I was in despair. I don’t know why, but I certainly was in despair, as I felt that everything was going wrong.
A footman led the way to my carriage, and I drove through London with a heavy heart. Everything looked dark and dismal, and when I reached the house, 77 Chester Square, I did not want to get out of my carriage.
The door of the house was wide open, though, and in the brilliantly lighted hall I could see what looked like all the flowers on earth arranged in baskets, bouquets, and huge bunches. I got out of the carriage and entered the house in which I was to live for the next six weeks. All the branches seemed to be stretching out their flowers to me.
“Have you the cards that came with all these flowers?” I asked my man-servant.
“Yes,” he replied. “I have put them together on a tray. All of them are from Paris, from Madame’s friends there. This one is the only bouquet from here.” He handed me an enormous one, and on the card with it I read the words, “Welcome!—Henry Irving.”
I went all through the house, and it seemed to me very dismal-looking. I visited the garden, but the damp seemed to go through me, and my teeth chattered when I came in again. That night when I went to sleep my heart was heavy with foreboding, as though I were on the eve of some misfortune.
The following day was given up to receiving journalists. I wanted to see them all at the same time, but Mr. Jarrett objected to this. That man was a veritable advertising genius. I had no idea of it at that time. He had made me some very good offers for America, and although I had refused them, I nevertheless held a very high opinion of him, on account of his intelligence, his comic humour, and my need of being piloted in this new country.
“No,” he said; “if you receive them all together, they will all be furious, and you will get some wretched articles. You must receive them one after the other.”
Thirty-seven journalists came that day, and Jarrett insisted on my seeing every one of them. He stayed in the room and saved the situation when I said anything foolish. I spoke English very badly, and some of the men spoke French very badly. Jarrett translated my answers to them. I remember perfectly well that all of them began with, “Well, Mademoiselle, what do you think of London?”
I had arrived the previous evening at nine o’clock, and the first of these journalists asked me this question at ten in the morning. I had drawn my curtain on getting up, and all I knew of London was Chester Square, a small square of sombre verdure, in the midst of which was a black statue, and the horizon bounded by an ugly church.