dealing with “spiritualism,” in a limited sense. I mean that it was not in any sense a propaganda play; it had, naturally, not the finish, or perhaps the charm, of his later work—he would have been a poor craftsman if it had been, and a less great artist if the years which came after had taught him nothing—but Bogey certainly did not deserve the hard things which one critic, Mr. Clement Scott, said of it. He wrote one of the most cruel notices which I have ever read, a notice beginning “Vaulting Ambition”—which, in itself, is one of the bundle of “clichés” which may be used with almost equal justice about anything. To say, as Mr. Scott did, that I saved the play again and again “by supreme tact” was frankly nonsense. No actress can save a play “again and again by supreme tact”; she may, and probably will, do her best when she is on the stage, but if she “saves the play” it is due to her acting capacity, and not to “tact”—which seems to me to be the dealing gracefully with an unexpected situation in a way that is essentially “not in the script”.

However, the fact remains that Mr. Clement Scott unmasked the whole of his battery of heavy guns against the play and the author, for daring to produce it while he was still under fifty years of age; and, after all, it was rather “setting out to kill a butterfly with a double-barrelled gun”. Still....

The following night another play was produced, at another theatre, and on this play (not at all a brilliant achievement) Mr. Clement Scott lavished unstinted praise. On the first night of a third play, as he went to his stall, the gallery—which was, as usual, filled largely by the members of the Gallery First Night Club—greeted him with shouts of “Bogey”, and continued to do so until, in disgust, he left the stalls. After that night, Clement Scott always occupied a box! But the sequel! Some days after the production of Bogey, the President of the Gallery First Night Club called at our little house in Chelsea. I remember his call distinctly: our maid was “out”, and I opened the door to him. He came to ask Harry to be the guest at the first dinner of the club. It was, I think, when that club held its twenty-fifth birthday, that we were both asked to be the guests of the club—a compliment we much appreciated.

The play Bogey was not a success, but I should like to quote the remarks of the dramatic critic of the Sporting Times, which seemed, and still seem, to me kind and—what is of infinitely greater importance—just: “Ambition is not necessarily vaulting, and it is a thing to be encouraged and not mercilessly crushed in either a young author or a young actor. Nor when the youngster figures in the double capacity of author and actor is the crime unpardonable.... This is all apropos of an ungenerous attack in a quarter from which generosity would have been as graceful as the reverse is graceless.... It was remarked to me by a London manager: ‘I don’t know any actor on our stage who could play the part better than Esmond does’, and, upon my word! I am inclined to agree with him.... Bogey is not a good play... but it has a freshness about it, an originality of idea which is not unlikely to prove unattractive to a great many.”

However, Harry Esmond tried again; and the row of plays on a shelf in my study is proof that he was only “baffled to fight better”.

In Bogey we had a stage manager, I remember, who should, had the gods taken sufficient interest in the destinies of men, have been a maker of “props” and a property master. He played a small part, of a “typical city man”, and his one ambitious effort towards characterisation was to ask if he “might be allowed to carry a fish basket”. He evidently thought all city men call at Sweetings before catching their train home!

In The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown, which was my next engagement, I played with Fred Kerr, who wore a toupée. I remember at one place in the play, where I had to “embrace him impulsively”, he always said in a loud whisper, “Mind my toupée.”

Both Harry and I were in The Blind Marriage, at the Criterion. He and Arnold Lucy played “twins”, and Harry had to add a large false nose to the one with which nature had already very generously provided him. They wore dreadful clothes—knickerbockers which were neither breeches nor “plus fours” but more like what used to be known as “bloomers”. Herbert Waring and Herbert Standing were both in the cast, and on the first night the latter was very excited. Waring went on and had a huge ovation, while Herbert Standing, in the wings, whispered excitedly, “They think it’s me! they think it’s me!”

Herbert Standing was a fine actor, with more than a fair share of good looks. He was very popular at Brighton, where he used to appear at concerts. I remember he was talking one day to Harry, and told him how he had “filled the Dome at Brighton” (which was a vast concert hall). Harry murmured, “Wonderful; how did you do it?” “Oh,” said Standing, “recited, you know. There were a few other people there—Ben Davis, Albani, Sims Reeves,” and so on.

Mr. Standing came to see Harry one day, and was shown into his study, which was a small room almost entirely filled with a huge desk. Standing began to rail against the fate which ordained that at that moment he had no work. “I can do anything, play anything,” he explained, which was perfectly true—he was a fine actor! “Listen to this,” and he began to recite a most dramatic piece of work, full of emotion and gesture. As he spoke, he advanced upon “H. V.”, who kept moving further and further away from him. I came into the study, to find Harry cowering against the wall, which effectually stopped him “getting away” any further, and Standing, now “well away”, brandishing his arms perilously near Harry’s nose.

Standing was devoted to his wife, and immensely proud of his family. When she died, he was heartbroken. He met some friends one day, who expressed their sympathy with him in his loss. “Yes,” said Standing, “and what do you think we found under her pillow? This”—and he produced a photograph of himself, adding mournfully, “but it doesn’t do me justice!”

It was in Under the Red Robe that I first actually played with Winifred Emery (who used to give most lovely tea parties in her dressing-room). Cyril Maude, Holman Clark, Granville Barker, and Annie Saker (who were later to make such a number of big successes at the Lyceum, under the Brothers Melville’s management) were also in the cast. I only met the author, Stanley Weyman, once, but he was very generous to all the company and gave us beautiful souvenirs; I still use a silver cigarette box, engraved with a cardinal’s hat, which he gave to me. He was not one’s preconceived idea of a writer of romantic plays and books; as a matter of fact, he was rather like Mr. Bonar Law.

After this run, I went on tour for a short time with J. L. Shine, with An Irish Gentleman, and at one town—Swansea, I think—he gave a Press lunch. All kinds of local pressmen were invited, and, in comparison to the one who fell to my lot, the “silent tomb” is “talkative”. Soup, fish, joint, all passed, and he never spoke a single word. He was a distinctly noticeable person, wearing a cricket cap, morning coat, and white flannel trousers. I tried every subject under the sun, with no result, until—at last—he spoke. “I ’ave a sort of claim on you perfessionals,” he said. I expressed my delight and surprise, and asked for details. “Well,” he said, “in the winter I’m an animal impersonator, but in the summer I take up literature.” I have always wondered if he played the front or hind legs of the “elephant”!

Photograph by Gabell & Co., London, S.W. To face p. 48. Madame de Cocheforet “Under the Red Robe”

Soon after I returned to London, my husband’s second play was produced by Charles Hawtrey, One Summer’s Day—and thereby hangs a tale! Harry had sent the play to Hawtrey and, calling a month later, saw it still lying—unopened—on his desk. He determined that Hawtrey should hear the play, even if he wouldn’t read it himself; Harry would read it to him.

“I’ll call to-morrow and read my play to you,” he said. Hawtrey protested he was very busy, “hadn’t a minute”, had scores of plays to read, etc. But Harry only added, “To-morrow, at ten, then,” and went. The next morning he arrived, and after some difficulty obtained entrance to Hawtrey’s room. Again Hawtrey protested—he really had not time to hear, he would read the play himself, and so on; but by that time Harry had sat down, opened the book, and began to read. At the end of the first act, Hawtrey made another valiant effort to escape; he liked it very much, and would read the rest that same evening. “You’ll like the second act even better,” H. V. said calmly, and went on reading. When the third act was finished, Hawtrey really did like it, and promised to “put it on” as soon as possible.

“In a fortnight,” suggested the author. Oh! Hawtrey wasn’t sure that he could do it as soon as that, and the “summer was coming”, and Harry had had one lesson of what a heat wave could do to a play. So he said firmly, “The autumn then.” Hawtrey gave up the struggle, and the play was put into rehearsal and produced in the autumn. One Summer’s Day was a great success; it was in this play that Constance Collier played her first real part. She had been at the Gaiety in musical comedy, where, I remember, she entered carrying a very, very small parcel, about the size of a small handkerchief box, and announced “This contains my costume for the fancy dress ball!”

Mrs. Calvert played in this production, which reminds me that in the picnic scene we used to have “real pie”, which she rather enjoyed. After we had been running for some time, the management thought, in the interests of economy, they would have a “property pie”—that is, stuffed not with meat, but with cotton wool. Mrs. Calvert, all unknowing, took a large mouthful, and was nearly choked!

In One Summer’s Day we had a huge tank filled with real water, sunk at the back of the stage, and Ernest Hendrie, Henry Kemble, and Mrs. Calvert used to make an entrance in a punt—a real punt. One day they all sat at one end, with most disastrous consequences; after that, they “spread themselves” better.

Henry Kemble was a delightful, dignified person, who spoke in a “rolling” and very “rich” voice. He used, occasionally, to dine well—perhaps more well than wisely. One night, in the picnic scene, he was distinctly “distrait”, and forgot his line. As I knew the play backwards, I gave his line. He was very angry. We were all sitting on the ground at a picnic. He leant over the cloth and said in a loud voice, “You are not everybody, although you are the author’s wife.”

In this play a small boy was needed, and we sought high and low for a child to play the “urchin”. A friend told us one day he knew of the “very boy”, and promised to send him up for inspection. The following morning the “ideal urchin” arrived at the Comedy Theatre. He was a very undersized Jew, whose age was, I suppose, anything from 30 to 40, and who had not grown since he was about twelve. This rather pathetic little man walked on to the stage, and looked round the theatre, his hands in his pockets; then he spoke. “Tidy little ’all,” was his verdict—he was not engaged!

My next engagement was in The Sea Flower. I remember very little about it except that I wore a bunch of curls, beautiful curls which Willie Clarkson made for me. On the first night, Cosmo Stuart embraced me with such fervour that they fell off, and lay on the stage in full view of the audience.

Then followed The Three Musketeers, a splendid version of that wonderful book, by Harry Hamilton, with a magnificent cast. Lewis Waller was to have played “D’Artagnan”, which he was already playing on tour; Harry was to go to the touring company and play Waller’s part. Then there came some hitch. I am not very clear on the point, but I think Tree had arranged for a production of the same play, in which Waller was engaged to play “Buckingham”, and that Tree or the managers in the country would not release him. Anyway, Harry rehearsed the part in London. Then Waller managed to get released for a week to come to London and play for the first week of the production, while Harry went to the provinces. Waller came up to rehearse on the Friday with the London company, ready for the opening on Monday. I had lost my voice, and was not allowed to speak or leave my room until the Monday, and therefore the first time I met D’Artagnan was on the stage at the first night. If you will try and imagine how differently Lewis Waller and Harry Esmond played the part, you will realise what a nerve-racking business it was. For example, in the great “ride speech,” where Harry used to come in absolutely weary, speaking as an exhausted man, flinging himself into a chair, worn out with his ride and the anxiety attached to it, Waller rushed on to the stage, full of vitality, uplifted with the glory of a great adventure, and full of victory, leading me to the chair before he began to speak. You may imagine that on the first night I felt almost lost. I am not trying to imply that one reading was “better” than the other; both were quite justified; only, to me, the experience was staggering.

Waller was always vigorous, and particularly as D’Artagnan. One night when he entered and “bumped” into Porthos, he “bumped” so hard that he fell into the orchestra and on to the top of the big drum! Nothing daunted, Waller climbed out of the orchestra, by way of the stage box, back on to the stage!

The first time I played with Tree was in a special performance of The Dancing Girl. I played the lame girl, and I remember my chief worry was how, being lame, to get down a long flight of stairs in time to stop Tree, who played the Duke, from drinking the “fatal draught” of poison.

I was then engaged by Tree to play in Carnac Sahib, a play by Henry Arthur Jones. It dealt with military life in India. The rehearsals were endless, and not without some strain between the author and Tree. Henry Arthur Jones used to come to rehearsals straight from his morning ride, dressed in riding kit, complete with top boots and whip; Tree didn’t like it at all!

The day before the production there was a “call” for “words” at 11 in the morning. The only person who did not know their “words” was Tree; he never arrived! The dress rehearsal was fixed for 3; we began it at 5, and at 6 in the morning were “still at it”.

After the end of one of the acts—the second, I think—there was a long wait. This was at 2.30 a.m.! The band played, and for an hour we sang and danced on the stage. Then someone suggested that it might be as well to find out what had happened to Tree. They went to his dressing-room and found him; he had been asleep for an hour! At last we began the final act. Tree reclined on a bed of straw, and I fanned him with a palm leaf. There was a wait, perhaps three or four seconds, before the curtain rose. “Oh God!” said Tree, in the tone of one who has waited for years and is weary of everything: “Oh sweet God! I am ready to begin!”

It was soon after, in Marsac of Gascony, at Drury Lane Theatre, I made my entrance on a horse—a real stage horse; the same one, I think, that Irving had used. I may say this is the only time that I had—as you might say—known a horse at all intimately. It was a dreadful play: the audience rocked with laughter at all the dramatic situations. It was short-lived, and I went soon after to Harry’s play, The Wilderness, which George Alexander produced at the St. James’s Theatre. Aubrey Smith appeared in this play, looking very much as he does now, except that his moustache was rather longer. Phyllis Dare played one of the children—and a very dear child she was; so, too, was her sister Zena, who used to call at the theatre to take her home.

There were two children in this play, who had a “fairy ring” in a wood. (If anyone does not know what a fairy ring is, they should go into the nearest field and find one, for their education has been seriously neglected.) To this “ring” the two children used to bring food for the fairies, which they used to steal from the family “dustbin”. One of the “dainties” was a haddock, and this—a real fish—was carefully prepared by the famous Rowland Ward, so that it would be preserved and at the same time retain its “real” appearance. A party of people sitting in the third row of the stalls wrote a letter of protest to Alexander, saying that the “smell from the haddock was unbearable”, and it was high time he got a new one!

I remember that during rehearsals George Alexander was very anxious that Harry should “cut” one of the lines which he had to speak. In the scene in the wood, Sir Harry Milanor (which was the character he played), in talking to his elderly uncle, has to exclaim, “Uncle Jo! Look, a lizard!” George Alexander protested that the line was unreal, that no man would suddenly break off to make such a remark, and therefore he wished Harry would either “cut” or alter it. One day, shortly before the production, Alexander was walking in Chorley Woods with his wife, who was “hearing his lines”. When they reached a bridge, he leant over the parapet, still repeating his words. Suddenly he broke off in the middle of a sentence to exclaim, “Look! A trout!” “Lizard, Alex.,” his wife corrected quietly; and henceforth he never made any objection to the line which had previously caused such discussion.

It was when he took The Wilderness on tour that I had what I always say was “the best week of my life”. We were not only playing The Wilderness, but several other plays in which I did not appear, which meant that I sometimes had nights on which I was free. There was at that time a bad smallpox scare, and when we were in Manchester the whole company was vaccinated.

Harry was then going to America to produce a play, and I was taking my baby, Jack (from whom I had never been parted before), to stay with his grandmother in Brighton, while I went to Ireland. I left Manchester, took Jack to Brighton, feeling when I left him (as, I suppose, most young mothers feel when they leave their babies for the first time in someone else’s care) that I might never see him again, and on the Saturday morning I saw Harry off to the States.

I spent the evening with Julia Neilson and Fred Terry, who were playing Sweet Nell of Old Drury in Liverpool. They did all they could to cheer me—and I needed it! I left them to join the company on the landing-stage, to cross to Ireland. And what a crossing it was, too! The cargo boat which carried our luggage gave up the attempt to cross, and put into the Isle of Man, and the captain of our passenger boat seriously thought of doing the same thing. Finally we arrived at Belfast, to find the main drain of the town had burst, the town was flooded, and the stalls and orchestra at the theatre were several feet deep in most unsavoury water! There was no performance that evening—I remember we all went to the music hall, by way of a holiday—but the next evening we opened at the Dockers’ Theatre, the company which was playing there having been “bought out”. So the successes of the St. James’s Theatre—light, witty comedies—were played at the Dockers’ Theatre, where the usual fare was very typical melodrama.

The next day we all began to feel very ill—the vaccination was beginning to make itself felt—also I had developed a rash, and, in addition, I thought I must have hurt my side, it was so painful. I remember, at the hotel, George Alexander came to my door, knocked, and, when I opened it, said:

“Are you covered in spots?”

“Yes,” I told him.

“Don’t worry,” he begged; and, tearing open the front of his shirt, added: “Look at me!”

He, too, had come out “all of a rash”—due, I suppose, to the vaccination. My side got worse, and I had to see a doctor, who said I had shingles—a most painful business, which prevented me from sleeping and made me feel desperately ill. The climax came on the Saturday night. Alexander was not playing, his rash had been too much for him, and his doctor advised him not to appear. The understudy played in his stead, and, however good an understudy may be—and they are often very good—it is always trying to play with someone who is playing the part for the first time. At the end of the play, The Wilderness, I had a scene with my first lover, in which I referred to “my husband”. Some wit in the gallery yelled “And where’s the baby, Miss?”. I was ill, I hadn’t slept for nights, my husband was on his way to America, I was parted from my baby, my sister was in the midst of divorcing her husband—which had added to my worries—and this was the last straw! When the play ended, I walked off the stage, after the final curtain, blind with tears—so blind, indeed, that I fell over a piece of scenery, and hurt myself badly. This made me cry more than ever, up to my dressing-room, in my dressing-room, and all the way back to the hotel, and, as far as I remember, most of the night.

When we reached Dublin, fate smiled upon me. I met Mr. W. H. Bailey (afterwards the “Right Hon.”, who did such good work on the Land Commission), and he took me to his own doctor—Dr. Little, of Merrion Square (may his name be for ever blessed!), who gave me lotions and, above all, a sleeping draught, and gradually life became bearable again.

One dreadful day (only twenty-four hours this time, not weeks) was while I was playing at the St. James’s in The Wilderness. I was driving in a dog-cart (this is before the days of motor cars) in Covent Garden, when the horse slipped and fell, throwing me out. I picked myself up, saw that the horse’s knees were not broken, and walked into the bank at the corner of Henrietta Street to ask for a glass of water. I found that, not only had I a large bump on my head, but that my skirt was covered with blood. Round I went to the Websters’ flat in Bedford Street and climbed up five flights of stairs. May Webster found that I had a huge gash on my hip, and said the only thing to do was to go to the hospital. Down five flights I went, and drove to Charing Cross Hospital. There a young doctor decided he would put in “a stitch or two”, and also put a bandage on my head. He was a particularly unpleasant young man, I remember, and finally I said to him: “Do you know your manners are most unpleasant? You don’t suppose people come in here for fun, do you?” He was astonished; I don’t think it had ever dawned on him that he was “unpleasant”, and I suppose no one had dared to tell him. I only hope it did him good, and that he is now a most successful surgeon with a beautiful “bedside manner”.

I drove to the theatre, where there was a matinée, with my hat, or rather toque, perched on the top of a large bandage, plus a leg that was rapidly beginning to stiffen. I got through the performance, and decided to stay in the theatre and rest “between the performances”. I was to have dinner sent to my dressing-room. Harry thought I had said “someone” would see about it; I thought that he said he would see about it; the “someone else” thought that we were both seeing about it, and so, between them all, I had no dinner at all.

By the end of the evening performance I was really feeling distinctly sorry for myself, with my head “opening and shutting” and my leg hurting badly. When, at the end of the play, I fell into Alexander’s arms in a fond embrace, I just stayed there. He was just helping me to a chair, and I had begun to cry weakly, when H. H. Vincent came up, patted me firmly—very firmly—on the back, and said: “Come, come, now; don’t give way, don’t give way!” This made me angry, so angry that I forgot to go on crying.