Over there is “Billy” Congreave, who gained the Victoria Cross and made the Great Sacrifice in the war. With him, telling his battles over again, is Dr. Leahy. He left his leg at the Marne, but that did not prevent him enjoying, as he does still, a round or two with the gloves. I should think he “enjoys” it more than his opponent, for “Micky” Leahy is an enormous man. He appears to be the last man in the world likely to possess, as he does, wonderful gifts of healing.
Who is that woman laughing at some joke made by the man walking with her? She is Dame May Whitty, and the man is Sir Alfred Fripp. You see him at his very best when surrounded by his wife and ’a large family of very healthy children. She, Dame Whitty, is a friend of thirty years, and her affection and goodness to me have never altered.
The woman who has just joined them is Susanne Sheldon. I parody the saying, “better twenty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay” when speaking of Suzanne, and say “better one day of Susanne than a month of the people who lack her understanding and great heart.” Some day go to the Children’s Hospital in Great Ormond Street, and hear of the work she has done there; they will tell you more than I can, for she does not talk of all she does.
The lame man, who looks so fierce, is Sydney Valentine. He looks fierce, and rather as though he had more brain than heart. His looks belie his nature. He leans on his stick by my window, and we talk of the early days of the Actors’ Association. I remind him of the splendid fight he made to gain the Standard Contract for the acting profession. I ask him, “Do you remember the Lyric Theatre meeting?”, and I add some hard things about the people who attacked him there. He smiles, and reminds me of our own Suffrage motto (and how he used to hate the Suffrage Movement, too!), “The aim is everything”, and adds “After all, we won our battle, didn’t we?”
J. L. Toole, coming up, hears the last sentence, and asks, “Battle, what battle?” Just as I am about to answer, he pops a “bullseye” into my mouth, as he used to years ago when I was playing with him on the stage. Toole laughs, and I laugh with him; but our laughter is checked by a tall man, with a heavy moustache, who, with a melancholy face, is filling a pipe from a tobacco-pouch like a sack—and not a very small sack, either! He brings an air of tragedy with him, and I ask, “What is the matter, Aubrey?”
It is Aubrey Smith, the “Round the Corner Smith” who took the first English cricket eleven to South Africa, and still, when his work on the stage allows him, will rush away to Lords or the Oval to watch a match. “Haven’t you heard?” he asks; and adds, “Dreadful, dreadful; I don’t know what England’s coming to.” “What has happened?” I ask again. He looks at me sadly and tells me—“England has lost the Test Match!” He wanders away, and a few minutes later I hear him laughing—a laugh which matches him for size. He is probably telling the woman he is talking to (Elizabeth Fagan) of the new pig-styes he has built at West Drayton.
There is Marie Tempest, and how fascinating she is! She has the cleverest tongue and the most sparkling humour of any woman I know. The woman near her is Julia Neilson, a dream of loveliness, and with a nature as lovely as her face. There, too, are Lady Martin Harvey and Lady Tree—Lady Tree, whom I first understood when I met her under circumstances which were very difficult for us both; and who showed me then what “manner of woman” she is, so that ever since I have loved and admired her. And Nell Harvey, who can face the rough patches of life with equanimity, and who can “walk with kings” without losing that “common touch” which gives her the breadth of vision, the tolerance, and kindness which have made her ever ready to give help to those who need it.
This man coming towards me, his hands clasped behind him, who looks as if he were meditating deeply, is Sir Charles Wyndham. When he was playing in London, and Harry was a very young actor in the provinces, and had heard of but had never seen Charles Wyndham, one paper said it was “a pity that Mr. Esmond has tried to give such a slavish imitation of the great actor”. He stands for a moment to ask me if I remember the evening he came to see The Dangerous Age, and repeats again his admiration and praise of the play. I tell him that I remember, also, how after the play he sat in Harry’s dressing-room for an hour and a half, delighting both of us with his stories of the stage, “past and present”.
He passes on, and you see him stop to speak to Anthony Hope, that delightful man who possesses a manner of joyous cynicism of which one never tires. George Alexander has joined them, perhaps speaking of the success of The Prisoner of Zenda. You notice his beautiful white hair. Once, in The Wilderness, he had to darken it, and as in the play he had to lay his head on my shoulder, my dress was gradually marked with the stain he used for his hair.
I stand and reach out to shake the hand of Lewis Waller, and ask him if he is still “putting square pegs into round holes”. He asks, in his beautiful voice that was the salvation of so many really poor plays, what I mean. I remind him of a play, many years ago, when Harry remonstrated with him and said that some of the parts in the production were played so badly, adding “Why do you engage such people? they are not, and never will be, actors”; and how Lewis Waller replied, “I know, I know, Harry, but I would sooner have round pegs in square holes than not have people round me who love me.” Dear Will! He moves away, speaking to this person and that person, and giving to each one something of his very gentle and infinitely lovable personality.