Read Ebook: The Strand Magazine Vol. 05 Issue 27 March 1893 An Illustrated Monthly by Various Newnes George Editor

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"Alfred Wigan played in 'Dreams,'" continued Mrs. Kendal. "His wife was one of the kindest women I ever met. She gave me a gold bracelet for a very curious little service I used to render her husband every night. He had to sing a song in 'Dreams,' and one or two of the high notes were beyond his reach. I used to take these notes for him, and the audience never guessed the truth."

"In one part of the play he would cry out, 'Give me thy hand, Desdemona!' and certainly the effect of my hand in his huge grasp was impressive. Then in the last act he would pull me from the couch by the hair of my head. Oh! there was something in his realism, I can tell you!"

It occurred at Manchester. Mr. Kendal and Miss Robertson were on tour with the elder Compton, and they were--sweethearts. A convenient time seemed to have arrived for their wedding day, for on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights pieces were to be played in which neither of them would be required. This would mean a nice little honeymoon--and the two lovers would reappear on the Monday night. So the day was fixed--Thursday; the church chosen--St. Saviour's, Plymouth Grove; and the best man booked--Walter Gowing, who used to play under the name of Walter Gordon.

"Pray thee, marry us!"

"Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?"

"I will."

That is the true story of the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Kendal. It was a natural desire of each never to play apart from the other, and from that day they have never separated. For some seven years Mr. and Mrs. Kendal played at the Haymarket, under Buckstone's management, and the gifted actress merrily referred to the little jokes played on "Bucky" by some of the actors. He was stone deaf, and could only take his cues when to speak from the movements of his fellow-actors' lips, so they would annoy him by continuing the lip movement, and "Bucky" sometimes got "stuck."

Little need be said of Mrs. Kendal's subsequent work--her acting at the Court, the Prince of Wales's, and her labours at the St. James's, when, in 1881, she appeared there under the joint management of Mr. Kendal and Mr. Hare. Not only in this country has her name become fondly familiar in the homes of those who "go to the theatre" and those who "never would," but in America the artistic acting of herself and husband has been instantly and enthusiastically recognised.

The study is a very delicate apartment in terra-cotta and gold--here and there are quaint blue china vases and many exquisite bronzes. The window in the recess where the table is--a typical study table, suggesting plenty of work--is of stained glass, the quartet of divisions representing the four seasons. A glance round the walls of this room at once reveals the substantial side of Mr. Kendal's artistic hobby--pictures. In this apartment there is nothing but water-colours, save a very clever pen-and-ink sketch by a New York artist, called "Six Months After Marriage," which Jefferson caught sight of at the New York Dramatic Bazaar, and reminded Mr. Kendal to "keep his eye on," and a portrait or two of Mrs. Kendal and the children. "Hetty Sorrell" at her butter pats, with her thoughts very far from the churning-pan, is a gem. "The Last of St. Bartholomew" is a magnificent bit of painting, and the Venetian views at once carry one back to the home of the merry gondolier and perfect moonlight nights. This picture of Salvini--who its possessor assured me was the finest tragedian he had ever seen--was painted by Mr. Kendal himself. The bookcase, running along opposite the window, contains many rare first editions, of which Mr. Kendal is a very persevering and successful collector, and a bound manuscript copy of every play produced by him, together with the original sketches for the scenery. You may look over the "Scrap of Paper," "The Falcon," "Queen's Shilling," "Ladies' Battle," "Clancarty," "The Ironmaster," "The Money Spinner," and "The Squire"--Pinero's play, of which somebody wrote that it wafted the scent of the new-mown hay across the footlights.

It is interesting to learn how Mr. Kendal first came across Pinero.

Mr. Kendal is a striking-looking man--the very ideal of a picturesque soldier, with a constitution of steel. He talks to you frankly, easily, for there is not two penny-worth of presumption about him. He lives and labours very quietly--he enjoys his days, and a good cigar. He divides his talents between the stage and the brush. His pencil and palette have been with him in far-off places, and there is always a corner in his bag for them if he only travels twenty miles from Harley Street. His peculiarity of painting--so to speak--lies in the fact that he never fails to chronicle the view obtained from any hotel where he may be staying. He showed me a book full of these hasty impressions--all of which were most beautifully done--many of them he could only give ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to. Two of these I brought away for reproduction in these pages; they are both unfinished, however--the pencil reminders of certain little additions tell that.

The first of these is a view of the Infirmary as seen from Mr. Kendal's window at the Queen's Hotel, Manchester; the second--done in a quarter of an hour--shows the way the Americans erect their buildings for exhibiting a cyclorama--popularly known here as a panorama. It was done from a back window in an hotel in Cleveland, U.S.A. The actor-artist never learnt drawing, save for a few hours' lessons he took at the Slade Schools under the tuition of Le Gros. He draws everything that impresses him--his painting memory is remarkable. He sees a man's face in the street, carries it home in his mind, and it will be very faithfully put on paper or canvas.

We talked for a long time on "pictures"--he was so happy and earnest about it that it was some time before we made an attempt to tread the boards and get behind the footlights.

Mr. Kendal--William Hunter Grimston--was born at Notting Hill, and just outside the sound of Bow Bells, on December 16th, 1843. His parents belonged to the Low Church, and their views of the theatre in general, and on adopting the stage as a profession in particular, will be readily understood. Mr. Kendal was intended for the Army--how he came to "go on" the stage is best told in his own words:

"I had only been to three or four pantomimes previously," he said, "and one night--I was about eighteen years of age at the time--I found myself in the stalls of the old Soho Theatre, in Dean Street, Soho, now known as the Royalty Theatre. My paper and pencil were out, and I was busily engaged in making sketches of the various actors and actresses. The piece was 'Billie Taylor.' Suddenly I felt a gentle tap on the shoulder from behind. I turned round.

"'Would you allow me to take those sketches round and show the 'parties' interested?' a gentleman asked.

"'Certainly; with pleasure,' I replied.

"'Perhaps you would like to come behind the scenes as well?'

"It was just what I wanted, so I followed the person who had so kindly interested himself in my scribble. He proved to be Mr. Mowbray, the manager of the theatre. The picture behind the scenes that night was a perfect Elysium to me. I think Mowbray must have noticed the impression it made upon me, for he asked if I would like to go on the stage. I did--as a sort of super."

As an organizer and man of business his tact and judgment were tested and proved during his joint management of the St. James's with Mr. Hare in 1881. For some time previous to this Mr. Kendal had been on the look-out for a theatre, and his mind wandered towards the St. James's, but it required a large sum of money spending on it before it could be opened.

"One night I was talking to Lord Newry at my club," said Mr. Kendal, "and happened to say that if ?2,000 or so were spent on the St. James's I might feel inclined to take it.

"'Suppose I spend that amount of money on the place, will you take it?' Lord Newry asked.

"My only reply was that I would think about it. In the meantime I went to the Court, from there to the Prince of Wales's to play in 'Diplomacy'--it ran a year--'Peril' and 'London Assurance.' Then I returned to the Court again, and during this time Lord Newry had practically gutted the old and unlucky St. James's, turned it inside out--John Hare, my wife and self entered, and we remained there nearly ten years."

Mr. and Mrs. Kendal share the same opinion of America--it is the land of to-day, the land of the future. As to its theatres in comparison with ours, Mrs. Kendal--who had now joined us--was most enthusiastic. I had reached the pillars, from which hung curtains of intricate Japanese workmanship, leading to the hall. Victoria, the Jubilee dog, was barking a friendly "Good-bye," and the lusty throats of Miss Grimston's two-and-twenty canaries forced their sweet notes from a far-away room into the passage.

"I will give you some idea of what an American theatre is like," said Mrs. Kendal. "You reach your destination by rail at some small place for a one-night stay. If it is raining and the ground is wet, men in long jack-boots catch hold of you and gallantly take you across the puddles. You do not see a soul about--and you are in fear and trembling as to where your night's audience is coming from. You get to your hotel, and then your next thought is--where is the theatre? You expect to find a little, uncomfortable, band-box of a place, and you set out to see it with a heavy heart. It is a palace--a marble palace--a positive poem! And your heart leaps happily--only to drop dull again, for you suddenly remember that you have seen--nobody, not even the oldest inhabitant. You turn to the manager.

"'Yes, yes--but, what about an audience, how are you going to fill it?' you ask.

"'Wall,' he replies, 'I don't trouble myself much about that. I reckon that every seat in this theatre is sold for to-night, that's all!'"

HARRY HOW.

BY E. W. HORNUNG.

This story has to do with two men and a play, instead of a woman, and it is none of mine. I had it from an old gentleman I love: only he ought to have written it himself. This, however, he will never do; having known intimately in his young days one of the two men concerned. But I have his leave to repeat the story more or less as he told it--if I can. And I am going to him for my rebuke--when I dare.

"You want to hear the story of poor old Pharazyn and his play? I'm now going to tell it you.

"Ah, well! My recollection of the matter dates from one summer's night at my old rooms in the Adelphi, when he spoilt my night's work by coming in flushed with an idea of his own. I remember banging the drawer into which I threw my papers to lock them away for the night; but in a few minutes I had forgotten my unfinished article, and was glad that Pharazyn had come. We were young writers, both of us; and, let me tell you, my good fellow, young writing wasn't in those days what it is now. I am thinking less of merit than of high prices, and less of high prices than of cheap notoriety. Neither of us had ever had our names before the public--not even in the advertised contents of an unread and unreadable magazine. No one cared about names in my day, save for the half-dozen great ones that were then among us; so Pharazyn's and mine never used to appear in the newspapers, though some of them used our stuff.

"In a manner we were rivals, for we were writing the same sort of thing for the same sort of publications, and that was how we had come together; but never was rivalry friendlier, or mutually more helpful. Our parts were strangely complementary; if I could understand for the life of me the secret of collaboration, which has always been a mystery to me, I should say that I might have collaborated with Pharazyn almost ideally. I had the better of him in point of education, and would have turned single sentences against him for all he was worth; and I don't mind saying so, for there my superiority ended. When he had a story to tell, he told it with a swing and impetus which I coveted him, as well I might to this day; and if he was oftener without anything to write about, his ideas would pay twenty shillings in the pound, in strength and originality, where mine made some contemptible composition in pence. That is why I have been a failure at fiction--oh, yes, I have! That is why Pharazyn would have succeeded, if only he had stuck to plain ordinary narrative prose.

"The idea he was unable to keep within his own breast, on the evening of which I am telling you, was as new, and simple, and dramatic as any that ever intoxicated the soul of story-teller or made a brother author green with envy. I can see him now, as I watched him that night, flinging to and fro with his quick, nervous stride, while he sketched the new story--bit by bit, and often the wrong bit foremost; but all with his own flashing vividness, which makes me so sorry--so sorry whenever I think of it. At moments he would stand still before the chair on which I sat intent, and beat one hand upon the other, and look down at me with a grand, wondering smile, as though he himself could hardly believe what the gods had put into his head, or that the gift was real gold, it glittered so at first sight. On that point I could reassure him. My open jealousy made me admire soberly. But when he told me, quite suddenly, as though on an afterthought, that he meant to make a play of it and not a story, I had the solid satisfaction at that moment of calling him a fool.

"The ordinary author of my day, you see, had a certain timorous respect for the technique of the stage. It never occurred to us to make light of those literary conventions which it was not our business to understand. We were behind you fellows in every way. But Pharazyn was a sort of forerunner: he said that any intelligent person could write a play, if he wanted to, and provided he could write at all. He said his story was a born play; and it was, in a way; but I told him I doubted whether he could train it up with his own hand to be a good-acting one. I knew I was right. He had neither the experience nor the innate constructive faculty, one or other of which is absolutely necessary for the writing of possible plays. I implored him to turn the thing into a good dramatic novel, and so make his mark at one blow. But no; the fatal fit was on him, and I saw that it must run its course. Already he could see and hear his audience laughing and crying, so he said, and I daresay he could also feel the crinkle of crisp weekly receipts. I only know that we sat up all night over it, arguing and smoking and drinking whisky until my windows overlooking the river caught the rising sun at an angle. Then I gave in. For poor old Pharazyn was more obstinate than ever, though he thanked me with the greatest good temper for my well-meant advice.

"Well, I am coming to that first night presently. Meanwhile, for the next six months, I saw very little of Pharazyn, and less still in the new year. He seldom came to my rooms now; when he did I could never get him to stay and sit up with me; and once when I climbed up to his garret , he would not answer me, though I could smell his pipe through the key-hole, in which he had turned the key. Yet he was perfectly friendly whenever we did meet. He said he was working very hard, and indeed I could imagine it; his personal appearance, which he had never cherished, being even untidier, and I am obliged to add seedier, than of old. He continued to send me odd magazines in which his stuff happened to appear, or occasionally a proof for one's opinion and suggestions; we had done this to each other all along; but either I did not think about it, or somehow he led me to suppose that his things were more or less hot from the pen, whereas many of mine had been written a twelvemonth before one saw them in type. One way or another, I gathered that he was at work in our common groove, and had shelved, for the present at all events, his proposed play, about which you will remember I had undertaken to ask no questions.

"I was quite mistaken. One night in the following March he came to me with a haggard face, a beaming eye, and a stout, clean manuscript, which he brought down with a thud on my desk. It was the play he had sketched out to me eight or nine months before. I was horrified to hear he had been at work upon it alone from that night to this. He had written, so he said, during all this time, not another line, only each line of his play some ten times over.

"I recollect looking curiously at his shabby clothes, and then reminding him that it was at his place, not mine, I was to have heard him read the play: and how he confessed that he had no chair for me there--that his room was, in fact, three parts dismantled--that he had sacrificed everything to the play, which was worth it. I was extremely angry. I could have helped him so easily, independent as I was of the calling I loved to follow. But there was about him always an accursed, unnecessary independence, which has since struck me--and I think I may say so after all these years--as the mark of a rather humble, very honest origin.

"He read me the play, and I cried over the third act, and so did he. I thought then, and still think, that there was genius in that third act--it took you off your feet. And to me, certainly, it seemed as if the piece must act as well as it read, though indeed, as I took care to say and to repeat, my opinion was well-nigh valueless on that point. I only knew that I could see the thing playing itself, as I walked about the room , and that was enough to make one sanguine. I became as enthusiastic about it as though the work were mine , yet I was unable to suggest a single improvement, or to have so much as a finger-tip in the pie. Nor could I afterwards account for its invariable reception at the hands of managers, whose ways were then unknown to me. That night we talked only of one kind of reception. We were still talking when the sun came slanting up the river to my windows; you could hardly see them for tobacco-smoke, and we had emptied a bottle of whisky to the success of Pharazyn's immortal play.

"The last words I was ever to exchange with my poor old friend keep ringing in my head to this day, whenever I think of him; and I can repeat them every one. It was some few years after our intimacy had ceased, and when I only knew that he had degenerated into a Fleet Street loafer of the most dilapidated type, that I caught sight of him one day outside a theatre. It was the theatre which was for some years a gold-mine to one Morton Morrison, of whom you may never have heard; but he was a public pet in his day, I can tell you, and his day was just then at its high noon. Well, there stood Pharazyn, with his hands in his pockets and a cutty-pipe sticking out between his ragged beard and moustache, and his shoulders against the pit door, so that for once he could not escape me. But he wouldn't take a hand out of his pocket to shake mine; and when I asked him how he was, without thinking, he laughed in my face, and it made me feel cruel. He was dreadfully emaciated, and almost in rags. And as I wondered what I ought to do, and what to say next, he gave a cough, and spat upon the pavement, and I could see the blood.

"I don't know what you would have done for him--but for all I knew what had brought him to this, I could think of nothing but a drink. It was mid-winter, and I tell you the man was in rags. I felt that if I could get him to a bar he might eat something, too, and that I should get a hold of him this time which I would never again let go. Judge of my surprise when he flatly refused to come with me even for a drink.

"'Can't you see? he said in his hollow voice. 'There'll be a crowd here directly, and I want the best seat in the pit--the best in the house. I've been going dry for it these two days, and I'm going dry till I've seen the piece. No, I've been here an hour already, and there's three hours more, I know; but I'm not going to risk it, thanks all the same.'

"'My dear fellow,' I said, with a sort of laugh, 'are you a first-nighter, too?'

"'Only at this theatre.'

"He looked me queerly in the face.

"'You admire Morrison very much?'

"'I love him!'

"I suppose my eyes thawed him, though God knows how hard I was trying not to hurt him with pitying looks. At all events he began to explain himself of his own accord, very impetuously; indeed I rather think the outburst was purely involuntary.

"'Look here,' he said, with his hoarse voice lowered: 'I hoped never to see your face again. I hoped you'd never see mine. But now you are here, don't go this minute, and I'll tell you why I think so much of Morton Morrison. I don't know him, mind you--he doesn't know me from Adam--but once long ago I had something to do with him. And God bless him, but damn every other manager in London, for he was the only one of the lot that gave me a civil hearing and a kind word!'

"I knew what he was talking about, and he knew that I knew, for we had understood one another in the old days.

"'I took it to him last of all,' he went on, wiping his damp lips with his hand. 'When I began hawking it about he was an unknown man; when his turn came he was here. He let me read it to him. Then he asked me to leave it with him for a week; and when I went back to him, he said what they had all said--that it would never act! But Morton Morrison said it nicely. And when he saw how it cut me up, into little bits, he got me to tell him all about everything; and then he persuaded me to burn the play, instead of ruining my life for it; and I burnt it in his dressing-room fire, but the ruin was too far gone to mend. I wrote that thing with my heart's blood--old man, you know I did! And none of them would think of it! My God! But Morrison was good about it--he's a good soul--and that's why you'll see me at every first night of his until the drink finishes its work.'

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