“I have taken all this trouble, as you call it, for this reason—because I love you, and because I mean you to be a great actress!”
She accepted his dictum without a word, or a thought of questioning it. She knew, then, why he had taught her to love the great poet—why he had made her, and still made her, recite whole plays of Shakespeare—why he spent hours in showing her how such and such a speech should be delivered. And she was grateful—as grateful as if he had been rich and surrounded her with luxury, instead of being poor and sharing with her the shabby rooms and simple fare which were the best he could afford.
It was a gray and sober life, enlivened only by frequent visits to the theatre. They had lived in France and Germany as well as in England, and he had taken her to see the first players in each country.
“Remember,” he would say, when they had returned from seeing some famous actress, “remember how she spoke that line, that is how it should be delivered,” or, “Did you notice how Madame So-and-so went off in the second scene? Then don’t go and do likewise!” and Doris’s trained intellect had stored up the hints for future use.
It was a life of hard work, and some girls would have become dull and listless, but Doris was light-hearted; her laugh was always ringing in the dingy lodgings as if they were palaces and she was happy and content.
Then had come the time of her first appearance on the stage. It is the fashion nowadays for an actor to begin at the top of the ladder—and, alas, how often he works downward! Jeffrey chose that the beautiful girl whom he had trained so carefully should begin at the bottom.
“Learn to walk the stage, and deliver a simple message: that is difficult enough at first, easy as it seems,” he had said; and Doris put on cotton frocks and white caps, and played servant maids for a time. From them she rose to young lady parts—always easy, unpretentious ones, and always in the country theatres.
“When we take London it shall be by storm,” he said.
And so she went from one country town to another, and the young actress grew more familiar with her art each month, and the critics began to notice her, and to praise not only her beauty but her talent.
And all this time, Doris, even in the gayest surroundings of her daily life, remained unsophisticated and natural. Jeffrey watched over her as jealously as a father could have done.