Various - McClure\'s Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908

V >> Various >> McClure\'s Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

Incarnacion sat serenely in her place while these troubles occupied
him, smoking her cigarette and looking about her. He was involved in
an effort to jam the pack and the donkey securely in one overwhelming
intricacy of knots when she called to him.

"Jock," she said.

"Yes, what's up?" he grunted, hauling remorselessly on a line with a
knee against the ass's circumference.

"A man," she said placidly. "He come along, too, behin' us."

"Eh? Where?" he demanded, putting a last knot to the tedious
structure.

Incarnacion pointed to the bush. "I see him poke out hees head two
times," she explained.

Scott passed his hand behind him to his revolver, and stared with
narrow eyes along the green frontier at the bush. He could see
nothing.

"A big man, 'Carnacion?" he asked. "Mustaches? Black hair?"

She nodded and lit another cigarette. "You know him, Jock?"

"I know him," he answered, and drove the donkeys on, thwacking the
pack-ass cautiously for the sake of the load.

It was an anxious passage then, on the open beach. The men who
followed had the cover of the shrubs; theirs was the advantage to
choose the moment of collision. They could shoot at him from their
concealment and flick his brains out comfortably before he could set
eyes on them; or they could shoot the donkeys down, or put a bullet
into Incarnacion where she rode, quiet and regardless of all. He
flogged the beasts on to a trot with a hail of blows, and ran up into
the bush to take an observation.

His foot was barely off the sand of the beach when a shot sounded, and
the wind of the bullet made his eyes smart. Invention was automatic in
his mind. At the noise, he fell forthwith on his face, crashing across
a bush, so that his head was up and his pistol in reach of his hand.
Thus he lay, not moving, but searching through half-closed eyes the
maze of green before him. He heard the rustle of grass, and prepared
for action, every nerve taut; and there came into sight the big
Italian, smiling broadly, a Winchester in his hand.

In Scott's brain some nucleus of motion gave the signal. With a single
movement, his knee crooked under him and he swung the heavy revolver
forward. A howl answered the shot, and he saw the Italian blunder
against a palm, drop his rifle, and scamper out of sight. Firing
again, Scott dashed forward and picked up the Winchester, while from
in front of him the Italian or his companion sent bullet after bullet
about his ears. It was enough of a victory to carry on with, for
Incarnacion would have heard the shots and might come back to him; so
he turned and ran again, and caught her just as she was dismounting.

It was a race now. He silenced the girl's questions sharply, and
thumped the donkeys to a canter, running doggedly behind them with his
stick busy. In the bush, too, there was the noise of hurry; he heard
the crash of feet running, and twice they shot at him. Then
Incarnacion gasped, and held up her cloak to show him a hole through
it; but she was not touched. He swore, but did not cease to flog and
run. The strain told on him; his legs were water, and the sweat stood
on his face in great gouts; and, to embitter the labor, suddenly there
was a shout from ahead. The men had passed him, and he saw the Italian
show himself with a gesture of derision, and disappear again before he
could aim.

"They'll kill the leper," he thought, "and they'll get the boat. But
they'll not get out. I'll be on my belly in the bush then, with this."
And he patted the stock of the Winchester.

"You bin shoot a man, Jock?" asked Incarnacion, as the desperate pace
flagged.

"Not yet," he answered grimly; "but there's time yet, 'Carnacion."

Already he could see, through the slim palms, the straight mast of the
boat against the sky, with its gear about it, not a mile away. He
cocked his ear for the shot that should announce its capture and the
end of the leper.

"Ai, hear that!" exclaimed Incarnacion.

It was a sound of screams--cries of men in stress, traveling thinly
over the distance. Scott checked at it as a horse checks at a snake in
the road, for the cries had a note of wild terror that daunted him.

"You frightened, Jockie?" crooned Incarnacion. "See," she said,
lifting her hand over him, "I make the cross on you."

"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.

[Illustration: The Audrey Arms Oxbridge Middlesex

Miss Terry's country cottage from 1887 to 1890]

"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.

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS "OLIVIA"

FROM A DRAWING BY ERIC PAPE]

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

ELLEN TERRY AS OLIVIA]

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.

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

HENRY IRVING AS THE VICAR]

"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!

[Illustration: _From a drawing by the Marchioness of Granby_

H. BEERBOHM TREE WHO PLAYED WITH ELLEN TERRY IN "THE AMBER HEART"]

"_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.

[Illustration: ELEANORA DUSE WITH LENBACH'S CHILD

FROM THE PAINTING BY FRANZ VON LENBACH]

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.

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

ELLEN TERRY AS ELLALINE IN "THE AMBER HEART"

FROM THE COLLECTION OF MISS FRANCES JOHNSTON]

_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!"

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by the London Stereoscopic Co._

HENRY IRVING AS MEPHISTOPHELES IN "FAUST"

FROM THE DRAWING BY BERNARD PARTRIDGE]

_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 L10 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.

[Illustration: _From the collection of Robert Coster_

ELLEN TERRY

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ABOUT 1885, THE YEAR IN WHICH "OLIVIA" AND
"FAUST" WERE PRODUCED AT THE LYCEUM]

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!

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17