“We’re married. Yes, we were married in St. Aloysius’ Church this morning at twelve o’clock. There’s nothing to be done about it, father.”
“Nothing to be done about it?” repeated O’Finn. “There is a very great deal to be done. Come to my arms, my beloved child. Weep upon my shoulder in the excess of your new-found happiness. Weep, I say. Spare not one single tear. Weep, weep. Young man, give me your hand. I have entrusted you with the guardianship of the being I hold most sacred of earth’s creatures. Honour that trust, young man. Rejoice a father’s heart by your devotion. God bless you both, my children. And now let us make arrangements to celebrate this auspicious event by a supper to our friends and intimates at that best of hostelries, the old ‘Blue Boar.’ There is not a moment to be lost. Mine host will want to make his arrangements with the authorities for an extension of the license to some seasonable small hour that will suitably hallow the occasion. I will leave you here to bill and coo. Did you see what The Stage said about my Tranio this week? Read it, my boy. You’ll be delighted with the way the notice is written. Judicial—very, very judicial.”
With this O’Finn, humming the Wedding March in his rich bass, left the newly wed pair to themselves.
“Well, I’m bothered,” Bram gasped. “He’s completely turned round.”
“I rather thought he would,” Nancy said. “I’ve never known him refuse a fat part. He was getting tired of gloom.”
When Nancy and Bram went down to the theatre that night, O’Finn met them at the stage-door, beaming with good-will.
“I’ve seen my dear old manageress. She has consented to grace the festivity in person, and the acting-manager of the theatre has insisted on our using the green-room. The supper is being sent in from the ‘Blue Boar.’ Ham. Chicken. Lobster. All the appropriate delicacies. Several of the orchestra are coming. Very jolly fellows. We’ll have some capital fiddling. My dear old pal Charlie Warburton will give us Hood’s Bridge of Sighs, and I daresay we can persuade him into Eugene Aram as well. I’ve asked Mrs. Hart to recite us one of her gems. In fact, the whole crowd will oblige. We are going to make a memorable night of it. You couldn’t have chosen a better time to get married. We’ve had a splendid Whitweek, and that showery Whit Monday put Mrs. H.-H. into such a delightful humour. The last day of the tour. By gad, girl, I’m proud to be your poor old father. And the booking to-night is splendid, I hear. We shall have a bumper house for Twelfth Night.”
It was a merry evening in the old green-room of the Opera House, Leicester, now, alas! fallen from its companionable status and turned to some practical and business-like purpose. Gilded mirrors on the walls, glittering gasoliers, bright silver, and shining faces, warmth and happiness of careless human beings gathered together for a few hours in fellowship, all are vanished now. Files and dockets and roll-top desks have replaced them.
There is no doubt that the central figure on that genial night was Michael O’Finn. The bride and bridegroom were teased and toasted, but the central figure was the erstwhile dejected father. How many speeches he made it would be hard to say, but he certainly made a very great many. He proposed everybody’s health in turn, and when everybody’s health had been proposed and drunk, he proposed corporate bodies like the theatre orchestra, the town council of Leicester, and Mrs. Hunter-Hart’s Shakespearian Company. And when he had exhausted the living he sought among the dead for his toasts, raising his glass to the memory of Will Shakespeare, Davy Garrick, Ned Kean, and Mrs. Siddons. When the mighty dead were sufficiently extolled he proposed abstractions like Art and the Drama. His final speech was made about four o’clock in the morning—to the memory of the happy days, old friends, and jolly companions.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that you will agree with me that we have all spent a very enjoyable and—er—delightful evening. Those who have not, hold up their hands. As I suspected nemine contradicente, carried unam.... But there is one more toast to which I will invite you to raise your glasses. Ladies and gentlemen, another night of our earthly pilgrimage has waned. The sun of to-morrow already gilds the horizon, though we may still seem to be living in to-night. We have all wished long life and happiness to my beloved daughter and the excellent young man—may I add excellent young actor—who has—er—joined his future with hers, in short, who has married her. But there is yet another toast to which I must bid you raise your glasses. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of a happy tour with my dear old friend and manageress, Mrs. Hunter-Hart. Some of us will meet again under her banner in the last week of July on the sunny South Coast; others will not. We shall probably never find ourselves all together at the same festive board. Let me beg you therefore to drink all together, for perhaps the last time in this mortal life, to the toast of happy days and sweet memories, old friends and jolly companions. Ladies and gentlemen, I confess without shame that a teardrop lurking in the corner of my eye has coursed down my cheek and alighted upon the lapel of my coat as I give you this solemn toast. Happy memories! What a world of beautiful images those two words conjure up! I see again the little cradle in which my mother rocked me to sleep. I kneel once more by her knees to say my childish prayers. Anon I am a happy urchin tripping and gambolling down the lane to the village school. Anon I stand before the altar with my dearly beloved and alas! now for ever absent wife beside me. I hear once more the vociferous plaudits of the crowded pit as I cry to Macbeth, ‘Turn, hell-hound, turn.’ I live again through the delightful moments of first meeting my dear old friend and manageress, Emmeline Hunter-Hart, who has upheld the banner of the legitimate drama against odds, ladies and gentlemen, odds, fearful, tremendous, overwhelming odds. She has seen on all sides the hosts of evil in the shape of these vile problem plays that have degraded, are degrading, and will continue to degrade the sacred fane of Thespis. Happy memories, ladies and gentlemen! And surely I may ask you to count this night as one of your happiest memories. To the young couple who this morning resolved to face the storms of life together, surely this night will be a happy memory. Happy memories and—let us not forget them—old friends, for are not all our happiest memories bound up with old friends? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the double toast to which I hope you will accord full musical honours by joining with me in singing friendship’s national anthem, the moving song of the immortal Robbie Burns, Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot.”