I was then engaged by Tree to play in Carnac Sahib, a play by Henry Arthur Jones. It dealt with military life in India. The rehearsals were endless, and not without some strain between the author and Tree. Henry Arthur Jones used to come to rehearsals straight from his morning ride, dressed in riding kit, complete with top boots and whip; Tree didn’t like it at all!
The day before the production there was a “call” for “words” at 11 in the morning. The only person who did not know their “words” was Tree; he never arrived! The dress rehearsal was fixed for 3; we began it at 5, and at 6 in the morning were “still at it”.
After the end of one of the acts—the second, I think—there was a long wait. This was at 2.30 a.m.! The band played, and for an hour we sang and danced on the stage. Then someone suggested that it might be as well to find out what had happened to Tree. They went to his dressing-room and found him; he had been asleep for an hour! At last we began the final act. Tree reclined on a bed of straw, and I fanned him with a palm leaf. There was a wait, perhaps three or four seconds, before the curtain rose. “Oh God!” said Tree, in the tone of one who has waited for years and is weary of everything: “Oh sweet God! I am ready to begin!”
It was soon after, in Marsac of Gascony, at Drury Lane Theatre, I made my entrance on a horse—a real stage horse; the same one, I think, that Irving had used. I may say this is the only time that I had—as you might say—known a horse at all intimately. It was a dreadful play: the audience rocked with laughter at all the dramatic situations. It was short-lived, and I went soon after to Harry’s play, The Wilderness, which George Alexander produced at the St. James’s Theatre. Aubrey Smith appeared in this play, looking very much as he does now, except that his moustache was rather longer. Phyllis Dare played one of the children—and a very dear child she was; so, too, was her sister Zena, who used to call at the theatre to take her home.
There were two children in this play, who had a “fairy ring” in a wood. (If anyone does not know what a fairy ring is, they should go into the nearest field and find one, for their education has been seriously neglected.) To this “ring” the two children used to bring food for the fairies, which they used to steal from the family “dustbin”. One of the “dainties” was a haddock, and this—a real fish—was carefully prepared by the famous Rowland Ward, so that it would be preserved and at the same time retain its “real” appearance. A party of people sitting in the third row of the stalls wrote a letter of protest to Alexander, saying that the “smell from the haddock was unbearable”, and it was high time he got a new one!
I remember that during rehearsals George Alexander was very anxious that Harry should “cut” one of the lines which he had to speak. In the scene in the wood, Sir Harry Milanor (which was the character he played), in talking to his elderly uncle, has to exclaim, “Uncle Jo! Look, a lizard!” George Alexander protested that the line was unreal, that no man would suddenly break off to make such a remark, and therefore he wished Harry would either “cut” or alter it. One day, shortly before the production, Alexander was walking in Chorley Woods with his wife, who was “hearing his lines”. When they reached a bridge, he leant over the parapet, still repeating his words. Suddenly he broke off in the middle of a sentence to exclaim, “Look! A trout!” “Lizard, Alex.,” his wife corrected quietly; and henceforth he never made any objection to the line which had previously caused such discussion.
It was when he took The Wilderness on tour that I had what I always say was “the best week of my life”. We were not only playing The Wilderness, but several other plays in which I did not appear, which meant that I sometimes had nights on which I was free. There was at that time a bad smallpox scare, and when we were in Manchester the whole company was vaccinated.
Harry was then going to America to produce a play, and I was taking my baby, Jack (from whom I had never been parted before), to stay with his grandmother in Brighton, while I went to Ireland. I left Manchester, took Jack to Brighton, feeling when I left him (as, I suppose, most young mothers feel when they leave their babies for the first time in someone else’s care) that I might never see him again, and on the Saturday morning I saw Harry off to the States.
I spent the evening with Julia Neilson and Fred Terry, who were playing Sweet Nell of Old Drury in Liverpool. They did all they could to cheer me—and I needed it! I left them to join the company on the landing-stage, to cross to Ireland. And what a crossing it was, too! The cargo boat which carried our luggage gave up the attempt to cross, and put into the Isle of Man, and the captain of our passenger boat seriously thought of doing the same thing. Finally we arrived at Belfast, to find the main drain of the town had burst, the town was flooded, and the stalls and orchestra at the theatre were several feet deep in most unsavoury water! There was no performance that evening—I remember we all went to the music hall, by way of a holiday—but the next evening we opened at the Dockers’ Theatre, the company which was playing there having been “bought out”. So the successes of the St. James’s Theatre—light, witty comedies—were played at the Dockers’ Theatre, where the usual fare was very typical melodrama.
The next day we all began to feel very ill—the vaccination was beginning to make itself felt—also I had developed a rash, and, in addition, I thought I must have hurt my side, it was so painful. I remember, at the hotel, George Alexander came to my door, knocked, and, when I opened it, said: