Part 12

It may be that for the early withdrawal from triumphant scenes of the great gifts of so famous an actress I was to blame--if blame there was. I plead excuse in a painful {218} remembrance of pitiful words, written by a powerful pen, on lingering too long upon the stage; words which drew the sad picture of a much-loved servant of the public clinging to the faded chaplet won as its idol in earlier days; of clutching at the withered trophy after the time had come for its graceful surrender to youth and promise, and before the admiration once so showered upon her should be replaced by indulgence--indulgence to be followed by compassion, compassion in its turn by indifference. Indulgence--compassion--indifference. The mere utterance of such words causes one pain. Twilight in art--as in nature--must be mournful: surely a sweeter picture is the splendid sinking of an early autumnal sun.

It will mean happiness to me to lay a few flowers at her feet, gathered in the gardens of those who knew and loved her. So I have asked three dear friends, a man of letters, a dramatist, and an actor, to help me in that task.

[Sidenote: Macready and the child]

The first tribute is from the pen of W. L. Courtney:

"MY DEAR B,--

"I gladly avail myself of the opportunity you give me to pay a tribute to the memory of Lady Bancroft.

"She herself has told us the sort of impression she made on those around her when she was {219} a child; and because that early verdict passed on her is singularly prescient, it is worth recalling. Macready is the first witness. Marie Wilton--to use her maiden name, which was soon to be famous on the stage--acted the parts of the boy Fleance and the apparition of a child in the caldron scene to Macready's Macbeth at the close of his career, and was invited by the great actor to visit him in his room. 'Well,' he said, 'I suppose you hope to be a great actress some day. And what do you intend to play?' The answer came at once: 'Lady Macbeth.' 'Oh, is that all! Well, I like your ambition. You are a strange little thing and have such curious eyes. But you must change them before you play Lady Macbeth, or you will make your audience laugh instead of cry.' The story shows that Macready had quickly noticed two things about the child. Her eyes, which were not so much curious as unusual and always alive, were laughing, merry, twinkling eyes, the eyes of one who would never allow her outlook on the world to be other than genial and good; who could bear misfortune with as much courage as good fortune. He had noticed also what was almost the first thing that the spectator observed about Marie Bancroft's performance in almost every one of her parts, and that was the inscrutable fashion in which she at once established the best relations with her audience. It was in its way a little bit of {220} magic, the secret of which she retained. The effect was irresistible. She came down to the footlights, or stayed where she was, without movement, and instantly flashes of mutual goodwill passed between her and the audience, even before the musical tones of her voice were heard. Sometimes, as with an actress like Eleonora Duse, time has to elapse while she is, so to speak, making herself at home. Marie Bancroft had undoubtedly what I have called a little bit of magic. Whatever the part that she was to play, there was always the comfortable feeling when she was on the stage that everything was going well, and that success was practically assured. In the series of her parts in the Robertsonian drama she was, of course, helped by the author's knowledge of her and of her temperament; but whether she was a schoolgirl or supposed to be grown up; whether the part belonged to the upper or the lower levels of society: in every case sympathy was instantly linking her with the eager and attentive house. She no sooner came than she saw what was wanted, and she conquered with what seemed consummate ease and economy of effort. I have never seen an actress who more rapidly and easily made her presence known on the stage as a gracious, winsome, affectionate creature, filled with human kindness, and always ready to believe the best of people and of things.

[Sidenote: Dickens and the girl]

"And so the judgment of Charles Dickens is {221} established as surely as that of Macready. 'I really wish,' said Dickens in a letter to John Forster, 'I really wish you would go to see _The Maid and the Magpie_ burlesque at the Strand Theatre. There is the strangest thing in it that I have ever seen on the stage. The boy Pippo, by Miss Marie Wilton, while it is astonishingly impudent--must be or it could not be done at all--is so stupendously like a boy and unlike a woman that it is perfectly free from offence. I have never seen such a curious thing; the manner, the appearance, the levity, impulse and spirits of it are so exactly like a boy that you cannot see anything like her sex in association with it. I call her the cleverest girl I have ever seen on the stage in my time, and the most original.' That is, of course, a tribute to her cleverness, which made her the best of burlesque actresses. If Macready's judgment refers to the seriousness of her ambition, Charles Dickens calls attention to her extraordinary versatility, her power of identifying herself with any part she assumed, and the rapidity with which she comprehended all that was implicit in it. Of the burlesques of those days Marie Wilton was the acknowledged queen, inspiring the whole of the silly or serious business with her inimitable gaiety and amazing ability.

"The more general the sympathy an actress possesses with human nature, the wider will be her interpretation of a part. We talk {222} about building up a character. It is only saying in other words that the primary duty of the heroine in a play is to make us understand, not only what she is in the play, but what she might be under other conditions. The extraordinary thing about Marie Bancroft, when she left burlesque for modern comedy, is that from the first she interpreted the character she was representing in the largest, most sympathetic manner, as having an inner nature or temperament of much more subtle value than came out in the actual presentation. Superficially, the characters of Polly Eccles and Naomi Tighe--both great favourites with Marie Bancroft--can be easily described. They are bright, garrulous, happy creatures, full of fun, quick in tongue, responsive to humour, and always amusing to watch. But as we left the theatre, after seeing her act them, we were aware that they are something more. Behind the drolleries of Naomi Tighe beats an extremely warm heart, a genuine comradeship, and an especial love, of course, of her dear friend, Bella. But in Polly Eccles there was still more. I was always surprised to think that Marie Bancroft should have preferred the schoolgirl Naomi to the high-hearted, devoted friend who was Polly Eccles, in whom we have touches of a fuller personality than could be found either in Naomi or in Mary Netley of _Ours_.

[Sidenote: The fulfilment]

"These, however, were, after all, the earlier {223} creations in comedy of an artist destined to do much finer work. Her full powers were proved later on, especially in Peg Woffington. The picture showed traces of the same handiwork; and indeed the audience would never have been satisfied if Marie Bancroft had not set her unmistakeable seal on this character as on others. There was something in the pathos of the main situation, however; something, too, in the exquisite sympathy between Peg and Triplet, which touched the very source of tears. What we saw here was the fulfilment of a promise discerned in her earlier creations, an admirable example of the many-sided presentment of a character, so that it becomes something of daily experience. The humorous eyes, the sensitive mouth, the face ever ready to suggest laughter and fun, the attractive little touches of temperament and feeling--those had come together to form a beautiful presentment of a gracious and affectionate being, who could help others in their distress, because she herself had come through deep waters.

"There is one point which it would be wrong to pass over without comment. There is sometimes talk of jealousy between artists. Of the spirit of emulation, the spirit of ambition, the desire to do the best possible under the given conditions--of these, which are part and parcel of a noble nature, Marie Bancroft had her full share. But it was always noticed that {224} she had no touch of professional jealousy. She often sank her own importance as an actress, cheerfully taking a small part. Both she and you had made up your minds not to allow consideration of your own parts to bias your judgment in the refusal or acceptance of plays. You judged the plays on their merits--not on the ground that parts in them would or would not suit either of you. With the utmost readiness Marie Bancroft played second parts to Madame Modjeska, to Mrs. John Wood, to Mrs. Patrick Campbell, as well as to Mrs. Kendal and to Ellen Terry. Self-abnegation of this kind is sufficiently rare to be worthy of comment. Its value, is, of course, obvious. Without it some of your most successful productions would never have been given.

"Many critics, especially young ones, are inclined to decry the value of Robertson's plays; but the fact remains that, with those comedies as your material, Marie Bancroft and you initiated a revolution in English drama. In those plays she rejoiced in characters exactly suited to her genius, characters to which she could give all her laughter and sense of fun, in creating personalities which will always live in the memories of those who saw them. She not only acted; she possessed that constructive instinct which enabled her to pass judgment on and vastly to improve the comedies submitted to her. Of this, there is no better example than what happened with {225} Charles Reade's play, _Masks and Faces_, when Reade, moved to tears by her performance of the ending which at one rehearsal she substituted for that which he had written, very wisely gave way to the superior imaginative perception of Marie Bancroft, the actress of Peg Woffington.

[Sidenote: Personality]

"In final retrospect, we come back to the 'curious eyes' and the laughter-provoking face which Macready discovered. In all arts we have to recognise the personal element, which makes the work of one man so different from that of another. We do not mistake the inimitable touch of a Millais or confuse it with that of a Sargent. We do not read a page of Henry James and imagine that it could have been written by George Meredith. In the same way an actor portraying a character puts into it so much of himself that we contrast his representation with that of another actor--quite as good, perhaps, but of a different quality. This element of personality is called 'style,' and it is by style that an artist lives and betrays his or her idiosyncrasy. And no one had a more appealing style than Marie Bancroft, who could do with our hearts what she pleased. The roguish eyes, the inimitable smile, the sense of humour, the joy of living--all those were hers; and it was by some wonderful combination of all dramatic gifts that she won her complete and perfect triumph. Those (alas! now how few) who in old days {226} sat spellbound, as they saw her winning the palms of victory in many a famous play, will confess with unbounded gratitude how much of happy memory they owe to the grace, the skill, the charm, the sympathy of Marie Bancroft.

"Yours sincerely, "W. L. COURTNEY."

The second tribute is from Arthur Pinero:

"MY DEAR B.,

"It is my firm belief that the most ardent and persistent lover of the drama, after a long life of playgoing, and when the footlights illuminating his own private and personal drama are beginning to burn low, can, if he be honest with himself, count his red-letter nights in the theatre, at a liberal estimate, on the fingers of both hands. Such is the case with me at any rate. Many distinguished and moving performances, memorable in their way, have I witnessed; but the real, unmistakeable red-letter nights--heart and brain clutching--how few! Some premieres at the old Lyceum, under the management of the Batemans and, subsequently, of Irving himself, two or three representations at the Théâtre Français--notably Mounet Sully's acting, as it was thirty years ago, in _Œdipe Roi_--Duse's earliest appearance in England in _La Dame aux {227} Camélias_; to recall these things gives one a catch in the breath--these and the first time I saw Marie Wilton as 'Polly Eccles.'

[Sidenote: A red-letter night]

"This particular red-letter night happened at the Standard Theatre in Shoreditch in, I think, August, 1873. (You, in whose honour a University should create the degree of Master of Dates, so curious, so infallible--occasionally, to the ladies, so disconcerting--is your memory, will correct me if I am wrong as to the month or year.) The company of the dainty little Prince of Wales's Theatre had carried their delicate art to that not too salubrious quarter of the town, and were delighting the East-enders in Robertson's _Caste_. Nowadays it is the critical habit to sniff at Robertson and his simple, humane comedies; but the work of a writer for the stage should be judged in relation to the period which produced it, and, so judged, Robertson was a man of vision and courage. There is no dramatist now writing, 'advanced' or otherwise, who is not in a measure indebted to Robertson. But how lucky he was in the people who interpreted him! Take _Caste_, for instance. Lydia Foote--her appealing 'Esther Eccles' was approached in later years only by Olga Brandon in a revival of the piece at the Criterion--the highly capable Mrs. Leigh Murray, the unctuous Honey, John Hare, most refined of miniaturists, the fascinating Coghlan--who had succeeded Frederick Younge, whom I never {228} saw, as 'George D'Alroy'---yourself as 'Hawtree'--a monumental picture of Swelldom, unequalled, in its combination of grotesqueness and good breeding, by any stage Swell of my time--even Sothern's 'Dundreary' couldn't touch your 'Hawtree'--and, above and beyond you all, the glorious actress who used to figure in the playbills as 'Miss Marie Wilton (Mrs. Bancroft),' and was to become Lady Bancroft; what a wonderful--what an unmatchable--troupe!

[Sidenote: "Enter Polly"]

"That red-letter night in unsavoury Shoreditch! Outside the theatre, the thick air of a warm evening, presently to be fouled by the fumes of the naphtha lamps of the gutter tradesmen; the incessant bawling of those gentry; the garish display of cheap wares in the shop-windows; the jostling and shoving of the loiterers on the pavement; and the sensation of complete happiness, almost choking in its intensity, because one was going to the play! And the fight for a front seat in the pit; the contentment, after a terrific struggle resulting in a torn jacket and the limpest of shirt-collars, at finding oneself in possession of about eight inches of bare board; and the settling down to enjoy the blended odours, peculiar to the popular theatre of that day, of gas and stale orange-peel, than which no more agreeable smell could greet the nostrils of a stage-struck youth! Then the tuning-up by the orchestra--joyful discord--and the unheeded playing of a {229} 'selection'; and then the rising of the curtain, the sudden hush of voices, and lo! there is the poor, shabby room on the ground-floor of the lodging-house in Stangate! George appears, followed by Hawtree; they talk, and I wonder that their talk should be so different from the talk I had heard in other plays; then comes 'Papa Eccles,' who 'can tell a real gentleman with half a sov'; then, when Papa, the half-sovereign in his dirty fist, has shuffled away to meet a friend round the corner, Esther steals in; and then--oh, then!--'Enter Polly, D.R.H.,' as the stage direction says, and in a moment the audience is enraptured by the brightest, freshest, sweetest little woman that ever gladdened ears and eyes in or out of a playhouse!

"Those, my dear B., who can remember Lady Bancroft in the plenitude of her powers, the fulness of her witchery, are--I speak feelingly--rapidly growing fewer and fewer; and it is with the aim, I suppose, of conveying an impression of what she was at the time I mention, and for at least a decade afterwards, to the theatre-lovers of to-day--who saw her, if they saw her at all, when age had begun to weigh upon her--and to the theatre-lovers of the future, that you are inviting two or three men, old enough so to remember her, and who yet linger more or less actively on the scene, to contribute to your forthcoming book. Phew! A pretty difficult task, unless one employs {230} language which in modern slang I understand is called 'mushy.' In the first place, of course, she knew her business to her finger-tips. That a practitioner of any of the arts should have known his or her business is frequently remarked in disparagement. Great artists, however, will take care to include a knowledge of their business--i.e. of the tricks of their trade--among other accomplishments, one of the latter being the faculty for hiding those tricks from the public. Lady Bancroft knew her business--and other people's; that is, though a born comedian, she could, if her physique had allowed of it, have 'gone on,' in theatrical phrase, for Lady Macbeth, or Juliet, or Ophelia, and have triumphed. (In fact, occasionally, she did 'go on' for parts for which she was hardly physically suited, and perhaps it was a pity she didn't do so oftener. She would have been forgiven.) And her experience, commencing in babyhood, and her innate cleverness, had taught her how, while keeping strictly within the picture-frame, to button-hole, as it were, each individual member of the audience. The man on the farthest bench of the topmost gallery, as well as the man in the stalls, was flattered by her skill into believing that she was acting specially for him. I myself have watched her act from the sixpenny gallery of a large theatre--that same Standard in Shoreditch, the pit being beyond my means for a second visit--and felt that she was so {231} near to me that by stretching out my hand I could have grasped hers. As for her laugh, I won't--I daren't--attempt to describe it, because I should have to say that at one moment it was like the trill of a singing-bird, at another that it seemed not to be the music of her throat, but to bubble up from her very soul; and that, though gospel-truth, would be too terribly mushy. Nor her speaking-voice, because, again, I should have to say that it had something of the quality of the note of the purest of silver bells; nor her eyes, because in mirth they twinkled--thrice-hackneyed simile!--like twin stars, and in expressing sorrow resembled the little rain-pools when the sun has come out after a summer shower; and to say anything of the sort, while it would be equally true, would also be mushy to an insupportable degree. But I will say, because it is just a trifle less trite and banal, and because to do her justice it ought to be said, that the secret and source of her genius lay not in her artistry--which was consummate--but in _herself_. She was a fine, warm-hearted creature, and her acting was a reflection of the glow of her innermost nature.

[Sidenote: The secret of genius]

"Patches of shadow becloud every career, however brilliant. The tragedy of Lady Bancroft's career was that after Robertson's death no dramatist arose who could, or would, provide her with material worthy of her talent. For years, therefore, she retained her hold {232} upon the public mainly by her 'Polly' in _Caste_, 'Naomi Tighe' in _School_, and 'Mary Netley' in _Ours_. From time to time she acted in new pieces by other authors, which lacked the attraction of Robertson at his best; and then, after giving us a captivating Lady Teazle, and delighting us in revivals of some other old comedies, in order to extend the repertory of the theatre she gallantly subordinated herself, when policy demanded it, to playing parts of minor importance. Towards the end, spurred by a surviving ambition into trying to make bricks without straw--and it must be confessed that she made sounder bricks without straw than did many an actress who was supplied with stacks of that commodity--she took to applying her ready wit to 'writing up' the tiny parts she was condemned to play, until at last her rare appearances became not so much those of an actress engaged in impersonating a character as of a charming lady determined at all costs to be amusing.

"But she had done enough long before then to win a place in stage history with the most illustrious of the comic actresses of the past. Margaret Woffington, Kitty Clive, Frances Abington and Dorothea Jordan had a legitimate successor in Marie Wilton.

"Thank you for letting me join in your tribute to her.

"Devotedly yours, till my chair is empty,

"ARTHUR PINERO."

{233}

[Sidenote: Truth to nature]

The third tribute is from Johnston Forbes-Robertson:

"MY DEAR B,

"It is a great privilege to comply with your wish. It was in 1878 that I first met Lady Bancroft. She was then about to retire for a holiday from the part of Zicka in _Diplomacy_. A year later I had the good fortune to meet her on the stage when you engaged me to act in _Ours_. In the following year I moved with the celebrated company from the Prince of Wales's to the Haymarket Theatre, which had been transformed by you into the most beautiful theatre in London. Here I was cast for a part in _School_: hence it is my proud boast that I acted with Marie Bancroft in her prime, and was in personal touch with Mary Netley and Naomi Tighe!

"Alas! it is not in me to convey to the present generation the powers of this incomparable actress. The winsomeness, the cajolery, the sprightly vivacity, the joyousness, and the tenderness of it all! Every note could she play upon, and never was any note forced. The means by which she attained these varied and subtle emotions were not to be traced. All appeared so simple, so illusive, that it came home to one as being absolutely true to nature. She was complete mistress of all the resources of her art, and yet those resources were never laid bare, never discoverable {234} by the onlooker. Every movement was simple, direct and natural; every intonation and inflection true; every word that fell from her lips clean cut and distinct. No matter how rapidly a passage was delivered, she was heard even to the farthest seat of the largest theatre.

"Polly Eccles! Why, the very thought of the name makes my face pucker with smiles, and it must be bordering on fifty years ago when first she bewitched me in the part! Yes, 'bewitching Marie Wilton' was a phrase common amongst us in those days, and in truth the witchery was there in full measure, and to overflowing.

"Still in my mind is the beautiful farewell to her on the day when her mortal remains were laid to rest. I was very proud at finding myself one of the four intimate friends chosen to pay their last respects at her burial; and when, towards the close of the memorial service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields which immediately followed it, that inspired man delivered the farewell address (quite the most beautiful of the many I have heard), I was shaken with a deep emotion even to tears.

"Ever your affectionate friend, "J. FORBES-ROBERTSON."

I will restrict myself to writing of her in one play only, and will choose W. S. Gilbert's dramatic contrast _Sweethearts_--which, by the way, I had the good fortune to name.

{235}

[Sidenote: "Sweethearts"]