Chapter 14

"It's the confounded mysteriousness that gets me," said Scott, wiping his forehead. "Here, get on, you beasts. We'll have to take a look at 'em, anyhow."

He strode on between the animals, the rifle in the crook of his arm, ready for use, and all his senses alert and vivacious. Day was broad above them now and bitter with the forenoon heat. At their side the bay was rippled with a capricious breeze, and in all the far prospect of earth and sea none moved save themselves, detached in a haunting significance of solitude.

"Ah!" He stopped short and jerked the rifle forward. In the bush ahead there was a movement; for an instant he saw something white flash among the palms, and then the Italian burst forth and came toward them, running all at large, with head down and jolting elbows. He ran like a man hunted by crazy fears, and did not see Scott till he was within twenty yards.

"Halt, there, Dago," ordered Scott, and brought the butt to his shoulder.

The Italian gasped and blundered to his knees, turning on Scott a glazed and twitching face.

"For peety, for peety!" he quavered.

"Draw that shawl over your face, 'Carnacion," said Scott, without turning his head. "Can you see now?"

"No," she answered.

He fired, and the Italian sprawled forward on his face, plowing up the sand with clutching hands.

"Keep the shawl over your eyes, 'Carnacion," directed Scott, and soon they came round a palm-bunch and were on the bank of the creek, where a fifteen-ton cutter lay on the mud. A plank lay between her deck and the shore, and, as they came to it, the captain hailed them from the cockpit.

"Come aboard," he said. "All's ready."

Scott picked Incarnacion up in his arms, wound another fold of the shawl about her face, and carried her aboard. He set her down on the settee in the cabin, released her head, and kissed her fervently. "Now make yourself comfy here, little 'un," he said; "for here you stay till we make Delagoa."

He helped her to dispose herself in the cabin, showed her its arrangements, and saw her curious delight in the little space-saving contrivances. Then he went out, closing the door behind him. It did not occur to him to render her any explanations; what Scott did was always sufficient for Incarnacion.

Again on deck, he found the swathed leper busy, and started when he saw, along the banks of the creek, a gang of shrouded figures at work with a hawser.

"My crew," said the captain. "They're to haul us off the mud."

"Then," said Scott, "it was them----"

The leper laughed. "Ay, they ran from us," he said. "They ran from the lazaretto-hands. The one we caught, we put him overside for the crocodiles; an' you got the other."

"They chased him?" asked Scott, trembling with the thought.

"Ay," said the leper; "they uncovered their faces and they chased. Ye heard the squealing?"

He broke off to oversee his gang. "Make fast on that stump!" he called. In spite of the disease that blurred his speech, there was the authority of the quarter-deck in his voice. "Now, all hands tally on and walk her down." And the silent lepers in their grave-clothes ranged themselves on the rope like the ghosts of drowned seamen.

When the mainsail filled and the cutter heeled to the breeze, pointing fair for the bar, the leper looked back. Scott followed his glance. On the spit by the mouth of the creek stood the white figures in a little group, lonely and voiceless, and over them the palms floated against the sky like tethered birds.

"There was some that was almost Christians," said the captain; "they'll miss me, they will." And after a pause he added: "And I'll be missing them, too; for they was my mates."

There were six days of sailing ere the captain made his landfall, and they stood off till evening. Then he put in to where the sea shelved easily on a beach four or five miles south of the town, and it was time to part.

"You can wade ashore," said the leper.

Scott opened the doors of the little cabin. On the settee Incarnacion lay asleep, her dark hair tumbled about her warm face. He was about to wake her, but stayed his hand and drew back. "You can look," he said to the leper in a whisper.

The shrouded man bent and looked in; Scott marked that he held his breath. For a full minute he stared in silence, his shoulders blocking the little door; then he drew back.

"Ay," he murmured, "it's like that they are, lad; and it's grand to be a man--it's grand to be a man!"

Scott closed the doors gently. "If ever there was a man," he began, but choked and stopped. "What will you do now?" he asked.

"Oh, I'll just be gettin' back," said the leper. "You see, there's them lads--my crew. It was me made a crew of 'em in that lazaretto. They was just stinking heathen till I come. An' I sort of miss 'em, I do."

"Will you shake hands?" said Scott, torn by a storm of emotions.

The leper shook his head. "You've the girl to think of," he said. "But good luck to the pair of ye. Ye'll make a fine team."

Half an hour later Scott and Incarnacion stood together on the beach and watched the cutter's lights as she stood on a bowline to seaward.

"Kiss your hand to it, darling," said Scott.

"I bin done it," answered Incarnacion.

"OLIVIA" AND "FAUST" AT THE LYCEUM[41]

BY ELLEN TERRY

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM DRAWINGS BY ERIC PAPE AND HARRY FENN

The first night of "Olivia" at the Lyceum was about the only _comfortable_ first night that I have ever had! I was familiar with the part, and two of the cast, Terriss and Norman Forbes, were the same as at the Court, which made me feel all the more at home. Henry left a great deal of the stage-management to us, for he knew that he could not improve on Mr. Hare's production. Only he insisted on altering the last act, and made a bad matter worse. The division into two scenes wasted time, and nothing was gained by it. _Never_ obstinate, Henry saw his mistake and restored the original end after a time. It was weak and unsatisfactory, but not pretentious and bad, like the last act he presented at the first performance.

We took the play too slowly at the Lyceum. That was often a fault there. Because Henry was slow, the others took their time from him, and the result was bad.

The lovely scene of the vicarage parlour, in which we used a harpsichord, and were accused of pedantry for our pains, did not look so well at the Lyceum as at the Court. The stage was too big for it.

The critics said that I played Olivia better at the Lyceum, but I did not feel this myself.

At first Henry did not rehearse the Vicar at all well. One day, when he was stamping his foot very much as if he were Mathias in "The Bells," my little Edy, who was a terrible child _and_ a wonderful critic, said:

"Don't go on like that, Henry. Why don't you talk as you do to me and Teddy? At home you _are_ the Vicar."

The child's frankness did not offend Henry, because it was illuminating. A blind man had changed his Shylock; a little child changed his Vicar. When the first night came, he gave a simple, lovable performance. Many people now understood and liked him as they had never done before. One of the things I most admired in it was his sense of the period.

In this, as in other plays, he used to make his entrance in the _skin_ of the part. No need for him to rattle a ladder at the side to get up excitement and illusion, as another actor is said to have done. He walked on and was the simple-minded old clergyman, just as he had walked on a prince in "Hamlet" and a king in "Charles I."

A very handsome woman, descended from Mrs. Siddons and looking exactly like her, played the Gipsy in "Olivia." The likeness was of no use, because the possessor of it had no talent. What a pity!

_"Olivia" a Family Play_

"Olivia" has always been a family play. Edy and Ted walked on the stage for the first time in the Court "Olivia." In later years Ted played Moses, and Edy made her first appearance in a speaking part as Polly Flamborough, and has since played both Sophia and the Gipsy. My brother Charlie's little girl, Beatrice, made her first appearance as Bill, a part which her sister Minnie had already played; my sister Floss played Olivia on a provincial tour, and my sister Marion played it at the Lyceum when I was ill.

I saw Floss in the part, and took from her a lovely and sincere bit of "business." In the third act, where the Vicar has found his erring daughter and has come to take her away from the inn, I always hesitated at my entrance, as if I were not quite sure what reception my father would give me after what had happened. Floss, in the same situation, came running in and went straight to her father, quite sure of his love, if not of his forgiveness.

I did _not_ take some business which Marion did on Terriss' suggestion. Where Thornhill tells Olivia that she is not his wife, I used to thrust him away with both hands as I said "Devil!"

"It's very good, Nell, very fine," said Terriss to me, "but, believe me, you miss a great effect there. You play it grandly, of course, but at that moment you miss it. As you say 'Devil!' you ought to strike me full in the face."

"Oh, don't be silly, Terriss," I said. "Olivia is not a pugilist."

Of course I saw, apart from what was dramatically fit, what would happen!

However, Marion, very young, very earnest, very dutiful, anxious to please Terriss, listened eagerly to the suggestion during an understudy rehearsal.

"No one could play this part better than your sister Nell," said Terriss to the attentive Marion, "but, as I always tell her, she does miss one great effect. When you say 'Devil! hit me bang in the face."

"Thank you for telling me," said Marion gratefully.

"It will be much more effective," said Terriss.

It _was_. When the night came for Marion to play the part, she struck out, and Terriss had to play the rest of the scene with a handkerchief held to his bleeding nose!

_Ellen Terry and Eleanora Duse_

I think it was as Olivia that Eleanora Duse first saw me act. She had thought of playing the part herself sometime, but she said: "_Never_ now!" No letter about my acting ever gave me the same pleasure as this from her:

"MADAME: With Olivia you have given me pleasure and pain. _Pleasure_ by your noble and sincere art--_pain_ because I feel sad at heart when I see a beautiful and generous woman give her soul to art--as you do--when it is life itself, your heart itself, that speaks tenderly, sorrowfully, nobly beneath your acting. I cannot rid myself of a certain melancholy when I see artists as noble and distinguished as you and Mr. Irving. Although you are strong enough (with continual labor) to make life subservient to art, I, from my standpoint, regard you as forces of nature itself, which should have the right to exist for themselves instead of for the crowd. I would not venture to disturb you, Madame, and moreover I have so much to do that it is impossible for me to tell you personally all the great pleasure you have given me, because I have felt your heart. Will you believe, dear Madame, in mine, which asks no more at this moment than to admire you and to tell you so in any manner whatsoever.

"Always yours, "E. Duse."[42]

It was worth having lived to get that letter!

"_Faust_"

A claptrappy play "Faust" was, no doubt, but Margaret was the part I liked better than any other--outside Shakespeare. I played it beautifully sometimes. The language was often very commonplace, not nearly as poetic or dramatic as that of "Charles I.," but the character was all right--simple, touching, sublime. The Garden Scene I know was a _bourgeois_ affair. It was a bad, weak love-scene, but George Alexander as Faust played it admirably. Indeed, he always acted like an angel with me; he was so malleable, ready to do anything. He was launched into the part at very short notice, after H. B. Conway's failure on the first night. Poor Conway! It was Coghlan as Shylock all over again.

Conway was a descendant of Lord Byron, and he had a look of the _handsomest_ portraits of the poet. With his bright hair curling tightly all over his well-shaped head, his beautiful figure, and charming presence, he created a sensation in the eighties almost equal to that made by the more famous beauty, Lily Langtry. As an actor he belonged to the Terriss type, but he was not nearly as good as Terriss.

Henry called a rehearsal the next day--on Sunday, I think. The company stood about in groups on the stage, while Henry walked up and down, speechless, but humming a tune occasionally, always a portentous sign with him. The scene set was the Brocken scene, and Conway stood at the top of the slope, as far away from Henry as he could get! He looked abject. His handsome face was very red, his eyes full of tears. He was terrified at the thought of what was going to happen. As for Henry, he was white as death, but he never let pain to himself (or others) stand in the path of duty to his public, and his public had shown that they wanted another Faust. The actor was summoned to the office, and presently Loveday came out and said that Mr. George Alexander would play Faust the following night.

_George Alexander and the Barmaids_

Alec had been wonderful as Valentine the night before, and as Faust he more than justified Henry's belief in him. After that he never looked back. He had come to the Lyceum for the first time in 1882, an unknown quantity from a stock company in Glasgow, to play Caleb Decie in "The Two Roses." He then left us for a time, returned for "Faust," and remained in the Lyceum Company for some years, playing all Terriss' parts.

Alexander had the romantic quality which was lacking in Terriss, but there was a kind of shy modesty about him which handicapped him when he played Squire Thornhill in "Olivia." "Be more dashing, Alec!" I used to say to him. "Well, I do my best," he said. "At the hotels I chuck all the barmaids under the chin, and pretend I'm a dog of a fellow, for the sake of this part!" Conscientious, dear, delightful Alec! No one ever deserved success more than he did, and used it better when it came, as the history of St. James' Theatre under his management proves. He had the good luck to marry a wife who was clever as well as charming, and could help him.

The original cast of "Faust" was never improved upon. What Martha was ever so good as Mrs. Stirling? The dear old lady's sight had failed since "Romeo and Juliet," but she was very clever at concealing it. When she let Mephistopheles in at the door, she used to drop her work on the floor, so that she could find her way back to her chair. I never knew why she dropped it--she used to do it so naturally, with a start, when Mephistopheles knocked at the door--until one night when it was in my way and I picked it up, to the confusion of poor Mrs. Stirling, who nearly walked into the orchestra.

_"Faust" a Paradoxical Success_

"Faust" was abused a good deal--as a pantomime, a distorted caricature of Goethe, and a thoroughly inartistic production. But it proved the greatest of all Henry's financial successes. The Germans who came to see it, oddly enough, did not scorn it nearly as much as the English who were sensitive on behalf of the Germans, and the Goethe Society wrote a tribute to Henry Irving after his death, acknowledging his services to Goethe!

It is a curious paradox in the theatre that the play for which every one has a good word is often the play which no one is going to see, while the play which is apparently disliked and run down has crowded houses every night.

Our preparations for the production of "Faust" included a delightful "grand tour" of Germany. Henry, with his accustomed royal way of doing things, took a party which included my daughter Edy, Mr. and Mrs. Comyns Carr, and Mr. Hawes Craven, who was to paint the scenery. We bought nearly all the properties used in "Faust" in Nuremberg, and many other things which we did not use, that took Henry's fancy. One beautifully carved escutcheon, the finest armorial device I ever saw, he bought at this time, and presented it in after years to the famous American connoisseur, Mrs. Jack Gardner. It hangs now in one of the rooms of her palace at Boston.

It was when we were going in the train along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Rhine that Sally Holland, who accompanied us as my maid, said: "Uncommon pretty scenery, dear, I must say!"

When we laughed uncontrollably, she added: "Well, dear, _I_ think so!"

_Irving on Long Runs_

During the run of "Faust" Henry visited Oxford, and gave his address on "Four Actors" (Burbage, Betterton, Garrick, Kean). He met there one of the many people who had recently been attacking him on the ground of too long runs and too much spectacle. He wrote me an amusing account of the duel between them:

"I had supper last night at New College after the affair. A. was there, and I had it out with him--to the delight of all.

"'_Too much decoration_' etc., etc.

"I asked him what there was in Faust in the matter of appointments, etc., that he would like left out.

"Answer--nothing.

"'Too long runs.'

"'You, sir, are a poet,' I said. 'Perhaps it may be my privilege some day to produce a play of yours. Would you like it to have a long run or a short one?' (Roars of laughter.)

"Answer: 'Well, er, well, of course, Mr. Irving, you--well--well, a short run, of course, for _art_, but----'

"'Now, sir, you're on oath,' said I. 'Suppose that the fees were rolling in £10 and more a night--would you rather the play were a failure or a success?'

"'Well, well, as _you_ put it, I must say--er--I would rather my play had a _long_ run!'

"A. floored!

"He has all his life been writing articles running down good work and crying up the impossible, and I was glad to show him up a bit!

"The Vice-Chancellor made a most lovely speech after the address--an eloquent and splendid tribute to the stage.

"Bourchier presented the address of the 'Undergrads.' I never saw a young man in a greater funk--because, I suppose, he had imitated me so often!

"From the address: 'We have watched with keen and enthusiastic interest the fine intellectual quality of all these representations, from Hamlet to Mephistopheles, with which you have enriched the contemporary stage. To your influence we owe deeper knowledge and more reverent study of the master mind of Shakespeare.' All very nice indeed!"

_Irving's Mephistopheles_

I never cared much for Henry's Mephistopheles--a twopence coloured part, anyway. Of course he had his moments,--he had them in every part,--but they were few. One of them was in the Prologue, when he wrote in the student's book, "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." He never looked at the book, and the nature of the _spirit_ appeared suddenly in a most uncanny fashion.

Another was in the Spinning-wheel Scene, when Faust defies Mephistopheles, and he silences him with "_I am a spirit_." Henry looked to grow a gigantic height--to hover over the ground instead of walking on it. It was terrifying.

I made valiant efforts to learn to spin before I played Margaret. My instructor was Mr. Albert Fleming, who, at the suggestion of Ruskin, had recently revived hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the north of England. I had always hated that obviously "property" spinning-wheel in the opera and Margaret's unmarketable thread. My thread always broke, and at last I had to "fake" my spinning to a certain extent, but at least I worked my wheel right and gave an impression that I could spin my pound of thread a day with the best!

Two operatic stars did me the honour to copy my Margaret dress--Madame Albani and Madame Melba. It was rather odd, by the way, that many mothers who would take their daughters to see the opera of "Faust" would not bring them to see the Lyceum play. One of these mothers was Princess Mary of Teck, a constant patron of most of our plays.

Other people "missed the music." The popularity of an opera will often kill a play, although the play may have existed before the music was ever thought of. The Lyceum "Faust" held its own against Gounod. I liked our incidental music to the action much better. It was taken from Berlioz and Lassen, except for the Brocken music, which was the original composition of Hamilton Clarke.

_"Faust's" Four Hundred Ropes_

In many ways "Faust" was our heaviest production. About four hundred ropes were used, each rope with a name. The list of properties and instructions to the carpenters became a joke among the theatre staff. When Henry first took "Faust" into the provinces, the head carpenter at Liverpool, Myers by name, being something of a humorist, copied out the list on a long, thin sheet of paper which rolled up like a royal proclamation. Instead of "God save the Queen," he wrote at the foot, with many flourishes:

"God help Bill Myers!"

The crowded houses at "Faust" were largely composed of "repeaters," as Americans call those charming playgoers who come to see a play again and again. We found favour with the artists and musicians, too, even in "Faust"! Here is a nice letter I got during the run (it _was_ a long one) from that gifted singer and good woman, Madame Antoinette Sterling:

"My dear Miss Terry,

"I was quite as disappointed as yourself that you were not at St. James' Hall last Monday for my concert.... Jean Ingelow said she enjoyed the afternoon very much....

"I wonder if you would like to come to luncheon some day and have a little chat with her, but perhaps you already know her. I love her dearly. She has one fault--she never goes to the theatre. Oh, my! What she misses, poor thing, poor thing! We have already seen Faust twice, and are going again soon, and shall take the George Macdonalds this time. The Holman Hunts were delighted. He is one of the most interesting and clever men I have ever met, and she is very charming and clever, too. How beautifully plain you write! Give me the recipe. With many kind greetings,

"Believe me, sincerely yours,

"ANTOINETTE STERLING MACKINLAY."

In "Faust" Violet Vanbrugh "walked on" for the first time.

My girl Edy was an "angel" in the last act. This reminds me that Henry one Valentine's Day sent me some beautiful flowers with this little rhyme:

White and red roses, Sweet and fresh posies: One bunch, for Edy, _Angel_ of mine-- Big bunch for Nell, my dear Valentine.