Then would come a holiday of two months to recuperate and get strong, and then a season of eight weeks in London. This, too, promised more than well. He had already arranged with Sardou and Moreau to produce Robespierre that year (1899); and as he had paid a thousand pounds advance royalties he would have no fees to pay for five or six weeks. He had then also an offer of ten thousand pounds for his lease of the Lyceum to come into operation after October. This offer was still open in case he should wish to avail himself of it. The American tour promised a rich reward.
Irving’s judgment was at high tide when with fresh hope and vigour he accepted this policy. I left him the next morning to join the tour at Brighton where it was to finish on Saturday, Christmas Eve. We were both in good spirits, hopeful and happy.
IV
It was an unfortunate thing for his own prosperity that Irving did not adhere to the arrangement then made. I fear that the chagrin which he felt at the check to his plans had too operative a force with him. When the offer made by the parent Lyceum Theatre Company was put before him he jumped at it; and before he had consulted with me about it, or even told me of it, he had actually signed a tentative acceptance. It was now three weeks since he had agreed as to the policy of the immediate future. Loveday and I had been during that time engaged in working out the provincial and American tours, so that it was a surprise when he sent to us both to come down to Bournemouth to see him regarding the new proposal. We went down on the 12th January and stayed a few days. We discussed the matter of the Company’s proposition, and I laid before him some memoranda comparing this with the scheme already in hand. The advantage was all to the latter. It was easy to see, however, that Irving’s mind was made up. The new scheme was attractive to him in his then condition and circumstances. He had been recently very, very ill and was still physically weak. He had for over two years felt the want of capital or of such organised association of interests as makes for helpfulness; and here was something which would share, if it did not lift, the burden. At any rate, whatever may have been the cause or the prevailing argument or interest with him, he had in this matter made up his mind. When a man of his strong nature makes up his mind to a course of action he generally goes on with it despite reasons or arguments. So far as facts and deeds go he is like a horse that has taken the bit between its teeth. He listened, as ever, attentively and courteously and with seeming thoughtfulness, to all I had to say—and then shifted conversation to details, as though the main principle had been already accepted. On the 14th Comyns Carr came down on behalf of the Company as had been agreed before Irving sent for us. Together we all went over the scheme. As Irving had accepted the principle and was determined to go on, we could only discuss details. I tried hard to get a betterment of the sharing terms; but without avail. The only change of importance I could effect was that Irving should be put down for the same salary—almost nominal to an actor of his position—which had always been entered on our books. Even this was to be only the provincial salary, not the American which was three times as much. This concession, however, as to salary was eventually to him an addition of some five thousand pounds. A few lesser matters, such as the Company sharing the cost of storage, were to his betterment.
In the original proposition it had been, I believe, suggested that Irving should be a director of the Company, but when he told me of this I said such a decided “No” that he acquiesced. I impressed on him that he must not have his name in any form as a participant in the venture mentioned. He was selling to the Company and sharing his outside profits with them; and that such being the measure of his association, he should not be implicated beyond it.
According to our previous plan of policy I was already in treaty with Charles Frohman regarding the tour in America, to begin in the autumn of that year. There was to be no change in this arrangement, as after the London season with Robespierre was to come this tour. The correspondence with Frohman had now reached a point when it was absolutely necessary that one or other of us should cross the Atlantic. A multitude of details had to be discussed, and as this was our first business transaction with Frohman, all had to be gone over carefully so as to insure a full understanding of our mutual and individual interests and responsibilities. This could not possibly be done by cable, and there was no time for letters; already we were nearly a year later than was usual with such arrangements. As we had to settle things face to face, and as his own affairs would not allow of Frohman’s leaving America at that time, I had to go to New York. I left London on 31st January, 1899, and arrived at New York in the Germanic on 11th February—after coming through the greatest storm in the North Atlantic ever recorded. I left New York in the Teutonic on 22nd February, and arrived in London on 1st March. During the time of my absence everything in which Irving was concerned had been completed. The contract between him and the Syndicate Company had been finally settled by the solicitors. The Syndicate Company had sold its rights to the Lyceum Theatre Company, which had been effectively floated and of which the whole capital had been subscribed. There was not anything left to me to do in the matter.
On my return I was surprised to hear that, in addition to the amount of capital originally mentioned in the provisional contract with Irving as that of the final Company to which his agreement was to be transferred on its flotation—namely, £170,000 in £100,000 6 per cent. preference and £70,000 ordinary shares—there appeared a sum of £120,000 mortgage debentures given to the original freeholders as a part of the purchase money. This made the responsibility of the Company up to £290,000.
Later on I learned that Irving’s name had appeared in the prospectus as “Dramatic Adviser,” a thing against which I had cautioned him. As a matter of fact he was never called by the directorate of the Company to fulfil the function. Once, he offered advice as to an engagement—which advice was happily taken to considerable advantage to the Company. But so far as I know he was never asked for his advice, nor were the Company’s prospective arrangements ever made known to him in advance of the public intimation. I mention this here as it is, I think, advisable for his sake that it should be known.
With the one exception of Gillette’s engagement, he never had knowledge of, or act or part in any of the business of the Lyceum Theatre Company outside those matters dependent on or arising from his own agreement with them.
As to myself: for right or wrong, when once I had communicated to him my views on the advisability of his contracting with the Company at all, I had no part in the matter and no responsibility.