"Will you favour me, Miss Morris, with this actor's name?""Certainly. He is billed as Mr. Henry Irving."Mr. Daly looked up from his scribbling. "Irving? Irving? Is not he the actor that old man Bateman secured as support for his daughters?""Yes, that was the old gentleman's mistaken belief; but the public thought differently, and laboured with Papa Bateman till it convinced him that his daughters were by way of supporting Mr. Irving."A grim smile came upon the managerial lips as be asked. "What does he look like?""Well, as a general thing, I think he will look wonderfully like the character he is playing. Oh, don't frown so! He--well, he is not beautiful, neither can I imagine him a pantaloon actor, but his face will adapt itself splendidly to any strong character make-up, whether noble or villainous." Mr. Daly was looking pleased again. I went on:
"He aspires, I hear, to Shakespeare, but there is one thing of which Iam sure. He is the mightiest man in melodrama to-day!""How long did it take to convince you of that, Miss Morris? One act--two--the whole five acts?""His first five minutes on the stage, sir. His business wins applause without the aid of words, and you know what that means."Again that elongated "A-a-ah!" Then, "Tell me of that five minutes,"and he thrust a chair toward me.
"Oh," I cried, despairingly, "that will take so long, and will only bore you.
"Understand, please, nothing under heaven that is connected with the stage can ever bore me." Which statement was unalloyed truth.
"But, indeed," I feebly insisted, only to be brought up short with the words, "Kindly allow me to judge for myself."To which I beamingly made answer: "Did I not beg you to do that months ago?" But he was growing vexed, and curtly commanded:
"I want those first five minutes--what he did, and how he did it, and what the effect was, and then"--speaking dreamily--"I shall know--Ishall know."
Now at Mr. Daly's last long-drawn-out "A-a-ah," anent Mr. Irving's winning applause without words, I believed an idea, new and novel, had sprung into his mind, while his present rapt manner would tell anyone familiar with his ways that the idea was rapidly becoming a plan. Iwas wondering what it could be, when a sharp "Well?" startled me into swift and beautiful obedience, "You see, Mr. Daly, I knew absolutely nothing of the story of the play that night. 'The Bells' were, I supposed, church-bells. In the first act the people were rustic--the season winter--snow flying in every time the door opened. The absent husband and father was spoken of by mother and daughter, lover and neighbour. Then there were sleigh-bells heard, whose jingle stopped suddenly. The door opened--Mathias entered, and for the first time winter was made truly manifest to us, and one drew himself together instinctively, for the tall, gaunt man at the door was cold-chilled, just to the very marrow of his bones. Then, after general greetings had been exchanged, he seated himself in a chair directly in the centre of the stage, a mere trifle in advance of others in the scene, and proceeded to remove his long leggings. He drew a great coloured handkerchief and brushed away some clinging snow; then leaning forward, with slightly tremulous fingers, he began to unfasten a top buckle. Suddenly the trembling ceased, the fingers clenched hard upon the buckle, the whole body became still, then rigid--it seemed not to breathe! The one sign of life in the man was the agonisingly strained sense of hearing! His tortured eyes saw nothing. Utterly without speech, without feeling, he listened--breathlessly listened! A cold chill crept stealthily about the roots of my hair, I clenched my hands hard and whispered to myself: 'Will it come, good God, will it come, the thing he listens for?' When with a wild bound, as if every nerve and muscle had been rent by an electric shock, he was upon his feet; and I was answered even before that suffocating cry of terror--'The bells! the bells!'--and under cover of the applause that followed I said:
'Haunted! Innocent or guilty, this man is haunted!' And Mr. Daly, Ibowed my head to a great actor, for though fine things followed, you know the old saying, that 'no chain is stronger than its weakest link.' Well I always feel that no actor is greater than his carefulest bit of detail."Mr. Daly's pale face had acquired a faint flush of colour, "Thank you!" he said, with real cordiality, and I was delighted to have pleased him, and also to see the end of my troubles, and once more took up the sun-shade.
"I think an actor like that could win any public, don't you?""I don't know," I lightly answered. "He is generally regarded as an acquired taste.""What do you mean?" came the sharp return.
"Why, you must have heard that Mr. Irving's eccentricities are not to be counted upon the fingers of both hands?"Mr. Daly lifted his brows and smiled a contented smile: "Indeed? And pray, what are these peculiarities?""Oh, some are of the figure, some of movement, and some of delivery.
A lady told me over there that he could walk like each and every animal of a Noah's ark; and people lay wagers as to whether London will force him to abandon his elocutionary freaks, or he will force London to accept them. I am inclined to back Mr. Irving, myself.""What! What's that you say? That this fine actor you have described has a marked peculiarity of delivery--of speech?""Marked peculiarities? Why, they are murderous! His strange inflections, his many mannerisms are very trying at first, but be conquers before--"A cry stopped me--a cry of utter disappointment and anger! Mr. Daly stood staring at his notes a moment, then he exclaimed violently:
"D--n! d--n! oh, d--n!!!" and savagely tore his scribbled-on paper into bits and flung them on the floor.
Startled at his vexation, convulsed with suppressed laughter at the infantile quality of his profanity, I ventured, in a shaking voice, "Ithink I'd better go?"
"I think you had!" be agreed curtly; but as I reached the door he said in his most managerial tone: "Miss Morris, it would be better for you to begin with people's faults next time--"But with the door already open I made bold to reply: "Excuse me, Mr.
Daly, but there isn't going to be any next time for me!"And I turned and fled, wondering all the way home, as I have often wondered since, what was the plan that went so utterly agley that day?
Mr. Coghlan he engaged after failing in his first effort, but that other, greater plan; what was it?
