IV
Lola's tastes were distinctly "Bohemian," and led her, while in New York, to be a constant visitor at Pfaff's underground delicatessen café, then a favourite haunt of the literary and artistic worlds of the metropolis. There she mingled with such accepted celebrities as Walt Whitman, W. Dean Howells, Commodore Vanderbilt, and that other flashing figure, Adah Isaacs Menken. She probably found in Pfaff's a certain resemblance to the Munich beer-halls with which she had been familiar. A bit of the Fatherland, as it were, carried across the broad Atlantic. German solids and German liquids; talk and laughter and jests among the company of actors and actresses and artists and journalists gathered night after night at the tables; everybody in a good temper and high spirits.
Walt Whitman, inspired, doubtless, by beer, once described the place in characteristic rugged verse:
The vaults at Pfaff's, where the drinkers and laughers meet
to eat and drink and carouse,
While on the walk immediately overhead pass the myriad feet
of Broadway.
There was a good deal more of it, for, when he had been furnished with plenty of liquid refreshment, the Muse of Walt ran to length.
From New York Lola set out on a tour to Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Boston. While in this last town, she "paid a visit of ceremony" to one of the public schools. Although the children there "expressed surprise and delight at the honour accorded them," the Boston Transcript shook its editorial head; and "referred to the visit in a fashion that aroused the just indignation of the lady and her friends."
The cudgels were promptly taken up on her behalf by a New York journalist:
"Lola Montez," he declared, "owes less of her strange fascination and world-wide celebrity to her powers as an artiste than to the extraordinary mind and brilliancy of intellect with which Heaven has thought fit to endow her. At one moment ruling a kingdom, through an imbecile monarch; and the next, the wife of a dashing young English lord.... Her person and bearing are unmistakably aristocratic. In her recent visit to one of our public schools she surprised and delighted the scholars by addressing them in the Latin language with remarkable facility."
It would be of interest to learn the name of the "dashing young English lord." This, however, was probably a brevet rank conferred by the pressman on Cornet Heald.
On April 27, 1852, Lola Montez appeared at the Albany Museum in selections from her repertoire. On this occasion she brought with her a "troupe of twelve dancing girls." As an additional lure, the bills described these damsels as "all of them unmarried, and most of them under sixteen."
But the attraction which proved the biggest success in her repertoire was a drama called Lola in Bavaria. This was said to be written by "a young literary gentleman of New England, the son of a somewhat celebrated poetess." The heroine, who was never off the stage for more than five minutes, was depicted in turns as a dancer, a politician, a countess, a revolutionary, and a fugitive; and among the other characters were Ludwig I, Eugéne Sue, Dujarier, and Cornet Heald, while the setting offered "a correct representation of the Lola Montez palace at Munich." It seemed good value. At any rate, the public thought it was, and full houses were secured. But the critics restrained their raptures. "I sympathise," was the acid comment of one of them, "with the actresses who were forced to take part in such stuff"; and Joseph Daly described the heroine as "deserting a royal admirer to court the sovereign public." The author of this balderdash was one C. P. T. Ware, "a poor little hack playwright, who wrote anything for anybody."
March of 1853 found Lola Montez fulfilling an engagement at the Variétés Theatre, St. Louis. Kate Field, the daughter of the proprietor, wrote a letter on the subject to her aunt.
"Well, Lola Montez appeared at father's theatre last night for the first time. The theatre was crowded from parquet to doors. She had the most beautiful eyes I ever saw. I liked her very much; but she performed a dumb girl, so I cannot say what she would do in speaking characters."
During this engagement Lola apparently proved a little difficile, for her critic adds: "She is trying to trouble father as much as possible."
Lola certainly was apt to "trouble" people with whom she came into contact. As an accepted "star," she had a high sense of her own importance and considered herself above mere rules. Once, when travelling from Niagara to Buffalo by train, she elected to sit in the baggage car and puff a cigarette. "While," says a report, "thus cosily ensconced, she was discovered by the conductor and promptly informed by him that such behaviour was not permitted. Thereupon, Madame replied that it was her custom to travel where and how she pleased, and that she had frequently horse-whipped much bigger men than the conductor. This settled the matter, for the company's officer did not care to challenge the tigress."
The visit to Buffalo was crowned with success. "Lola Montez," declared the Troy Budget, "has done what Mrs. McMahon failed to accomplish—she positively charmed the Buffaloes. This can perhaps be attributed to her judicious choice of the ex-Reverend Chauncey Burr, by whom she is accompanied on her tour in the capacity of business-manager."
The choice of an "ex-Reverend" to conduct a theatrical tour seems, perhaps, a little odd. Still, as Lola once remarked: "It is a common enough thing in America for a bankrupt tradesman or broken-down jockey to become a lawyer, a doctor, or even a parson." Hence, from the pulpit to the footlights was no great step.
CHAPTER XIV
THE "GOLDEN WEST"
I
s this was before the days when actresses in search of publicity announce that they are not going to Hollywood, Lola had to hit on a fresh expedient to keep her name in the news. Ever fertile of resource, the one she now adopted was to give out that this would be her "positively last appearance, as she was abandoning the stage and becoming a nun." The scheme worked, and the box-office coffers were filled afresh. But Lola did not take the veil. Instead, she took a trip to California, sailing by the Isthmus route in the summer of 1853.
A ridiculous book, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole, with an introductory puff by a windbag, W. H. Russell, has a reference to this project:
Came one day Lola Montez, in the full zenith of her evil fame, bound for California, with a strange suite. A good-looking, bold woman, with fine, bad eyes and a determined bearing; dressed ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt collar turned down over a lapelled coat, richly worked shirt front, black hat, French unmentionables, and natty polished boots with spurs. She carried in her hand a riding-whip.... An impertinent American, presuming—perhaps not unnaturally—upon her reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat; and, as a lesson, received a cut across his face that must have marked him for some days. I did not wait to see the row that followed, and was glad when the wretched woman rode off on the following morning.
Russell was not a fellow-passenger in the ship by which Lola travelled. Somebody else, however, who did happen to be one, gives a very different description of her conduct on the journey:
"We had not been at sea one day," says Mrs. Knapp, "before all the saloon occupants were charmed by this lovely young woman. Her vivacity was infectious, and her abandon was always of a specially airy refinement."
The arrival of Lola Montez at San Francisco would have eclipsed that of any Hollywood heroine of the present era. A vast crowd, headed by the City Fathers, "in full regalia," gathered at the quay. Flags decked the public buildings; guns fired a salute; bands played; and the schoolchildren were assembled to strew her path with flowers as she stepped down the gangway; and, "to the accompaniment of ringing cheers," the horses were taken from her carriage, which was dragged by eager hands through the streets to her hotel. "The Countess acknowledged the reception accorded her with a graceful inclination."
"What if Europe has exiled her?" demanded an editorial. "This is of no consequence. After all, she is Lola Montez, acknowledged Mistress of Kings! She is beautiful above other women; she is gorgeous; she is irresistible; and we are genuinely proud to welcome her."
Enveloped in legend, the reputation of the newcomer for "eccentricity" had preceded her. She lived up to this reputation, too, for, when the spirit moved her (and it did so quite often), she would dance in the beer gardens "for fun"; she had her hair cut short, when other women were affecting chignons; and—wonder of wonders—she would "actually smoke cigarettes in public." Clearly, a trifle ahead of her period.
By the way, while she was in San Francisco, Lola is said to have renewed her acquaintance with the mysterious Jean François Montez, who, during the interval since they last met, had turned over a fresh leaf and was now married. But according to a chronicler: "The family felicity very soon succumbed to the lure of the lovely Lola." Without, too, any support for the assertion, a contributor of theatrical gossip dashed off an imaginative column, in which he declared her, among other things, to have been "the petted companion of Louis Napoleon"; and also "the idolised dancer of the swells and wits of the capitals of the Old World, with the near relatives of royalty and the beaux of Paris for her intimates."
This was going too far. Lola, much incensed, shook her dog-whip and threatened reprisals.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded the journalist, astonished at the outburst, "it's good publicity, isn't it?"
"Yes, but not the sort I want," was the response.
Still, whether she wanted it, or not, Lola was soon to have a good deal more "publicity." This was because she suddenly appeared with a husband on her arm.
Although the bridegroom, Patrick Purdy Hull, was a fellow-editor, the Daily Alta, of California, considered that the news value of the event was not worth more than a couple of lines:
"On the 2nd inst. Lola Montez and P. P. Hull, Esq., of this city (and late of the San Francisco Whig) were married at the Mission Dolores."
Obviously regarding this as a somewhat meagre allowance, a New York journal furnished fuller details:
Among the recent domestic happenings of the times in California, the marriage of the celebrated Lola Montez will attract most attention. This distinguished lady has again united herself in the bonds of wedlock, the happy young man being Patrick Purdy Hull, Esq., formerly of Ohio, and for the past four years employed in the newspaper business in San Francisco.
Mr. Hull was a fellow-passenger with the fascinating Countess on her trip to California; and the acquaintance then formed fast ripened into an attachment which terminated fatally to his bachelorhood. The nuptials were consummated [sic] at the Holy Church of the Mission Dolores in the presence of a highly respectable gathering of prominent citizens.
The "Spider Dance." Cause of much criticism
The "prominent citizens" included "Governor Wainwright, Judge Wills, Captain McMichael, Mr. and Mrs. Clayton, and Beverley Saunders, Esq." An attempt was made to keep the ceremony secret; and, with this end in view, the invited guests were pledged not to divulge it beforehand. On the previous evening Captain McMichael, being something of a tactician, announced to them: "We do not yet know for certain that the affair will ever come off, and we may all be jolly well sold." When they assembled at the Mission Church, it looked as if this would happen, as neither of the couple appeared. Suddenly, however, they drove up in a carriage and entered the church. The "blushing bride," says a reporter who had hidden behind a pillar, "carried a bouquet of orange blossoms, and the organ played 'The Voice that breathed o'er Eden'"; and another chronicler adds: "On the conclusion of the ceremony, all adjourned to partake of a splendid spread, with wine and cigars ad lib." But this was not all, for: "Governor Wainwright, giving a significant wink, kissed the new-made bride, Mrs. Hull. His example was promptly followed by Mr. Henry Clayton, 'just to make the occasion memorable,' he said. 'Such is the custom of my country,' remarked Madame Lola. She was not kissed by anybody else, but she none the less had a pleasant word for all."