Eventually we found rooms in Abingdon Villas, two furnished rooms for 18s. a week; we took them and “moved in”.

I must go back here to record what might really have been a very tragic business for me. After I had been playing in The Red Rag for about five weeks, Mr. Toole was taken ill, and the theatre was closed for over a month—“no play, no pay”. Providence had ordained that I should have been given the money for a new winter coat; I had the money, and was waiting to buy the garment. The coat had to wait; I had to keep a roof over my head. I paid it over—in a lump—to the landlady, and knew I was safe to have at least a bed in which to sleep until the theatre re-opened.

The tour began; we went to Plymouth, Bath, Scarborough, Dublin, Edinburgh (where, for the first time, I slept in a “concealed bed”), and many other places I have forgotten; but, wherever we went, the audience was the same: Toole had only to walk on the stage and they howled with laughter. I very seldom spoke to him; in those days I was far too frightened to address the “Olympians”; I could only congratulate myself on being in the company at all.

Funnily enough, the position I held was originally offered by Toole to Violet Vanbrugh; I fancy—in fact, I am pretty sure—that I eventually was given it because she wanted “too much money”. She probably asked for £5, or even perhaps rose to the dizzy height of demanding £8, while I “went for £3” (it sounds like little David Copperfield selling his waistcoat!).

I think I enjoyed the tour; it was all new and strange to me. The sea journey to Ireland was distinctly an experience. I remember that a critic in Cork, a true son of Ireland, said of me in his paper, “Critics have been known to become dizzy before such beauty.” How I laughed at and enjoyed that notice! It was at Cork that poor dear Florrie Toole was taken ill. She had joined us some weeks before, to my great delight, for she had always been so very kind to me. It was from Florrie that I received a velvet dress, which was one of the most useful articles in my wardrobe; it was altered and re-altered, and finally retired from active service after having been my “stand-by” in many parts.

During the week we were at Cork, Florrie was ill—not very ill, or so it seemed; at any rate, she was able to travel with us to Edinburgh on the Sunday. There she became rapidly worse, and it was found that she had typhoid fever. We left her in Edinburgh, and heard the following week that she was dead. Such a beautiful life cut short! She was so brilliant, and so very, very lovable.

Photograph by C. Hawkins, Brighton. To face p. [21]
Dora
“The Don”

I shared rooms with Eliza Johnson, a capable but somewhat unrelenting elderly lady. She “dragooned” me effectively; young men who showed any tendency to gather round stage doors, or gaze at one in the street, were sternly discouraged. At Cambridge, I remember, I had a passionate love letter from some “undergrad.”, who said he refrained from signing his name, as his “trust had been broken before”, but, if I returned his affection, would I reply in the “agony” column of the Times to “Fido”! I did nothing of the kind, naturally; but so definite were the feelings of Eliza Johnson on “things of that kind” that she told me she could “not help feeling that I was, in some measure, to blame.”

At Birmingham, on the Friday night, after “treasury,” I left my money in my dressing-room, went on the stage, and returned to find the money gone! I went to the manager and told him, but he protested that he could do nothing. I managed to borrow money to pay for my rooms, and went on to the next town very downcast indeed. Three pounds was a lot of money. The following week I had a letter from Birmingham, telling how the writer, who was employed at the theatre, had stolen the money, but that the sight of my distress had so melted his heart that he had decided to return it to me intact. The £3 was enclosed. I concluded that it was one of the stage hands; it wasn’t, it was Mr. Toole. He had heard of my loss, and, in giving me the money, could not resist playing one of those practical jokes which he loved!