Part 5 (1/2)
It was in ”Camille,” one Friday night, in Baltimore, that for the only time in my life I wished to wipe an animal out of existence. I love four-footed creatures with extravagant devotion, not merely the finely bred and beautiful ones, but the poor, the sick, the halt, the maimed, the half-breeds or the no breeds at all; and almost all animals quickly make friends with me, divining my love for them. But on this one night--well! it was this way. In the last act, as Camille, I had staggered from the window to the bureau and was nearing that dread moment when in the looking-gla.s.s I was to see the reflection of my wrecked and ruined self. The house was giving strained attention, watching dim-eyed the piteous, weak movements of the dying woman; and right there I heard that (----h!) quick indrawing of the breath startled womanhood always indulges in before either a scream or a laugh. My heart gave a plunge, and I thought: What is it? Oh, what is wrong? and I glanced down at myself anxiously, for really I wore so very little in that scene that if anything should slip off--gracious! I did not know but what, in the interest of public propriety, the law might interfere.
But that one swift glance told me that the few garments I had a.s.sumed in the dressing-room still faithfully clung to me. But alas! there was the dreaded t.i.tter, and it was unmistakably growing. What was it about? They could only laugh at me, for there was no one else on the stage. Was there not, indeed! In an agony of humiliation I turned half about and found myself facing an absolutely monstrous cat. Starlike he held the very centre of the stage, his two great topaz eyes were fixed roundly and unflinchingly upon my face. On his body and torn ears he carried the marks of many battles. His brindled tail stood straightly and aggressively in the air, and twitched with short, quick twitches, at its very tip, truly as burly an old buccaneer as I ever saw.
No wonder they giggled! But how to save the approaching death scene from total ruin? All was done in a mere moment or two; but several plans were made and rejected during these few moments. Naturally my first thought, and the correct one, was to call back ”Nannine,” my faithful maid, and tell her to remove the cat. But alas! my Nannine was an unusually dull-witted girl, and she would never be able to do a thing she had not rehea.r.s.ed. My next impulse was to pick up the creature and carry it off myself; but I was playing a dying girl, and the people had just seen me, after only three steps, reel helplessly into a chair; and this cat might easily weigh twelve pounds or more; and then at last my plan was formed.
I had been clinging all the time to the bureau for support, now I slipped to my knees and with a prayer in my heart that this fierce old Thomas might not decline my acquaintance, I held out my hand, and in a faint voice, called ”Puss--Puss--Puss! come here, Puss!”
It was an awful moment: if he refused to come, if he turned tail and ran, all was over; the audience would roar.
”Puss--Puss!” I pleaded. Thomas looked hard at me, hesitated, stretched out his neck, and working his whiskers nervously, sniffed at my hand.
”Puss--Puss!” I gasped out once more, and lo! he gave a little ”meow,”
and walking over to me, arched his back amicably, and rubbed his dingy old body against my knee. In a moment my arms were about him, my cheek on his wicked old head, and the applause that broke forth from the audience was as balm of Gilead to my distress and mortification. Then I called for Nannine, and when she came on, I said to her, ”Take him downstairs, Nannine, he grows too heavy a pet for me these days,” and she lifted and carried Sir Thomas from the stage, and so I got out of the sc.r.a.pe without sacrificing my character as a sick woman.
My manager, Mr. John P. Smith, who was a wag, and who would willingly give up his dinner, which he loved, for a joke, which he loved better, was the next day questioned about this incident. One gentleman, a music dealer, said to him: ”Mr. Smith, I wish you to settle a question for me.
My wife and I are at variance. We saw 'Camille' last night, and my wife, who has seen it several times in New York, insisted that that beautiful little cat-scene belongs to the play and is always done; while I am sure I never saw it before, and several of my customers agree with me, one lady declaring it to have been an accident. Will you kindly set us right?”
”Certainly,” heartily replied Mr. Smith; ”your wife is quite right, the cat scene is always done. It is a great favourite with Miss Morris, and she hauls that cat all over the country with her, ugly as he is, just because he's such a good actor.”
_CHAPTER IX
”ALIXE.” THE TRAGEDY OF THE GOOSE GREASE_
During the run of ”Alixe,” at Daly's Theatre, I had suffered from a sharp attack of inflammation of the lungs, and before I was well the doctor was simply horrified to learn that Mr. Daly had commanded me to play at the Sat.u.r.day performance, saying that if the work made me worse, the doctor would have all day Sunday to treat me in. He really seemed to think that using a carriage did away with all possible danger in pa.s.sing from a warm room, through icy streets, to a draughty theatre. But certain lesions that I carry about with me are proofs of his error.
However, I dared not risk losing my engagement, so I obeyed. My chest, which had been blistered and poulticed during my illness, was excruciatingly tender and very sensitive to cold; and the doctor, desiring to heal, and at the same time to protect it from chill, to my unspeakable mortification anointed me lavishly with goose grease and swathed me in flannel and cotton wadding.
That I had no shape left to me was bad enough; but to be a moving abomination was worse, and of all vile, offensive, and vulgar odours commend me to that of goose grease. With cheeks wet from tears of sheer weakness, I reached the theatre resolved to keep as silent as the grave on the subject of my flamboyant armour of grease and flannel. But the first faint muttering of the coming storm reached me even in my dressing-room, when the theatre maid (I had none of my own yet) entered, and frowningly snapped out: ”I'd like to know what's the matter with this room? It never smelled like this before. Just as soon as you go out, Miss Morris, I'll hunt it over and see what the trouble is.”
I had been pale, but at that speech one might have lighted matches at my scarlet face. While in the entrance I had to be wrapped up in a great big shawl, through which the odour could not quite penetrate, so no one suspected me when making kindly inquiries about my health; but when it was thrown off, and in my thin white gown I went on the stage--oh!
In the charming little love scene, as Henri and I sat close, oh, very close together, on the garden seat, and I had to look up at him with wide-eyed admiration, I saw him turn his face aside, wrinkling up his nose, and heard him whisper: ”What an infernal smell! What is it?”
I shook my head in seeming ignorance and wondered what was ahead--if this was the beginning. It was a harrowing experience; by the time the second act was on, the whole company was aroused. They were like an angry swarm of bees. Miss Dietz kept her handkerchief openly to her pretty nose; Miss Morant, in stately dudgeon, demanded that Mr. Daly should be sent for, that he might learn the condition of his theatre, and the dangers his people were subjected to in breathing such poisoned air; while right in the very middle of our best scene, Mr. Louis James, the incorrigible, stopped to whisper, ”Can't we move further over and get out of this confounded stench?”
In that act I had to spend much of my time at the piano, with the result that when the curtain fell, the people excitedly declared that awful smell was worst right there, and I had the misery of seeing the prompter carefully looking into the piano and applying his long, sharp nose to its upright interior.
There had been a moment in that act when I thought James Lewis suspected me. I had just taken my seat opposite him at the chess table, when he gave a little jerk at his chair, exclaiming under his breath, ”Blast that smell--there it is again!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Mrs. Gilbert, Augustin Daly, James Lewis, Louis James_]
I remained silent, and there I was wrong; for Lewis, knowing me well, knew my habit of extravagant speech, and instantly his blue pop eyes were upon my miserable face, with suspicion sticking straight out of them. With trembling hand I made my move at chess, saying, ”Queen to Queens rook four,” and he added in aside, ”Seems to me you're mighty quiet about this scent; I hope you ain't going to tell me you can't smell it?”
But the a.s.surance that ”I did--oh, I did, indeed! smell a most outrageous odour,” came so swiftly, so convincingly from my lips, that his suspicions were lulled to rest.
The last act came, and--and--well, as I said, it was the last act. White and rigid and lily-strewn, they bore me on the stage,--Louis James at the shoulders and George Clarke at the feet. Their heads were bent over me. James was nearest to the storm centre. Suddenly he gasped, then as we reached the centre of the stage Clarke gave vent to ”phew!” They gently laid me on the sofa, but through the sobs of the audience and of the characters I heard from James the unfinished, half-doubting sentence, ”Well, I believe in my soul it's--” But the mother (Miss Morant) approached me then, took my hand, touched my brow, called for help, for a physician; then with the wild cry, ”She is dead! she is dead!” flung herself down beside the sofa with her head upon my goose-grease breast. Scarcely had she touched me, however, when with a gasping snort of disgust she sprang back, exclaiming violently, ”It's you, you wretch! it's _you_!” and then under cover of other people's speeches, I being dead and helpless, Clarke stood at my head and James at my feet and reviled me, calling me divers unseemly names and mocking at me, while references were made every now and then to chloride of lime and such like disinfectants.
They would probably have made life a burden for me ever after, had I not after the performance lifted tearful eyes to them and said, ”I am so sorry for your discomfort, but you can go out and get fresh air; but, boys, just think of me, I can't get away from myself and my goose-grease smell a single moment, and it's perfectly awful!”