Life on the Stage Part 21

"Now, my dear little woman," he smiled, "Larry is human, in some respects, if he is almost G.o.d-like toward me. Remember he has a young family now, and though his wife is as good as gold and always patient with me, I am not the kind of example a man would care to place before his little ones, and as Lawrence is devoured with ambition for them and their future, he rightly guards them from too close contact with the drag and curse of his own life, in whom he, and he alone, can see the st.u.r.dy tow-headed brother of the old boyish days, who saved him from many and many a kick and thump his delicate body could ill have borne."

Joe told me of his dead wife--Viola Crocker that was--the niece of Mrs.

Bowers and Mrs. Conway; of their happiness and their misery. Describing himself as having been "in heaven or in h.e.l.l--without any betwixts and betweens." His devotion to me was very great. He was "hard-up" for money, as the men express it, but he would manage to bring me a single rose or one bunch of grapes or a half-dozen mushrooms or some such small offering every day; and learning of his bitter mortification because he could not hire a carriage to take me out to see the curious old French cemetery, I made him supremely happy by expressing a desire to ride in one of those funny bob-tailed, mule-drawn street-cars--the result being a trip by my mother, Mr. Barrett, and myself to the famous cemetery.

I don't know that I ever heard anyone sing Irish and Scottish ballads more tenderly, more pathetically than did Joe Barrett, and as my mother was very fond of old songs, he used to sit and sing one after another for her. That day there was no one in the crawling little car but we three, and presently he began to sing. But, oh, what was it that he sang? Irish, unmistakably--a lament, rising toward its close into the _keen_ of some clan. It wrung the very heart.

"Don't!" I exclaimed. My mother's face was turned away, my throat ached, even Joe's eyes had filled. "What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know its name," he answered, "I have always put it on programmes as 'A Lament.' I learned it from an Irish emigrant-lad, who was from the North, and who was dying fast from consumption and home-hunger. Is not that wail chilling? As he gave the song it seemed like a message from the dying."

At the end of our stroll among the flowers and trees and past those strange stone structures that look so like serious-minded bake-ovens, having to wait for a car, we sat on a stone bench, and in that quiet city of the dead Joe's voice rose, tenderly reverent, in that simple air that was yet an anguish of longing, followed by a wail for the dead.

My mother wept silently. I said, softly: "It's a plaint and a farewell,"

and Joe brought his eyes back from the great cross, blackly silhouetted against the flaming sky, and slowly said: "Beloved among women, it is a message--a message from the dying or the dead, believe that."

And a time came when--well, when _almost_ I did believe that.

Later on, when Mr. Barrett stood second only to Mr. Booth in his profession, well established, well off, well dressed, polished and refined of manner, aye, and genial, too, to those he liked, I came by accident upon a most gracious act of his and, following it up, found him deep in a conspiracy to deceive a stricken woman into receiving the aid her piteous determination to stand alone made impossible to offer openly.

I looked at the generous, prosperous, intellectual, intensely active gentleman, surrounded by clever wife and the pretty, thoroughly educated daughters, who were chaperoned in all their walks to and from park or music-lesson or shopping-trip, and I wondered at the distance little "Larry," with the heavy head and frail body, had traveled, and bowed respectfully to such magnificent energy.

Even then there arose a cry from the profession that Mr. Barrett was dictatorial, that he a.s.sumed airs of superiority. Mr. Barrett was wrapped up, soul and body, in the proper production of the play in hand.

He was keenly observant and he was sensitive. When an actor had his mind fixed upon a smoke or a gla.s.s of beer, and cared not one continental dollar whether the play failed or succeeded, so long as he got his "twenty dollars per--," Mr. Barrett knew it, and became "dictatorial" in his effort to force the man into doing his work properly. I worked with him, both as a n.o.body and as somebody, and I know that an honest effort to comprehend and carry out his wishes was recognized and appreciated.

As for his airs of superiority--well, the fact is he was superior to many. He was intellectual and he was a student to the day of his death.

When work at the theatre was over he turned to study. He never was well acquainted with Tom and d.i.c.k, nor yet with Harry. His back fitted a lamp-post badly. He would not have known how "to jolly the crowd." He was not a full, voluminous, and ready story-teller for the boys, who called him cold and hard. G.o.d knows he had needed the coldness and the so-called hardness, or how could he have endured the privations of the long journey from his weary mother's side to this position of honor.

Cold, hard, dictatorial, superior? Well, there is a weak lean-on-somebody sort of woman, who will love any man who will feed and shelter her--she doesn't count. But when a clear-minded, business-like, clever woman, a wife for many years, loves her husband with the tenderest sentiment and devotion, I'm ready to wager something that it was _tenderness_ and _devotion_ in the husband that first aroused like sentiments in the wife.

Mrs. Barrett was shrewd, far-seeing, business-like--a devoted and watchful mother, but her love for her husband had still the freshness, the delicate sentiment of young wifehood. When she thought fit, she bullied him shamefully; when she thought fitter, she "guyed" him unmercifully. Think of that! And it was delightful to see the great, solemn-eyed personification of dignity smilingly accepting her buffets.

But, oh, to hear that wife tell of the sorrows and trials they had faced together, of their absurd makeshifts, of their small triumphs over poverty, of Lawrence's steady advance in his profession, of that beautiful day when they moved into a little house all by themselves, when he became, as he laughingly boasted, "a householder, not a forlorn, down-trodden boarder!"

Their family, besides themselves, then consisted of one little girl and Lawrence's beloved old mother, and he had a room to study in in peace, and the two women talked and planned endlessly about curtains and furniture, and--oh, well, about some more very small garments that would, G.o.d willing, be needed before a very great while. And one day Lawrence looked about his little table, and said: "It's too good, it can't last, it can't!" and the women kissed him and laughed at him; yet all the time he was right, it did not last. An awful bolt seemed to fall from the blue sky. It was one of those pitiful disasters that sometimes come upon the very old--particularly to those who have endured much, suffered much, as had the elder Mrs. Barrett in the past.

I wept as I heard the story of the devoted son's dry-eyed agony, of the awful fears his condition aroused in the minds of those close to him, and then suddenly she, the wife, had been stricken down, and her danger and that of the tiny babe had brought him to his old self again.

He worked on then for some months, grateful for the sparing of his dear ones, when quite suddenly and painlessly the stricken old mother pa.s.sed from sleep to life everlasting. Then when Joseph was to be summoned--Joe who worshipped the mother's footprint in the dust--he was not to be found. He had fallen again into disgrace, had been discharged, had disappeared, no one knew whither.

"Oh, dear Father!" cried Mrs. Barrett, "what did not Lawrence suffer for Joe! knowing what his agony would be when he knew all--but we could do no more. The funeral took place. White as marble, Lawrence sent us all home, and himself waited till the last clod of earth was piled upon the grave; then waited till the men had gone, waited to kneel and pray a moment before leaving the old mother there alone. And as he knelt he noted how nearly dark it was, and thought he must not linger long or the gates would be locked upon him. As he rose from his knees, he was startled to see, through the dusk, a tall form coming toward him. It would dodge behind a monument, and after a moment's pause would come a little nearer. Suddenly the drooping, lurching figure became familiar to him. With a groan he hid himself behind a tombstone and waited--waited until suspicion became certainty, and he knew that the bent, weary funeral guest was his brother, Joe!

"He held his peace until the wanderer found his way along the darkening path to that pathetic stretch of freshly broken earth, where, with an exceeding bitter cry, he flung his arms above his head and fell all his length along the grave that held the sweetest and the holiest thing G.o.d had ever given him, an honest, loving mother, and clutched the damp clods in his burning hands, and gasped out: 'Oh, mother! I have hungered and I have tramped with the curse upon me, too; I have hungered and tramped so far, so far, hoping just to be in time to see your dear face once more, and now they've shut you away from me, from the bad boy you never turned your patient eyes away from! Oh, mother! whatever can I do without you, all alone! all alone!'

"At that child-like cry from the broken man, prostrate on the grave, Lawrence Barrett's heart turned to water, and kneeling down he lifted to his breast the tear-blurred, drink-blemished face of his brother, and kissed him as his mother might have done. Thus they prayed together for the repose of the soul of their beloved, and then, with his arm about the wanderer, to steady his failing steps, Lawrence led him to his little home, and, as they entered, he turned and said: 'Joe, can't you take back those words, "all alone," can't you?' and Joe nodded his head, and throwing his arms about his brother's neck, answered: 'Never alone, while my little brother Larry lives and forgives!'"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH

I play "Marie" to Oblige--Mr. Barrett's Remarkable Call--Did I Receive a Message from the Dying or the Dead?

From the time when, as a ballet-girl, I was called forward and given the part of _Marie_ in "The Marble Heart," a play Mr. Barrett was starring in, to the then distant day of that really splendid combination with Mr.

Edwin Booth, I never saw the former when he was not burning with excitement over some production he had in mind, if not yet in rehearsal.

Even in his sleep he saw perfect pictures of scenery not yet painted, just as before "Ga.n.a.lon" he used to dream of sharp lance and gay pennon moving in serried ranks, of long lines of n.o.bles and gentlemen who wore the Cross of the Crusader.

His friends were among the highest of G.o.d's Aristocracy of Brains--'twas odd that sculptors, artists, poets, thinkers should strike hands with so "cold" a man and call him friend!

I remember well the dismayed look that came upon his face when I was ordered from the ballet ranks to take the place of the lady--a hard, high-voiced soubrette, who was to have played _Marie_, had not a sore throat mercifully prevented her. But at my first "Thank you--I'd rather go--yonder--," pointing to the distant convent, his eyes widened, suddenly a sort of tremor came to his lips. He was at my side in an instant, telling me to indicate my convent as on the opposite side, so that my own att.i.tude would be more picturesque to the audience. Between the acts he said to me: "Have you any opinion of _Marie_, Miss er--er?"

"My name's 'just Clara,'" I kindly interjected.

"Well," he smiled, "'just Clara,' have you formed any idea of this _Marie's_ character?"

"Why," I answered, "to me she seems a perfect walking grat.i.tude; in real life she would be rather dog-like, I'm afraid; but in the play she is just beautiful."

He looked solemnly at me, and then he said: "And _you_ are just beautiful, too, for you are a little thinking actress. Now if you have the power of expressing what you think, do you know I am very honestly interested, 'just Clara,' in your share of to-night's work."

The play went well as a whole, and as _Marie_ is one of the most tenderly pathetic creations conceivable, I sat and wept as I told her story; but imagine my amazement when, as Mr. Barrett bent over my hand, a great hot tear fell from his cheek upon it.

"Oh, my girl," he said, when the play was over, "don't let anything on G.o.d's footstool dishearten you. Work! work! you have such power, such delicacy of expression with it--you _are Marie_, the little stupidly religious, dog-like 'Marie the resigned,' that you have renamed for me 'Marie the grateful.'"

When I was leading woman he wished to do that play for a single night. Of course _Marco_ belonged to me, but the big, handsome, cold-voiced second woman could well talk through _Marco_, while she would (artistically speaking) d.a.m.n _Marie_. Mr. Barrett was very hungry-eyed, there was positive famine in them, as he mournfully said: "I would give a great deal to hear you tell _Marie's_ story again--to see you and your little bundle and bandaged foot. Such a clever touch that--that bandaged foot, no other _Marie_ dares do that; but you have turned your back on the 'grateful one'; you can't afford to do her again."

"Mr. Barrett," I asked, "do you wish me to play _Marie_ now?"

"Do I wish it?" he echoed, "I wish it with all my heart, but I have no right to ask a sacrifice from you even if it would benefit the whole performance, as well as give me a personal pleasure."

"If the manager does not object," I said, "I am quite willing to give up the leading part and play _Marie_ again."

He held my hands, he fairly stammered for a moment, then he said: "You are an _artiste_ and a brave and generous girl. I shall remember this action of yours, 'just Clara,' always."

The amazed manager, after some objection, having consented, I once more put on the rusty black gown, took my small bundle, and asked of the gay ladies from Paris my way to the convent, yonder--finding in the tears of the audience and the excellence of the general performance, full reward for playing second fiddle that evening.

In my early married days, when the great coffee-urn was still a menace to my composure and dignity, at a little home-dinner, when Mr. William Black, the famous writer of Scottish novels, honored me by his presence on my right, Mr. Barrett on my left, moved, no one knows by what freak of memory, lifted his gla.s.s, and, speaking low, said: "'Just Clara,' your health!"

I laughed a little, and was nodding back, when Mr. Black, who saw everything through those gla.s.ses of his, cried out: "Favoritism, favoritism! why, bless my heart, I drank your health ten minutes ago, and you never blushed a blush for me! And I am chief guest, and on the right hand of the hostess--explanations are now in order!"

And Mr. Barrett said that he would explain on their way to the club, whereupon Mr. Black wrinkled up his nose delightedly, and said he "scented a story"--"and, oh," he cried, "it's the sweetest scent in the world, the most fascinating trail to follow!"

But I was thankful that he did not hunt down his quarry then and there, for he could be as mischievous as a squirrel and as persistent as any _enfant terrible_, if he thought you were depriving him of a story.

Though tears creep into my eyes at the same moment, yet must I laugh whenever I think of Mr. Barrett's last "call" upon me. We were unknowingly stopping in the same hotel. On the way to the dining-room for a bit of lunch, Mr. Harriott and Mr. Barrett met, exchanged greetings, and when the latter found I was not going to luncheon, and was moreover suffering from a most severe attack of neuralgia, he asked if he could not call upon me for a few moments.

Mr. Harriott looked doubtful, and while he hesitated, Mr. Barrett hastily added: "Of course I shall merely say 'How do you do,' and express my sympathy, since I know something about neuralgia myself--that's all."

Upon which they turned back, and Mr. Harriott ushered the unexpected, the spick-and-span caller into my presence, with the rea.s.suring word: "Mr.

Barrett is sparing a moment or two of his time, Clara, to express his sympathy for you."