The Stratford-on-Avon visit had inspired me with the feeling that there was life in the old 'un yet and had distracted my mind from the strangeness of no longer being at the Lyceum permanently with Henry Irving. But there seemed to be nothing ahead, except two matinées a week with him at the Lyceum, to be followed by a provincial tour in which I was only to play twice a week, as Henry's chief attraction was to be "Faust." This sort of "dowager" engagement did not tempt me. Besides, I hated the idea of drawing a large salary and doing next to no work.
So when [Mr. Tree] proposed that I should play Mrs. Page ([Mrs. Kendal] being Mrs. Ford) in "[The Merry Wives of Windsor]" at His Majesty's, it was only natural that I should accept the offer joyfully. I telegraphed to Henry Irving, asking him if he had any objection to my playing at His Majesty's. He answered: "Quite willing if proposed arrangements about matinées are adhered to."
I have thought it worth while to give the facts about this engagement, because so many people seemed at the time, and afterwards, to think that I had treated Henry Irving badly by going to play in another theater, and that theater one where a certain rivalry with the Lyceum as regards Shakespearean productions had grown up. There was absolutely no foundation for the rumors that my "desertion" caused further estrangement between Henry Irving and me.
"Heaven give you many, many merry days and nights," he telegraphed to me on the first night; and after that first night (the jolliest that I ever saw), he wrote delighting in my success.
It was a success—there was no doubt about it! Some people accused the Merry Wives of rollicking and "mafficking" overmuch—but these were the people who forgot that we were acting in a farce, and that farce is farce, even when Shakespeare is the author.
All the summer I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was all such good fun—Mrs. Kendal was so clever and delightful to play with, Mr. Tree so indefatigable in discovering new funny "business."
After the dress-rehearsal I wrote in my diary: "Edy has real genius for dresses for the stage." My dress for Mrs. Page was such a real thing—it helped me enormously—and I was never more grateful for my daughter's gift than when I played Mrs. Page.
It was an admirable all-round cast—almost a "star" cast: [Oscar Asche] as Ford, poor [Henry Kemble] (since dead) as Dr. Caius, [Courtice Pounds] as Sir Hugh Evans, and [Mrs. Tree] as sweet Anne Page all rowed in the boat with precisely the right swing. There were no "passengers" in the cast. The audience at first used to seem rather amazed! This thwacking rough-and-tumble, Rabelaisian horse-play—Shakespeare! Impossible! But as the evening went on we used to capture even the most civilized, and force them to return to a simple Elizabethan frame of mind.
In my later career I think I have had no success like this! Letters rained on me—yes, even love-letters, as if, to quote Mrs. Page, I were still in "the holiday-time of my beauty." As I would always rather make an audience laugh than see them weep, it may be guessed how much I enjoyed the hearty laughter at His Majesty's during the run of the madcap absurdity of "The Merry Wives of Windsor."
All the time I was at His Majesty's I continued to play in matinées of "[Charles I]." and "[The Merchant of Venice]" at the Lyceum with Henry Irving. We went on negotiating, too, about the possibility of my appearing in "[Dante]," which Sardou had written specially for Irving, and on which he was relying for his next tour in America.