—Birds of a Feather.
And so we were married.... We had a funny wedding day. Harry, being an Irishman, and, like all Irishmen, subject to queer, sudden ways of sentiment, insisted that in the afternoon we should call on his eldest sister! I cannot remember that he had, up to then, shown any overwhelming affection for her, but that afternoon the “Irishman” came to the top, and we called on “herself”. We then dined at Simpson’s, and went off to our respective theatres to work.
I was rehearsing at the time for a musical play—The Mountebanks, by W. S. Gilbert. I went to him, rather nervous, and asked if I “might be excused the afternoon rehearsal”. He naturally asked “why?”; and blushingly, I don’t doubt, I told him “to get married”. He was most intrigued at the idea, and said I might be “excused rehearsals” for a week.
Three weeks after we were married, Edward Terry sent for Harry to come to his dressing-room—and I may say here that Terry’s Theatre only possessed three dressing-rooms: one, under the stage, for Edward Terry, one for the men of the company, and another for the women—the reason for this scarcity being that, when the theatre was built, the dressing-rooms were forgotten! I believe the same thing happened when the theatre was built at Brixton; if anyone has played at the theatre in question, and will remember the extraordinary shapes of the rooms, they will readily believe it! But to go back to Terry’s—Harry was sent for, and Edward Terry presented him with two books, which he said would be of the greatest use to him and me. They were Dr. Chavasse’s Advice to a Mother and Dr. Chavasse’s Advice to a Wife. I do not know if anyone reads Dr. Chavasse in these days, but then he was the authority on how to bring up children. Fred Grove assured me that he brought up a family on Dr. Chavasse.
Anyone who has seen my husband’s “evergreen play,” Eliza Comes to Stay, may remember the extract from the book—the very book that Edward Terry gave to us—which he uses in the play. I give it here; I think it is worth quoting:
“Question: Is there any objection, when it is cutting its teeth, to the child sucking its thumb?
“Answer: None at all. The thumb is the best gum-stick in the world. It is ‘handy’; it is neither too hard nor too soft; there is no danger of it being swallowed and thus choking the child.”
Photograph by Alfred Ellis, London, W. To face p. [30]
Harry as Howard Bompas
“The Times” 1891
It was during the run of The Late Lamented that I first met Fanny Brough, President and one of the founders of the Theatrical Ladies’ Guild, which has done so much splendid work. She worked with Mrs. Carson (wife of the then Editor of The Stage), who was the originator of the Guild. When the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild began, some years later, they ran their organisation on the same lines. Two of the founders, I think I am right in saying, of the Musical Hall Ladies’ Guild, were the unfortunate Belle Elmore (the Wife of Crippen, who killed her) and Edie Karno, the wife of Mr. Fred Karno, of Mumming Birds fame.