CHAPTER XIV.

THE DRAMA—LEGITIMATE AND OTHERWISE.

THE tercentenary of Shakespeare in ’64 suggested an experience that many of us were anxious to participate in. That we were likely to be successful was by no means certain, for numerous meetings, held at the Café de l’Europe, Haymarket—where motions innumerable and brandy _ad libitum_ were proposed and carried—had decided that an event so strictly dramatic should not be diluted by outside association, but rather that scene shifters, stage carpenters, actors, everything and everybody strictly “legit.” should have the preference of guzzling and swilling to the memory of the immortal poet. But if our claims were weak, our advocates were strong, and so it came to pass that on the eventful evening we found ourselves awaiting the feast in the banqueting room of the Freemason’s Tavern.

That the thing was to be unique we were not long in discovering, as Ben Webster began grace by “For what we are about to receive may the spirit of Shakespeare hover over us.”

Whether it was Shakespeare’s spirit or the more powerful libations included in the dinner ticket must be left to greater dramatic authorities; suffice that long before the speeches began, practical jokes were in full blast, and eventually developed into a free fight.

It appears that some scene shifters with voracious appetites were sending again and again for a slice more ’am, till wags of a higher grade, who acted as croupiers, worn out and disgusted, piled plates with meats, custards, oranges, and mustard till the blood of every carpenter rose as one man, and dishes began to fly right, centre, and left. Even the waiters joined in the tournament, and one, in the act of placing a plate before me, yelled out, “Wait till I give this — his grub, and then I’ll let you know.” “Damn it,” whispered one of our party, “this isn’t Shakespearian, surely! For God’s sake let us clear out.” But “clearing out” was by no means so easy, for at that moment two or three repulsive ruffians in leather coats and rabbit-skin caps came upon the scene, whilst one, scowling in strictly melodramatic style, confronted us with “Well, what’s the matter with _you_?” But we managed to slip out without giving the desired explanation, and so ended the tercentenary and the spirit Ben Webster had invoked.

People nowadays would hardly realise that theatregoers in those long-ago days could wade through alleys and side streets by no means safe after dark to visit the (then) Prince of Wales’s in a slum off the Tottenham Court Road. With an excellent company, however, and with houris since translated to the peerage and knightage, the little house was nightly crammed, and white ties by the score blocked the thoroughfare in the vicinity of the modest stage door as resolutely as in later years they besieged the Philharmonic and the Gaiety.

Valentine Baker at the time was running the show, or a material portion of it, and much of the profits of his wife’s soap-boiling industry, it was said, found their way into the coffers of the unpretentious little temple in the slum. A wealthy cabinet maker, also in the vicinity, whose profits permitted the luxury of a four-in-hand, might usually be seen worshipping at the shrine, and a tag-rag and bobtail of less wealthy but aspiring young bloods fought and hustled for one glance, one sign of recognition, from the bevy beyond the footlights.

When Valentine Baker began casting sheep’s eyes at the demure maiden reading the _Family Herald_ in a South-Western compartment, he little realised that the price he was paying might have been commuted elsewhere by the judicious expenditure of a five-pound note. Twenty thousand in hard cash, the command of a great regiment, and social annihilation—for what? And when Mr. Justice Brett began his charge to the jury by “a man we looked to to protect our women and children,” there was not an Army man present (and the Croydon Court House was crammed with them) that did not internally vow that henceforth, be it in a first-class or a third-class compartment, be it Piccadilly Circus or the British Museum, woman should be his constant care, and, if necessary, any tadpole that lawfully pertained to her.

The rumour came like a thunderbolt, and in every Army club the whispered communication ran: “Valentine Baker is arrested, by Gad!”

No man at this time had such a universal personality—the colonel of the crackest of all crack regiments; the admittedly best cavalry leader of the day; the patron of the drama, and in intimate touch with the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, then under the management of Marie Wilton, since developed into a pillar of Holy Church—the thing seemed incredible, and curiosity ran high to gaze upon the houri that had been so fatally misread by this experienced veteran.

The crowds that surrounded the Court House made access impossible; to hope for admission was the aspiration of a lunatic, when “Come this way, my lord”—as my companion was recognised—reached our ears, and we found ourselves under an open window, ten feet from the ground, at the back of the court.

“I’ll stand next the wall,” continued our guide, “and you get on my shoulders,” and then an acrobatic performance took place that would have insured an engagement at any music-hall.

The sequel is matter of history.

Years after—in ’94—I met him in Cairo, an altered, broken man, in daily expectation of being appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army. But Nemesis had not done with him yet—prudery, hypocrisy, blue-stockingism were still rampant, and a telegram from London vetoed the intended appointment.

The official explanation was that a “cashiered man” could not command full-pay British officers with which the Egyptian Army swarmed, whilst the universal opinion was that a brave man was being hounded to his death under the cloak of that charity that flourished in its prime during the days of the Inquisition.

Next year he died in Egypt—broken in health and broken in heart—and those that knew his brilliant attainments, and the heights they would assuredly have led to, agreed that—like Napoleon—he should have died years before at the head of his men.

The Strand Theatre also was a highly popular resort, run exclusively by the Swanborough family and their numerous sisters, cousins, and aunts.

To “The Old Lady,” rightly or wrongly, was attributed every _malaprop_ that ingenious wits invented, and in later years, when the Doré Gallery and the Criterion Restaurant simultaneously came into existence, she was reputed to have expressed intense admiration of the Doré masterpiece, “Christ leaving the Criterium.”

A pothouse—pure and simple—across the Strand was a favourite after-theatre resort of this (then) brightest of companies, and in a specially reserved room might nightly be seen sweet Nelly Bromley, young as ever, despite her youthful brood of dukes and duchesses and his Grace of Beaufort; Eleanor Bufton, Fanny Josephs, Fanny Hughes, and a host of others, all charming, clever, and young, and, alas! all passed away.

The proprietor of this unpretentious hostelry was a pimply, fly-blown individual, who before you had been five minutes in his company told you that _he_ was the rightful Duke of Norfolk, who by some legal jugglery had been choused out of his birthright; he, too, has long been swept away, and so the present peer remains unmolested in his title.

Passing through the Strand not long since, I was attracted by the new Tube station, and entering its portals for “auld lang syne” I was distressed, but not surprised, to find nothing of the happy hum that once characterised the transformed spot. For here stood the little Strand Theatre of the sixties in all the glory of its original popularity before it was improved (?) and modernised, only to find it had become out of the perspective, and so to be handed over to eternal obliteration.

The old Strand may surely claim to be the root of the theatrical genealogical tree, for from its original stock (company) sprang every sprig that struck root elsewhere to became famous either through theatrical enterprise, matrimonial enterprise, or any of the lucrative channels that commend themselves to commercial talent.

For the phalanx that once worked as a whole, would according to present custom, be split into a dozen “one-part” companies, with the necessary embroidery of Bodega men, motor-cum-masher women, and a sprinkling of earnest artistes by way of cohesion.

A few years later the family grouping that originally characterised the Strand was intruded upon by one H. B. Farnie, whose forte was the adaptation of opera-bouffe. Unquestionably an adept in this particular line, the man was a libertine of a pronounced character, with the result that the chorus at the Strand and the Opera Comique was the very daintiest conceivable. If a houri yielded to this Blue Beard’s blandishments, her advancement was assured, and she was fitted to minor parts; if his overtures fell on deaf ears, nothing was too bad for her, and her lot was not a successful one. Occasionally, as a consequence, the hum-drum routine of a rehearsal was enlivened by such unrehearsed incidents as the appearance of an irate brother, and, on one occasion, an exasperated fishmonger from the Theobald’s Road (the combination sounds boisterous), burst in at a critical period of a comic duet and belaboured the unhappy impresario to within an inch of his life.

These cases are, happily, rare at the present day, although, if rumour is correct, a Hebrew of dramatic tastes, who, a few years ago, developed into theatre owner, and staged his own pieces, could tell of a similar experience which practically led to his abandonment of the active pursuit of the drama.

When the fair Lardy Wilson, whom we last heard of at the Surrey, had risen into prominence by reason of her exalted connection, she joined the old Philharmonic, at Islington, in the zenith of its glory; so privileged indeed had this darling of Alfred become that, appearing in the “green room” on one occasion with an infant swaddled in purple and fine linen, the manager, band conductor, principals—male and female—and the chorus _en bloc_, are said to have bowed down and worshipped, as was only meet and proper and to be expected of a “loyal and dutiful” people.

“Wiry Sal” was also a delightful member of the company, and soon obtained European fame by being able to kick higher, in a graceful, abandoned way, than any exponent of the art before or since.

Pretty little Camille Dubois, who eventually developed into a Stanhope, was also at this delightful house. Her father at the time was conductor at the Opera Comique, and on one occasion having congratulated him on the execution of an excruciating _morceau_ that I was aware had emanated from his inspired brain, I expressed a desire to procure a copy.

“Ach, mein Gott!” he replied, “it is a gavotte in F.”

Gavottes in F are, happily, rare inspirations!

For although burlesque lent itself to the display of a bevy of beautiful choristers, mashing had not then attained its present barefaced dimensions, and the cab outside and the calf (just) inside were the exception, not the rule, in those jovial days.

But when Ada and Lizzie—as sometimes occurred—were sisters, it often happened that some system was necessary to insure a properly balanced larder, for from a conversation once overheard, two hams had come from the guardsman and the lordling, whereas the smallest forethought would have insured otherwise.

But the belle of the show was one Laura, who, discovered in the purlieus of Islington, developed into the rage of London, and her beautiful face was to be seen on Easter eggs, Egyptian cigarettes, and at the picture shops, as Connie Gilchrist, the Countess of Lonsdale, and other beauties figured at a later day.

Her personality attracted—as may be assumed—all the front rank mashers, and Harry Tyrwhitt, Douglas Gordon, and Jimmy Douglas were nightly imploring D’Albertson and Hitchins to present them to the goddess.

But this fatal beauty led to a row, and the jealous swain who was responsible for the fair Laura’s well-being was not long in bringing matters to an issue.

It was on Ash Wednesday, when our national hypocrisy—since taken other shapes—closed the theatres, with the exception of the Alhambra, that the fair chorister decided to “visit her parents.” Nothing loth to encourage such filial piety, her inamorato put her into a cab, and then—with an eye to business—judiciously followed.

The sequel was a sad disillusionment, for getting out at the stage door, she proceeded towards the Embankment, and there by easy stages—accompanied by an admirer—the pair proceeded to a private box at the Alhambra.

The rest is briefly told; a thundering knock at the box door, shouts of “Hush!” from all parts of the house, the orchestra stopped, old Jacobi standing in his stirrups, and an ignominious exit for all concerned.

Later the sweet girl went on tour with one of Alec Henderson’s companies, and met a bagman she eventually married.

The bagman has since developed into one of the largest shopkeepers in Knightsbridge, and so good came out of evil, and the course “true love” usually runs in marrying an Italian waiter and living on macaroni was diverted, and everything a real “loidy” should have became hers for life.

And the development of the fair creature’s life was frequently under my observation. Beginning with a preference for a “steak and a glass of stout,” she soon developed into an authority on champagne; instead of worsted gloves—or no gloves—nothing but Dumont’s mauve mousquetaires would satisfy her, and so blasée did she become during her nightly visits to Romano’s that she could not sum up sufficient energy to remove her sixteen-franc gloves when picking an artichoke. One marvels at the true origin of these phenomena when under observation during the transition state from gutter to Debrett, for although all of us have seen the mothers, no human eye has ever seen the male progenitor of any of these extraordinary beings, who toil not neither do they spin, yet rise to the highest positions, have their babies kissed by the Kaiser, and all by sheer superficial excellence.

Yet another face arises before me, and sweet Grace O—, resisting every blandishment of Jew and Gentile, stands prominently out in the simple attire of a modest maiden, amid the sables and baubles by which she was surrounded. No adorers waited for her, although the bombardment by letter and overture was incessant; smirky acting-managers enlisted against her, reminded her that no stalls were booked by her _clientèle_, parcels at the stage door remained as they were left, and nightly the sweet girl trudged across Waterloo Bridge to her humble abode at Kennington, whilst half a dozen broughams only awaited the chance of flicking her to a _cabinet particulier_ at the Café Riche or Kettner’s. Often, as she told me at a later period, she entered her hovel tired and hungry with nothing better than a herring and a crust with which to fortify herself for the monotonous routine of next day and every day, the lot then, and now, of many a tender plant in uncongenial soil.

But every created thing has its breaking point—the balloon overflated will eventually burst, and the egg pressed too hard will assuredly break; and sweet Grace, no exception to the unalterable law of Nature, like a lily before the hurricane, bent before the assault that assailed her on every side.

It was like an ironclad charging an outrigger, when men of the Farnie type entered the lists against an honest and attractive chorister, and the sequel of short duration in Ashley Place was told me by the unhappy girl. Gold at this stage was lavished upon her, and a miniature brougham and tiger—intended as a surprise—was scornfully ignored as it waited for her at the Royalty, and was eventually on sale—as unused as on the day it left its builders—in Long Acre. “I can endure this gilded cage so long as no one knows it, but the shame of the brougham! I would rather have dropped than enter it.” So spoke the woman, and within a month she walked out of the palatial establishment to revert to her humble life.

It was a perky Jew, enormously rich, with great back-door theatrical influence, that sought to shape this phenomenal disposition into a regard for his uncongenial charms. But manly beauty of such matured and pronounced types, with its Malacca canes and vulgar jewellery—like olives and a love for babies—are acquired tastes, and not the baits to allure the “Graces” of this sordid world, and years after, when chance again threw me across her path, our heroine was the happy wife of a worthy City clerk, and Ashley Place and the Jew and the brougham had long since been forgotten like the incidents of a hideous nightmare.

This is no overdrawn fairy tale, and what existed then exists now, at least in one popular resort, and two sisters with youth, good looks, and stage experience now “resting,” could tell how the only accomplishment of which they were deficient was their inability to fill a few stalls—on terms.

In later years the infant phenomenon became the craze, and Topsey, of the Royalty, and Connie, of the music-halls, and a cloud of imitators all bid for recognition. Some—like Esther—had the golden sceptre held out, and “came and sat beside the king,” whilst others less fortunate fulfilled their natural destiny and became the wives of the local tobacconist or greengrocer, and many of them would now be shocked if asked the number of yards between the pond and the Hampstead Fever Hospital, or the sensations of dancing to a hurdy-gurdy on the boulevards of Camden Town.

And so history is made, and pedigrees traced to “de” something—who came over with the Conqueror—with here and there a stiffening from a Chicago pork butchery, and it only remains for you and me, my brother snobs, to pray that whatever trials the Fates may have in store for us, we may not be bereft of our old nobility.

The recent death of the once-popular Chief of the Fire Brigade, Eyre Shaw, recalls many stirring scenes that lit up the West End in the long-ago sixties, when theatres bore a considerable share of the conflagrations that partially or entirely destroyed some of our most notable playhouses.

It was in ’65 that the old Surrey was in flames, to be replaced later on by the present structure, more familiar to the present generation as associated with the début of such popular artistes as Lardy Wilson, Nelly Moon, Val Reece (Lady Meux of the 20th century), Rose Mandeville, and others under the management of Bill Holland, and the distinguished patronage of names too sacred to mention save with bated breath and in reverential tones.

Three years later the Oxford Music Hall was burned down, but those caves of harmony were less pretentious in those days, and so the conflagration, except as a sight, did not provoke much interest. But a blaze that occurred in December, ’67, roused all London, and as a “spectacle” surpassed anything that had ever been depicted on its stage, and put in the shade the Guy Fawkes celebrations of the previous month.

In that memorable year Her Majesty’s Theatre, without any apparent rhyme or reason, burst into flame, and despite herculean efforts was soon a heap of cinders. For the construction, as may be supposed, was wood and old, and those chiefly interested were probably gainers by the drastic accident, except perhaps Mapleson, who was said to have lost £12,000, and Madame Tietjens, £2,000. But Tod Heatly, the ground landlord, could hardly have regretted it, for it opened up possibilities of improving the site which, after many years, culminated in the present establishment, with its profitable addenda of an hotel with its “lardy-da” luncheon and supper rooms.

In those remote days the Metropolitan Board of Works was the controlling authority, and bone counters which emanated from them passed the holders within the cordon on any of these interesting occasions.

Eyre Shaw, too, about this time was appointed chief officer, and being an enthusiastic patron of the Gaiety (then only a precocious infant with every promise of its present development) little wonder that the bone counters were in considerable evidence amongst the present-day old ladies who then represented the Connies and Dollies and Lizzies of burlesque.

Contemplating the still-smouldering ruins, how complete appeared the obliteration of many notable incidents. Here Mario—approaching seventy—was acclaimed to the echo by a gushing house, after having been hissed off the stage in Paris for mumbling what he once used to sing; here Giulini thrilled the world with the purest tenor ever heard, and died in the madhouse in the zenith of his fame; here later, Moody and Sankey bellowed in solo and in duet, and stopped the traffic by the eager crowds that sought admission (free) to bellow in the chorus; here, too, sweet little Chiomi essayed to make her début in _Lucia_ and failed; and here Lord Dudley, Carpenter, Vandeleur-Lee, Goodenough, and a host long since swept into the universal dust-bin, beamed nightly on Tietjens and Fanchelli with expressions supposed to denote familiarity with the text; here under its dismal porticoes sights of distress and starvation—forgotten in slumber—were nightly to be met with, as painful as anything that ever appealed to De Quincey outside the Oxford Street Pantheon, and here old Leader, prince of Bohemians and managing director of the Alhambra in the zenith of its pranky days, had a box office till he dropped from old age; here on one occasion on the son of one of the celebrated Irish Army agents being presented to him, the Royal George patronisingly greeted him with, “Oh, indeed, a son of ‘Borough and Armit,’” and received the explanatory reply: “No, sir, only of Armit;” and on the ghosts of all these departed memories not one stone now stands upon another to bridge, as it were, the present with the glorious past.

In these latter days, a conflagration such as this would, of course, be impossible, as witness the blaze not long since in Holborn. But then that was a _fire proof_ construction.