“I’ll call to-morrow and read my play to you,” he said. Hawtrey protested he was very busy, “hadn’t a minute”, had scores of plays to read, etc. But Harry only added, “To-morrow, at ten, then,” and went. The next morning he arrived, and after some difficulty obtained entrance to Hawtrey’s room. Again Hawtrey protested—he really had not time to hear, he would read the play himself, and so on; but by that time Harry had sat down, opened the book, and began to read. At the end of the first act, Hawtrey made another valiant effort to escape; he liked it very much, and would read the rest that same evening. “You’ll like the second act even better,” H. V. said calmly, and went on reading. When the third act was finished, Hawtrey really did like it, and promised to “put it on” as soon as possible.
“In a fortnight,” suggested the author. Oh! Hawtrey wasn’t sure that he could do it as soon as that, and the “summer was coming”, and Harry had had one lesson of what a heat wave could do to a play. So he said firmly, “The autumn then.” Hawtrey gave up the struggle, and the play was put into rehearsal and produced in the autumn. One Summer’s Day was a great success; it was in this play that Constance Collier played her first real part. She had been at the Gaiety in musical comedy, where, I remember, she entered carrying a very, very small parcel, about the size of a small handkerchief box, and announced “This contains my costume for the fancy dress ball!”
Mrs. Calvert played in this production, which reminds me that in the picnic scene we used to have “real pie”, which she rather enjoyed. After we had been running for some time, the management thought, in the interests of economy, they would have a “property pie”—that is, stuffed not with meat, but with cotton wool. Mrs. Calvert, all unknowing, took a large mouthful, and was nearly choked!
In One Summer’s Day we had a huge tank filled with real water, sunk at the back of the stage, and Ernest Hendrie, Henry Kemble, and Mrs. Calvert used to make an entrance in a punt—a real punt. One day they all sat at one end, with most disastrous consequences; after that, they “spread themselves” better.
Henry Kemble was a delightful, dignified person, who spoke in a “rolling” and very “rich” voice. He used, occasionally, to dine well—perhaps more well than wisely. One night, in the picnic scene, he was distinctly “distrait”, and forgot his line. As I knew the play backwards, I gave his line. He was very angry. We were all sitting on the ground at a picnic. He leant over the cloth and said in a loud voice, “You are not everybody, although you are the author’s wife.”
In this play a small boy was needed, and we sought high and low for a child to play the “urchin”. A friend told us one day he knew of the “very boy”, and promised to send him up for inspection. The following morning the “ideal urchin” arrived at the Comedy Theatre. He was a very undersized Jew, whose age was, I suppose, anything from 30 to 40, and who had not grown since he was about twelve. This rather pathetic little man walked on to the stage, and looked round the theatre, his hands in his pockets; then he spoke. “Tidy little ’all,” was his verdict—he was not engaged!
My next engagement was in The Sea Flower. I remember very little about it except that I wore a bunch of curls, beautiful curls which Willie Clarkson made for me. On the first night, Cosmo Stuart embraced me with such fervour that they fell off, and lay on the stage in full view of the audience.
Then followed The Three Musketeers, a splendid version of that wonderful book, by Harry Hamilton, with a magnificent cast. Lewis Waller was to have played “D’Artagnan”, which he was already playing on tour; Harry was to go to the touring company and play Waller’s part. Then there came some hitch. I am not very clear on the point, but I think Tree had arranged for a production of the same play, in which Waller was engaged to play “Buckingham”, and that Tree or the managers in the country would not release him. Anyway, Harry rehearsed the part in London. Then Waller managed to get released for a week to come to London and play for the first week of the production, while Harry went to the provinces. Waller came up to rehearse on the Friday with the London company, ready for the opening on Monday. I had lost my voice, and was not allowed to speak or leave my room until the Monday, and therefore the first time I met D’Artagnan was on the stage at the first night. If you will try and imagine how differently Lewis Waller and Harry Esmond played the part, you will realise what a nerve-racking business it was. For example, in the great “ride speech,” where Harry used to come in absolutely weary, speaking as an exhausted man, flinging himself into a chair, worn out with his ride and the anxiety attached to it, Waller rushed on to the stage, full of vitality, uplifted with the glory of a great adventure, and full of victory, leading me to the chair before he began to speak. You may imagine that on the first night I felt almost lost. I am not trying to imply that one reading was “better” than the other; both were quite justified; only, to me, the experience was staggering.
Waller was always vigorous, and particularly as D’Artagnan. One night when he entered and “bumped” into Porthos, he “bumped” so hard that he fell into the orchestra and on to the top of the big drum! Nothing daunted, Waller climbed out of the orchestra, by way of the stage box, back on to the stage!
The first time I played with Tree was in a special performance of The Dancing Girl. I played the lame girl, and I remember my chief worry was how, being lame, to get down a long flight of stairs in time to stop Tree, who played the Duke, from drinking the “fatal draught” of poison.