“Come along,” she said, “this is my room, and it is fairly quiet here.” The first things that strike a stranger are Miss Lessing’s wonderful grey Irish eyes and her American accent.
“Both are correct,” she laughed. “I’m Irish by extraction, although born in London, and I’ve lived in America since I was fourteen; so you see there is ground for both your surmises.”
Miss Lessing is a Roman Catholic, and was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Battersea.
“I always wanted to go on the stage as long as ever I can remember,” she told me, “and I positively ran away from home and went over to America, where I had a fairly hard time of it. By good luck I managed to get an engagement in a chorus, and it chanced that two weeks later one of the better parts fell vacant owing to a girl’s illness, and I got it—and was fortunate enough to keep it, as she was unable to return, and the management were satisfied with me. I had to work very hard, had to take anything and everything offered to me for years. Had to do my work at night and improve my singing and dancing by day; but nothing is accomplished without hard work, is it? And I am glad I went through the grind because it has brought me a certain amount of reward.”
One had only to look at Miss Lessing to know she is not easily daunted; those merry eyes and dimpled cheeks do not detract from the firmness of the mouth and the expression of determination round the laughing lips. There was something particularly dainty about the “principal girl” at Drury Lane, and a sense of refinement and grace one does not always associate with pantomime.
“Why, yes,” she afterwards added, “I played all over the States, and after nine years was engaged by Mr. Arthur Collins to return to London and appear in the pantomime of The Sleeping Beauty. Of course, I felt quite at home in London, although I must own I nearly died of fright the first time I played before an English audience. It seemed like beginning the whole thing over again. Londoners are more exacting than their American cousins; but I must confess, when they like a piece, or an artist, they are most lavish in their applause and approbation.”
It was cold, and Miss Lessing pulled a warm shawl over her shoulders and poked the fire. It can be cold even in such a comfortable dressing-room, with the luxury of a fire, for the draughts outside, either on the stage or round it, in such a large theatre are incredible to an ordinary mind. Frequenters of the stalls know the chilly blast that blows upon them when the curtain rises, so they may form some slight idea of what it is like behind the scenes on a cold night.
“After the performance I take off my make-up and have my dinner,” laughed Miss Lessing. “I don’t think I should enjoy my food if all this mess were left on; at all events I find it a relief to cold-cream it off. One gets a little tired of dinners on a tray for weeks at a time when one is not an invalid; but by the time I’ve eaten mine, and had a little rest, it is the hour to begin again, for the evening performance is at hand.”
“At all events, though, you can read and write between whiles,” I remarked.
“That is exactly what one cannot do. I no sooner settle down to a book or letters than some one wants me. It is the constant disturbance, the everlasting interruption, that make two performances a day so trying; but I love the life, even if it be hard, and thoroughly enjoy my pantomime season.”