Lebanon House
Brigham.
April 20th, 1884.
Dear Bram,
I thought it might interest you to hear that your grandfather died last week. Please don’t write and tell me that you are sorry, because that would not be true and there is no need to make the death of a relation an occasion for an insincere piece of politeness. You will notice that there is no black edge to this notepaper. Remember that, when you next write to me. What is more, if there were any red ink in the house I would use it. Your brother is leaving school to take up a chair in your father’s office. There will not be room on the seat of that chair for anybody else. You need not worry that anybody in this house will ever try to kill the fatted calf for you. They wouldn’t give you a slice of cold mutton if you came back to-morrow. They wouldn’t give you a pickled onion. So stay where you are, and write sometimes to that withered leaf,
Your loving
Grandmother.
Bram made rapid strides in his profession—too rapid really, for by the time he was twenty-three he already had a reputation in the provinces as what was, and no doubt still is, known as a utility man. Such a reputation, serviceable enough in the provinces, is likely to prove a barrier to ultimate success. Paradox though it be, the better actor all round a man is, the less likely he will be ever to achieve success in London. It is the old tale of the general practitioner and the Harley Street specialist. However, to be playing good parts at so early an age was enough for Bram. He had no ambition to become famous for a novel mannerism, and he was always ready to act anything—low comedy, light comedy, heroes, villains, heavy fathers, and walking gentlemen. He was never out of an engagement, and as he would have starved rather than ask help of his relations, this was his chief concern. To fame and fortune on a grand scale he did not aspire.
CHAPTER VII
TRUE LOVE
It was when Bram was twenty-three that he first found himself in the same company as Nancy O’Finn. She was then a tall dark-haired girl of eighteen with misted blue lakes for eyes and cheeks rose-burnt to the sharp crimson of a daisy’s petals. Her voice with just a touch of a brogue in it had the rich tones of a violoncello; her figure was what was called fine in those days when women were not anxious to look as if a steam-roller had passed over their bodies during the night. She was with her father, Michael O’Finn, who had been supporting Mrs. Hunter-Hart in heavies for fifteen years—ever since Mrs. Hunter-Hart had set out to tour the provinces with a repertory of Shakespeare’s comedies. Mrs. Hunter-Hart was now nearly fifty—some declared she was several years over—but her Portia, her Viola, her Rosalind, her Beatrice, and her Katherina, were ageless. This admirable veteran did not fear the rivalry of youth. So here was Bram at twenty-three playing Gratiano, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Corin, Verges, and Biondello, and Nancy O’Finn at eighteen playing Nerissa, Maria, and Audrey. Indeed most of Mrs. Hunter-Hart’s company, with the exception of Michael O’Finn and herself, were under thirty. Bram was enjoying himself so much that out of sheer good-will toward life he fell deep in love with Nancy. For a while, everybody in the company watched the affair sympathetically. Even Miss Hermione Duparc, the second lady, who had never understood why Mrs. Hart had cast Nancy for the part of Nerissa and herself for Jessica, was heard to murmur intensely that the little affair lent quite a sparkle of romance to Spring in the Black Country and that it was pretty to see the way those two children were enjoying themselves. However, the affair presently became serious when the young lovers announced that they were going to be married and Michael O’Finn woke up to the fact that he was in danger of losing his only daughter.