Now this brilliant and successful actress was not very happy—few are, for one reason or another—but she worked much harder than most women, and naturally liked to have some return for her work; therefore she must have found it depressing, at least, when her husband formed the habit of counting up the house by eye (he could come to within $5 of the money contents of the house any night in this way), and then going out and losing the full amount of her share in gambling. It was cruel, and it was but one of the degradations put upon her. Lucille did not know how to bear her troubles. She wept and used herself up. Then, to get through her heavy night's work, she took a stimulant. Oh, poor soul! poor soul! though the audience knew nothing, the people about her knew she was not her best self; and she knew they knew it, and was made sore ashamed and miserable. Her husband, on one occasion, had gambled away every cent of three nights' work. On the fourth she had had resource to a stimulant, and on the fifth she was cast down, silent, miserable, and humiliated.
That night "our baby" came to the theatre. She was one of those aggressively sociable infants, who will reach out and grasp a strange whisker rather than remain unnoticed. She had pretty little, straight features and small, bright eyes that were fairly purply blue. I had her—of course in so public a place it was my right to have her—she was over my shoulder. I was standing near the star-room. The door opened and next moment I heard a long, low, "O-o-h!" and then again, "O-o-h! a—baby, and awake! and the peace of heaven yet in its eyes!"
I turned my head to look at Miss Western, and her face quickened my heart. Her glowing eyes were fastened upon "baby," with just the rapt, uplifted look one sees at times before some Roman Catholic altar. It was beautiful! She gave a little start and exclaimed, as at a wonder: "Its hand! oh, its tiny, tiny hand!" Just with the very tip of her forefinger she touched it, and "baby" promptly grasped the finger and gurgled cordially. Her face flushed red, she gave a gasp: "Good God!" she cried, "it's touching me, me! It is, see—see!" Sudden tears slipped down her cheeks. "Blessed God!" she cried, "if you had but sent me such a one, all would have been different! I could never bring disgrace or shame on a precious thing like this!"
As she raised the tiny morsel of a hand to her lips the prompter sharply called: "The stage waits, Miss Western!" and she was gone.
Poor, ill-guided, unhappy woman! it was always and only the stage that waited Miss Western.
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH
Mr. Charles W. Couldock—His Daughter Eliza and his Many Peculiarities.
There was one star who came to us every season with the regularity and certainty of the equinoctial storm, and when they arrived together, as they frequently did, we all felt the conjunction to be peculiarly appropriate. He was neither young nor good-looking, yet no one could truthfully assert that his engagements were lacking in interest—indeed, some actors found him lively in the extreme. Charles W. Couldock was an Englishman by birth, and had come to this country with the great Cushman. He was a man of unquestionable integrity—honorable, truthful, warm-hearted; but being of a naturally quick and irritable temper, instead of trying to control it, he yielded himself up to every impulse of vexation or annoyance, while with ever-growing violence he made mountains out of mole-hills, and when he had just cause for anger he burst into paroxysms of rage, even of ferocity, that, had they not been half unconscious acting, must have landed him in a mad-house out of consideration for the safety of others; while, worst of all, like too many of his great nation, he was profane almost beyond belief; and profanity, always painfully repellent and shocking, is doubly so when it comes from the lips of one whose silvering hair shows his days have already been long in the land of the God whom he is defying. And yet when Mr. Couldock ceased to use plain, every-day oaths, and brought forth some home-made ones, they were oaths of such intricate construction, such grotesque termination, that they wrung a startled laugh from the most unwilling lip.
In personal appearance he was the beau-ideal wealthy farmer. He was squarely, solidly built, of medium height—never fat. His square, deeply-lined, even-furrowed face was clean shaven. His head, a little bald on top, had a thin covering of curly gray hair, which he wore a trifle long; while his suit of black cloth—always a size or two too large for him—and his never-changing big hat of black felt were excuse enough for any man's asking him about the state of the crops—which they often did, and were generally urgently invited to go to the hottest Hades for their pains.
On his brow there was a deep and permanent scowl that seemed cut there to the very bone. Two deep, heavy lines ran from the sides of his nose to the corners of his lips, where they suddenly became deeper before continuing down toward his chin, while a strong cast in one of his steely-blue eyes gave a touch of malevolence to the severity of his face.