150 GRAFTON STREET
THE HOUSE WHERE HENRY IRVING LIVED DURING THE PERIOD OF HIS LYCEUM MANAGEMENT
One of those little things almost too good to be true happened at the close of the Drury Lane matinée. A four-wheeler was hailed for me by the stage-door keeper, and my daughter and I drove off to Lady Bancroft's in Berkeley Square to leave some flowers. Outside the house, the cabman told my daughter that in old days he had often driven Charles Kean from the Princess Theatre, and that sometimes the little Miss Terrys were put inside the cab too and given a lift! My daughter thought it such an extraordinary coincidence that the old man should have come to the stage door of Drury Lane by a mere chance on my Jubilee day, that she took his address, and I was to send him a photograph and remuneration. But I promptly lost the address, and was never able to trace the old man.
I was often asked during these Jubilee days, "how I felt about it all," and I never could answer sensibly. The strange thing is that I don't know even now what was in my heart. Perhaps it was one of my chief joys that I had not to say good-bye at any of the celebrations. I could still speak to my profession as a fellow-comrade on the active list and to the public as one still in their service.
All the time I knew perfectly well that the great show of honour and "friending" was not for me alone. Never for one instant did I forget this, nor that the light of the great man by whose side I had worked for a quarter of a century was still shining on me from his grave.
It is commonly known, I think, that Henry Irving's health first began to fail in 1896.
He went home to Grafton Street after the first night of the revival of "Richard III." and slipped on the stairs, injuring his knee. With characteristic fortitude, he struggled to his feet unassisted and walked to his room. This made the consequences of the accident far more serious, and he was not able to act for weeks.
It was a bad year at the Lyceum.
In 1898, when we were on tour, he caught a chill. Inflammation of the lungs, bronchitis, pneumonia followed. His heart was affected. He was never really well again.