“Not very, dear,” admitted the other.
“Not very good?” repeated Marie Lloyd. “You’re wrong; as a matter of fact, I’m damned rotten in it!”
Speaking of criticism reminds me of a story of the French authoress who went to see Sir John Hare rehearse “Napoleon” in her play, La Belle Marseilles. He did not look as she had expected, and she said, in broken English, “Oh! he is too old, he is too little, he is too sick, and besides he cannot act.” She had not seen him play in A Pair of Spectacles.
And again, when I was playing in The Dangerous Age, at the beginning of the war, a woman sent round a note to me, saying: “I have enjoyed the play so much. I can’t see at all, I’ve cried so much.”
When Looking for Trouble was produced in 1910, at the Aldwych, there was some litigation over it, and the case came up for arbitration. The judge’s decision is (I think I am right in saying) in these cases placed in a sealed box. The contesting parties have to pay a fee of (again I can only say “I think”) of £100 for the box to be opened. In this case neither of them was willing to do this, so the box remained unopened; and, as far as I know, the decision remains unknown to this day.
It was while I was rehearsing in Looking for Trouble that the news of the loss of the “Titanic” came through. I shall always remember that afternoon. I came out, with no idea what had happened, to find the whole Strand hushed. There is no other word for it; people quite unknown to each other stood talking quietly, and everyone seemed stunned by the news of the frightful disaster, which seemed an impossibility.
Then came our first short American tour, and the War. I did a short tour, and then “War Work” kept me busy until 1918, when, under the management of Mr. J. E. Vedrenne, I went to the Royalty to play in Arnold Bennett’s delightful play, The Title, with Aubrey Smith. The whole ten months I was at the Royalty in this play were sheer happiness. I had a management who were considerate in every way; I liked the whole company enormously; I had a wonderfully charming part—what could anyone want more? Cæsar’s Wife followed at the Royalty, and I stayed there to play in it. I remember I had to knit on the stage, and the work I managed to get through, in the way of silk sports stockings, etc., was very considerable.
Photograph by Foulsham & Banfield, Ltd., London, W. To face p. [71]
“Mumsie”
Again under Mr. Vedrenne’s management, I played “Mumsie” in Mr. Knoblauch’s play of the same name. Mumsie was a great play. Some day it will be revived; some day, when the scars left by the war are somewhat healed, we shall be able to watch it without pain; but then the war was too near, we still felt it too acutely, the whole play was too real, too vivid for the audience to be able to watch it with any degree of comfort. Mumsie was short-lived, but I look back on the play with great affection. My part was wonderful, and I say, without any undue conceit or pride in my own powers, it was my tour de force. I worked at the part very hard, for I had to acquire a French accent, and, as I do not speak French, it was difficult. I had my reward for all my work in the satisfaction of knowing that the author liked my work. Perhaps the greatest compliment that was paid to my accent was one evening when the Baron Emile d’Erlanger came to see me. He poured out what was, I am told, a stream of praise in French; and when I explained, as best I could, that I had not understood one word, he refused to believe me.