Chapter Sixteenth
I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study King Charles in One Afternoon and Play Without a Rehearsal—Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd Revelation.
Already in that third season my position had become an anomalous one, from that occasion when, because of sickness, I had in one afternoon studied, letter perfect, the part of King Charles in “Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady,” and played it in borrowed clothes and without any rehearsal whatever, other than finding the situations plainly marked in the book. It was an astonishing thing to do, and nearly everyone had a kind word for me. The stage manager, or rather the prompter, for Mr. Ellsler was his own stage manager, patted me on the shoulder and said: “‘Pon my soul, girl, you’re a wonder! I think pretty well of my own study, but you can beat me. You never missed a word, and besides that I’ve seen the part played worse many a time. I don’t know what to say to you, my dear, but a girl that can do that can do most anything.”
Ah, yes! and that was just what the powers that were seemed to think—that I could do almost anything, for from that day I became a sort of dramatic scape-goat, to play the parts of the sick, the halt, the cross, the tricky, for whenever an actor or actress turns up with a remarkable study—the ability to learn almost any part in a given time—he or she is bound to be “put upon.” Sickness will increase, tempers will get shorter, airs of superiority will be assumed, all because there is someone ready to play the obnoxious part, someone ready to rush into the breach and prevent the changing of the “bill.”
So often was I playing parts, thus leaving only two in the ballet, that another girl was engaged. Thus to Hattie, Annie, and Clara there was added Mary. And lo! in this young woman I recognized a friend of my youth. I had known her but two days, but I could never forget the only child I had ever had a play with. She had parted from me in wrath because, after playing house-keeping all morning in the yard, I had refused to eat a clay dumpling she had made, with a nice green clover-leaf in its middle. She threw the dumpling at me, roaring like a little bull calf, and twisting a dirty small fist into each dry eye, she waddled off home, leaving me, finger in mouth, gazing in pained amazement after her, until my fat little legs suddenly gave way, as was their wont in moments of great emotion, and sat me unwillingly but flatly down upon the ground, where I remained, looking gravely at them and wondering what they did it for—and now here we were together again.
Of course this playing of many parts was, in a certain way, an advantage to me, and I appreciated it; but there can be too much even of a good thing. That I got little pay for all this work was nothing to me, I was glad to do it for the experience it gave me, but when I was forced to appear ridiculous through my inability to dress the parts correctly I suffered cruelly. Once in a while, as in the case of King Charles, I could get a costume from the theatre wardrobe, where the yellow plush breeches lived when not engaged in desolating my young life, but, alas! here, as everywhere, the man is the favored party, and the theatre wardrobe contains only masculine garments; the women must provide everything for themselves. Then, too, one is never too young or too insignificant to feel an injustice.
I recall, very distinctly, having to go on for Lady Anne in “Richard III.,” with a rather unimportant star. Now had I “held a position,” as the term goes, that part would, out of courtesy, have belonged to me for the rest of the season, unless I chose to offer it back to the woman I had obliged; but being only a ballet-girl I did well enough for the Lady Anne of an unimportant star, but when a more popular Richard appeared upon the scene, Lady Anne was immediately reclaimed, and I traipsed again behind the coffin, and with the rest of the ballet was witness to that most savage fling of Shakespeare against a vain, inconsequential womanhood as personified in Lady Anne, who, standing by her coffined, murdered dead, eagerly drinks in the flattery offered by the murderer’s self. It is a courtship all dagger-pierced and reeking with innocent blood—monstrous and revolting! One would like to know who the woman was whose incredible vanity and levity so worked upon the master’s mind that he produced this tragic caricature. Who was the woman who inspired great Shakespeare’s one unnatural scene? Come, antiquaries, cherchez la femme!
I suffered most when I had to play some lady of quality, for what, in heaven’s name, had I to dress a lady in? Five dollars a week to live on, to dress myself on, and to provide stage wardrobe! Many a bitter tear I shed. And then there was the surprise of the stars, when after playing an important part one night, they suddenly recognized me the next standing in the crowd of peasants or seated at Macbeth’s disheartening banquet.
Their comments used to be very caustic sometimes, and they almost, without exception, advised me to rebel, to go and demand freedom from the ballet, or at least salary enough to dress the parts given me to play. But those long years of childish thraldom had left their mark—I could not assert myself, an overwhelming shame came upon me, even at the thought of asking to be advanced. So I went on playing boys and second old women, singing songs when forced to it, going on for poor leading parts even, for the leading lady being the manager’s wife rarely played parts with women stars, and then between times dropping back into the ballet and standing about in crowds or taking part in a village dance.
It was a queer position and no mistake. Many stars had grown to know me, and often on Monday morning he or she would come over to our group and shake hands kindly, to my great pleasure. One morning, while we were rehearsing “Lady Audley’s Secret,” Mrs. Bowers, whom I greatly admired, came over to me, and remarked: “You hard-hearted little wretch! I’ve been watching you; you are treating that boy shamefully! Don’t you know Murdoch is a gentleman?”
I was surprised, and rather quickly answered: “Well, have I treated him as if he were not a gentleman?”
She was called just then, but when the act was over she came to me again, and taking my hand in her right, she began beating it up and down upon her left: “You are not vexed, are you?” she asked. “Don’t be; I only wonder how you can do it, and you are so young! Why,” she sighed, from her very soul it seemed to me, “Why,” she went on, “ever since I was fourteen years old I have been loving some man who has not loved me!” Tears rose thickly into her eyes. “I am always laying my heart down for some man to trample on!” She glanced toward Mr. McCollom (he who was six feet tall and handsome), a little smile trembled on her lips. I caught her fingers on a swift impulse and squeezed them, she squeezed back answeringly; we understood each other, she was casting her heart down again, unasked. Her eyes came back to me. “Yours is the best way, but I’m too old to learn now, I shall have to go on seeking—always seeking!”
“And finding, surely finding!” I answered, honestly, for I could not imagine anyone resisting her.
“Do you think so?” she said, eagerly; then, rather sadly, she added: “Still it would be nice to be sought once, instead of always seeking.”
Poor woman! Charming actress as she was, she did not exaggerate in declaring she was always casting her heart before someone. She married Mr. McCollom, and lived with him in adoring affection till death took him.
The last time I saw her she was my guest here at “The Pines,” and as I fastened a great hibiscus flower above her ear, in Spanish fashion, she remarked:
“How little you have changed in all these years! I’ll wager your heart is without a scar, while if you could only see mine,” she laughed, “it’s like an old bit of tinware—so battered, and bent, and dented!”