Sunlight and Limelight: a story of the stage life and the real life

Chapter I

Looking back across the years towards the half forgotten times, one may take a first glimpse at some of the actors in this drama, and see them as they appeared in the days when, being as yet poor and un important, they were aware of nothing more serious in life than the struggle to get on. They believed in those days that, with the attainment of even a small measure of the success they hoped and battled for, all problems would •be definitely solved, and they would be able to live happily ever afterwards, feeding on the fat of the land and basking in the sunshine of applause. Is it not the normal and proper attitude of those who are young and am bitious, and whose salaries are in the neighbourhood of thirty shillings a week ? Let the curtain be rung up, then, as it were, at random, on an unrehearsed effect.

This is the scene which it reveals. A Sunday afternoon in early February ; a biting north wind sweeping through the streets of Hat field, carrying a light load of powdery snow to blind the eyes and cake the clothes of the adven turous few who walked abroad ; and a wind that swept along the exposed platform of the Hatfield railway station, causing the doors of all the waiting rooms to rattle, and the porters on duty to stamp their frozen feet impatiently while they awaited the arrival of the train. At last it came, however, only a few minutes -late ; and a company of strolling players descended slowly, in three separate parties, from three different third-class carriages. " Drinks first and business afterwards ! " Thus called a clear, vibrating voice, very different from the voice of the average Sunday traveller ; and a picture forthwith formed itself in obedience to the word of command.

With one accord the members of the troupe, leaving their wicker baskets to be looked after by the baggage-man, snatched up their hold-alls, Gladstone bags, and hat-boxes, and with a clatter of tongues and a frisky whirl of petticoats, scurried, like a flock of geese, into the refreshment-room. " How about digs ? " asked one of the more prudent elders plaintively ; but the general feeling was that the question of lodgings must wait, and that the refreshment-room must be stormed before it closed. So the players pervaded the refreshment room, and drank Scotch whisky-and-water, hot, and thawed themselves. In any refreshment-room in the United Kingdom they might have been recognised for what they were. The train call having been for half-past ten, the ladies had felt obliged to start without attending to the minutiæ of their toilette.

Their hair was still in somewhat unbecoming disarray, and the long brown ulsters which the majority of them wore were a trifle muddy where they had trailed at times upon the ground. Some of them had had no time to put on their corsets, which they carried wrapped up in copies of the Referee ; and black pins took the place of missing buttons on the gloves of others. But one thing was noticeable : their artistic sense impelled them all to tidy themselves simultaneously with the aid of pocket powder-puffs before the fly blown refreshment-room mirror, and when this was done a certain aggressive waggling of their skirts soon began to give eloquent evidence of their unconquerable self-respect. As for the men, they were attired in enormous overcoats of various patterns, from navy blue to check, incompletely brushed, inclined to be greasy at the collar, and in some cases rather ragged at the cuffs.

Grey tweed golfing caps were the general headgear, though hard and soft felt hats, both black and brown, were also worn. Their ties, upon the whole, were bright and gaudy, and some of them wore the sort of false jewellery by which no one is deceived ; while all their chins clamoured in in sistent chorus for the razor. There were no white shirts among them, though those who were most particular about their personal appearance had dirty shirt-fronts, somewhat extensively displayed. Alto gether they looked a miserable and despondent crowd, in spite of the fact that several local corre spondents of the Era had declared — not, in the case of three or four of them, without some show of reason — that their performance was "much above the average." The despondency, however, was only the result of the weather ; and all their tongues were quickly loosened by refreshments.

Chris Maddox, stage manager and " general utility," brightened up and began to compliment one of the barmaids on the colour of her eyes. Millie Timbrell, the soubrette, engaged in a confidential conversation, leading up to a request for a loan of hairpins, with the other. As for the rest " How about digs ? Isn't it about time we began looking for digs ? " For "digs" is theatrical for lodgings ; and lodgings must be found, even though the quest kept the players tramping for hours in the cold. It was the most persistent grievance of their calling, and they complained aloud. " The worry of it all ! Never an hour's peace and comfort ! Three days in a place and then off again ! Always these confounded Sunday journeys by slow trains, and at the end of them this awful nuisance of looking for rooms.

And now not even a public house open till six o'clock ! Damn ! " Thus both sexes — partly to each other, and partly to the barmaids — the gentler sex, perhaps, the more vehemently of the two. For these ladies lived unchaperoned lives, and had largely dropped the habit of using language to conceal their thoughts. Even Angela Clifton, the leading lady, who was quite young, and had deep, innocent eyes that seemed the mirror of a beautiful mind, said "damn ! " She said it in a pretty and ladylike manner, making a pretty and ladylike grimace, but she said it never theless ; and Hector Burgoyne, the leading juvenile, affecting to be shocked, reproached her playfully with — " Hush, beautiful Angela ! Those little lips were never meant " Angela apologised, as playfully. " It doesn't really sound very wicked when I say it, does it ?

" she protested. Meanwhile, however, Millie Timbrell, who was of a practical turn of mind, had been questioning the barmaid on the lodging question, and she now turned round to announce that there were rooms to be had at the hotel across the road, at the coffee tavern, and at a small inn at the other end of the town. " Besides this," she added, " there's a baker who sometimes lets rooms. He doesn't let to profes sionals as a rule ; but this lady thinks he might if we asked him prettily." This seemed to cheer every one, and especially seemed to cheer Hector Burgoyne. With a sudden movement he let the two Gladstone bags which he had just lifted fall with a thud upon the floor, and struck a melodramatic attitude preparatory to utter ing some playful travesty of a noble sentiment. He looked well as he stood there to play the fool — a slim, well-knit young fellow, some fiveor six and-twenty years of age, and of something over medium height, which is the best height of all for an actor.

His eyes were keen like the eagle's, and he had straight black hair, grown a little longer than is fashionable, plastered smoothly down upon his forehead. His features, though a trifle coarse, were well defined. The cheek bones might be a little too prominent and the jaw a shade too heavy, but the general impression was pleasing. Here, one felt, was a young man of push and vigour and parts, a young man who would not be content to rest for ever in the ruck in any line of life, a young man who did not play the fool out of mere folly, but only because it amused him and there was no more serious work on hand. For the moment, however, he chose to play the fool, as though to prove that his spirits were still high in spite of the discomforts of the day ; and striding apart, as one who takes the centre of the stage, he stamped his foot, and slapped his chest with one hand, while with the extended forefinger of the other he pointed, as to heaven, towards a distant corner of the ceiling.

"Courage, girls," he cried, throwing his head back so that his hair buried his collar — " courage, girls, courage ! The play actor is like the re volutionist. There is no rest for him but the grave." It was a mere firework — not an aphorism to which he attached importance, though it may well have seemed a sardonic saying to such of the players as had wandered far without catching sight of any promised land. Having discharged it, he main tained his striking attitude long enough to observe the effect of the picture on the barmaids. Then he resumed possession of the two Gladstone bags, and with Angela Clifton at his side, and Millie Timbrell and Chris Maddox following in her wake, stalked jauntily out into the blizzard. " Which way, old man ? " Chris Maddox shouted after him. "This way, dear boy," he called back cheerily.

" Since there are no professional diggings in this benighted hole, and since coffee-taverns are what they are, there seems to be nothing for it but the hotel." The two girls anxiously raised the question of expense. " Can't be helped for once, my dears," was the reply. " We'll plead poverty and numbers, and see if we can't knock down the tariff." So the girls gave way, and they crossed the carriage drive in front of the station, and turned up the street to the left. The cold was bitter ; the wind nearly blew them off their feet ; but Hector Burgoyne kept his heart high in spite of adverse circumstances, continued to play the fool with admirable energy, and insisted upon transacting the prosaic business of real life in the same lofty language in which it is transacted on the stage. The landlady came out of the bar parlour into the passage, and he accosted her, to her amazement, as though she were the good woman who kept the wayside inn in the first act of a provincial melo drama.

" Good madam," he said, letting his shoulders stoop, and his hands drop loosely in front of him, as though in humble supplication — "good madam, we are poor strolling players who seek for bed and board. What can you do for us, good madam ? " Suppressing her astonishment, the good lady stiffly named a price — seven shillings a day. It had to be reduced to six, though even six was more than the players could, as a rule, afford. Hector Bur goyne continued — " Good madam, we are but rogues and vagabonds by Act of Parliament. And there are four of us. Surely, in the kindness of your heart, you can do something better for us than that, good madam ? " Angela Clifton also pleaded. " We are thoroughly respectable vagabonds, you know. And we are dying — dying — all alone — in the bitter, cruel snow — of cold and hunger."

It was a reminiscence of the fourth act of the great scene in which, leading a little child by the hand through a paper blizzard, she pleaded in vain for succour at the door of the wicked baronet in evening dress who had betrayed her. Her voice was soft, musical, pathetic ; her deep, innocent eyes conveyed a mute appeal. It may have been that these things impressed the landlady. Or it may merely have been that she shared the average respectable householder's curiosity to see actors and actresses at close quarters and in private life. " Of course, miss, I assure you, I wasn't thinking, not for a moment " she began ; but Hector Bur goyne felt that it was his turn to take up the cue. He drew himself to his full height, and changed, as it were by magic, from the supplicant to the patron, saying — " Don't think, good lady.

You are too fair and buxom a dame to think. Leave thought to others, while you provide the evening meal." It was settled, and they entered into this haven — at six shillings a day — and filled it with vivacious noise. The girls sang snatches of songs while they lighted their spirit-lamps to heat their curling-irons. Chris Maddox kissed the chambermaid behind the door, and when she threatened to tell her mistress silenced her with the promise of a ticket for the Monday's performance. Hector Burgoyne ceased for a while to play the fool, and went into the bar parlour and entertained the landlord with the latest theatrical gossip, while stimulating his appetite for supper by means of gin and bitters.

Chapter II

A second glimpse — belonging, like a sequel, to the first, and showing how the strolling players spent an evening together in those days when they were irre sponsible and unimportant and playful, and knew nothing of the soul problems which spring up to vex those who earn their living by the art of make believe. " Supper at eight, girls ! " the leading juvenile had shouted up the staircase. " Go into the kitchen and tell them to hurry up with it, there's a dear boy ! " the girls had shouted back ; and now the meal was on the table. It was a solid meal of beef — cold beef and pickles — accompanied by bitter beer, and followed by cold apple tart and Cheddar cheese. The cook had gone to church so that nothing hot was to be had. Upon the whole, considering the weather, there was warrant for the ironic grace which Hector Burgoyne pro ceeded to recite before he carved, in unctuous imitation of comic clergymen in farces.

" For what we are about to receive — such as it is — may the Lord make us truly thankful." Though the supper was cold, however, it was sub stantial, and the room was warm and not uncomfort able. It was small — about ten feet by eight — and it contained a sofa and arm-chairs, of sorts ; red curtains, drawn across the windows, gave it a cosy look in the artificial light. There was no need to be too critical of the pictures on the walls or the china ornaments on the mantelpiece. An immense fire roared up the chimney, and Hector Burgoyne played the fool once more in order that the spirits of his companions might not flag. " Remove that bauble," he ordered in due course, making a magnificent gesture to indicate the cheese, " and bring a bottle of your best Scotch whisky in its place." " I'm going to stand treat to-night, because it's Sunday, and because you're good boys and girls," he explained while it was being fetched ; and when it came, together with hot water, lemons, and a bowl of sugar, they all got up from their places at the table, and arranged themselves in comfortable attitudes before the fire, forming a very pleasant and unusual picture.

There had been a transformation in their appear ance since their arrival, chilled and miserable, at the railway station. The girls had assumed and laced their corsets and were in evening blouses of a certain elegance. Their hair was curled and rippled in ample fringes — a fair fringe in Angela Clifton's and a dark brown fringe in Millie Timbrell's case — across their foreheads. Hector Burgoyne had put on the new suit of light grey tweed in which he answered advertisements which required him to "dress well on and off the stage." If Chris Maddox had done nothing else to make himself beautiful, he had at least washed his face and hands and shaved. At the moment, he was sitting on the sofa smoking a cigarette, with his left arm round Millie Timbrell's waist — Millie being, to all appearance, not so much tolerant of the attention as unaware of it.

Hector Burgoyne was opposite, also smoking, with his feet in worked slippers, planted against the marble of the chimney-piece. Angela Clifton, in the centre, in the most comfortable of the arm-chairs, lay back languorously, her eyes half closed, her hands idle in her lap, toasting her toes alternately at the blaze. Her ankles — she had very pretty ankles — were distinctly visible to all ; and her stockings were not unworthy of her ankles. Consequently there was no sufficient reason for hiding them away. But a question arose : How to kill time till it was late enough to go to bed ? An inevitable question, seeing that they saw each other every day, and had told each other nearly all their stories. It was discussed. " Shall we go round and see how the others are getting on at their coffee-tavern ?

" A favourite resource this when time hung heavy. It made a conversation, and first roused and then gratified a curiosity. But this time it did not find favour. " Too cold," was the general verdict ; and an opportune gust rattled the window-pane, confirm ing it. " Shall we play nap, then ? " No. They had played nap all day in the train, and it was too much trouble to go upstairs and fetch the cards. " Then we must talk." So they talked lazily, going over old ground, as people must when all their lives are more or less alike, and the things that happen to any one of them happen simultaneously to all the rest. A criticism of the Hatfield hotel opened the way to a discussion of landladies and lodging houses in general. They ransacked their memories for stories, and Chris Maddox told the story of the landlady whose iniquity he had exposed at Blackpool, her offence being that she stole his sugar.

" I knew she was stealing it — wholesale. But of course the difficulty was to prove it. At last I hit upon a really brilliant plan. I numbered the sugar." " You mean you counted it ? " " No — numbered it. I took it all out of the bowl, and numbered every blessed lump, from one to sixty, in lead pencil. The next time the old lady answered my bell she found the lumps laid out in rows on the table, and me standing in front of them in a state of righteous indignation. ' Madam,' I said to her, ' I observe that some of my sugar has disappeared. May I trouble you to assist me in looking for numbers 7, 18, 19, 25, 31, 40, 50, 52, and 57?" They laughed ; the story was just good enough for that. Then Millie Timbrell told a story — the story of a landlady at Huddersfield who had refused to take her in, although her rooms were vacant.

" ' Theatricals, aren't you ? ' she asked. ' Yes,' I replied. ' Well,' she said, ' I used to take in theatricals once, but never again so long as I live. The last theatricals I took in was four ballet-girls from the pantomime. And what did they do ? In the middle of a Sunday afternoon, they stood in a row in front of the window in their ballet skirts, for all the world to look at. How do I know that you young ladies won't do the same ? It's no use your promising that you won't, because I daren't believe you.' " Angela Clifton resented the story ; it was like a slap in the face to the one profession which excited her enthusiasm. But Millie Timbrell gloried in her story. " But I thought it awfully funny, dear. I never laughed so much in my life," she said ; and the retort emphasised the difference between her point of view and Angela's. For Millie, in short, acting was a business.

One became an actress — as one became a dressmaker or a shop girl — to make money. If it was better to be an actress than a shop girl that was because one had more admirers, more liberty, more fun. But Angela held that acting was an art — a thing worth doing for its own sake, or, at least, for the sake of the praise and glory— the loud cheers from the gallery and the long notices in the papers. A business or an art ? For want of any more engrossing theme the point was argued out with some vivacity. Chris Maddox suggested that it might depend upon the salary ; Millie Trimbrell maintained an unsympathetic silence ; Hector Burgoyne laid down the law. Certainly, he said, acting was an art — perhaps the greatest of the arts — only a really great artist must always have an eye to business. Otherwise what would become of him when he went into management ?

As for himself, he looked forward to the day when he would become an actor-manager, and have parts written specially to fit him — parts in which all his entrances would be properly worked up to, and which would leave him in the centre of the stage whenever the curtain fell. He had ideas. Give him a chance and so forth, till Millie Timbrell interrupted cynically with — " My dear boy, there never was an actor who didn't talk like that." But the ball was set rolling, and the next thing was a general confession of ambitions. Chris Maddox also had ideas ; he thought that some London theatres were very badly managed ; he knew perfectly well why there was never any money in certain houses. It was not the acting, but the management that was at fault. If he could get hold of a bit of money he would take an unlucky house like the Royalty, and show people — et cetera, et cetera.

Angela next described how she saw herself in various other people's parts, and roughly sketched the ideal part in the ideal play in which she would most delight to figure. It was the part of the woman who has sinned because she has loved and trusted, and is condemned to suffer out of all proportion to her deserts — who stands alone against the world when the past, which she had thought forgotten, is brought up against her — who dies tragically by her own hand, with the limelight thrown full upon her face. And more to the same purpose. " I could feel that," she cried, with enthusiasm, though, in very truth, nothing had ever happened in her life that in the least assisted her to feel it. Only she knew from experience that this was the sort of thing that made the gallery cry, when the actress looked too good and beautiful for such an early death.

Then, last of all, came Millie Timbrell's turn — and Millie supplied the anti climax. She did not aim so high as Angela. Enough for her if some one would give her a decent part in comic opera. But not a boy's part. On that point she was very positive and very candid. " Girls gets more admirers in skirts than they get in tights and trunks," was her admission, saluted with a sarcastic chorus of — " Oh ! Millie ! " So the serious debate ended in avowed frivolity, and they once more fluttered on to something else. This time it was — " Hear me my part, Chris, there's a dear boy." " All right, dear. Where is it ? " " Here you are." And a very crumpled and rather dirty piece of manuscript was fished with effort out of Millie's pocket, and another picture was, so to say, thrown upon the screen. Millie was stretched out at ease upon the sofa, careless that her skirt was being crushed all out of shape, and that her little foot protruded, with the little slipper — rather an untidy little slipper — tumbling off.

Chris sat beside her, holding the paper in his right hand, while his left arm lay, like a pillow, underneath her shoulders. Hector and Angela, drawing a little apart, conversed in whispers, and Chris began reading out the cues. Something of this sort : — nice girl, Mary." " I'm sure it's very good of you to say so, sir.' " . . pretty girl, Mary." " Well, p'r'aps I am. Anyhow you needn't think that you're the first to tell me that." " . . . kiss, Mary." " I daresay you would, and so would lots of others. I wonder what you take me for. insist, Mary." "Then if you really want to kiss me, you'd better make haste and have done with it before the missus comes." And so forth, the kisses being given and taken as the stage directions ordered. The strolling players kissed each other as readily as children did, and often with as little meaning in their kisses.

But it did not last long. Millie was soon tired. She snatched the manuscript from Chris, stuffed it back, more crumpled than ever, into her pocket, and announced that she was going to bed. " So am I," said Chris ; and he lifted her from the sofa, and led her off with his arm round her waist, and lingered with her on the way, until Hector shouted after them, in a deep and hollow voice that echoed down the corridor — " Be careful. Don't shock a respectable house hold by spooning on the stairs." Then the picture shifted again, and it was his turn and Angela's to play a certain little comedy of their own, which they were wont to play from time to time, whenever they were in the mood for it. It was like this : — " Now, Angela," he called ; and she stood up obediently and faced him. He laid both his hands upon her shoulders, and drawing her towards him, gazed long and lingeringly into her eyes, just as when they played lovers' parts together on the stage.

It was a very natural thing to do, for she was assuredly a very charming girl — the sort of girl who stimulates the imagination and makes men's fancy clothe her in all the qualities which they most admire in woman. So much at least the stage had done for her. Playing sympathetic parts, and play ing them with enthusiasm, she had learnt to catch a certain reflection of them in her natural manner. It attracted, even if one half suspected that it was little more than pose. It would have attracted with out the help of beauty. But Angela had beauty too. Her eyes, so large, deep, and blue, seemed eloquent of innocent yet earnest thought. One fancied that Saint Theresa must have had such eyes. Her hair, soft and luxuriant and long, shielded her forehead with a band of gleaming gold — a gold that caught the light and flashed it back, as burnished metal will.

Her skin was soft and delicate ; the lips were not too thin ; the chin was square and dimpled. Her figure was good too, though somewhat slight, as is the rule with those whose nervous organisation is high strung and sensitive. And Hector drew her close to him, and looked down into her blue eyes with all an ardent lover's passionate desire. It was only a comedy, though it did not look like one ; but they played it artistically, and even earnestly, so as to get the full pleasure out of the game of make-believe. This is how the dialogue ran : — "Angela, you are very beautiful to-night," Hector began. " Hector, you are very bold to-night," Angela replied. " More beautiful than ever, Angela." " More bold than ever, Hector." " But not too bold, my little sweetheart ? " No, Hector, not too bold."

" And you will kiss me, Angela ? "Yes, Hector, you know that I will always kiss you." She cooed the words rather than spoke them, and he stooped and kissed her as tenderly as though the kiss sealed the promise of a life's devotion. She yielded her lips to him with perfect grace. To kiss gracefully for the mere pleasure of kissing was a habit that she had learnt upon the stage. It was a very delightful comedy to play — very delightful thus to take the pleasure of love-making while avoiding all its serious responsibilities. But it had its danger. The temptation to overstep the boundaries was always strong. They needed all their common sense to save them from doing the obvious thing, and getting married. So now — " Ah ! Angela, if only we were married ! " Thus Hector pleaded passionately, and the comedy was in instant peril.

But Angela saved it, breaking away from him and laughing and shaking her head. " No, Hector, no," she protested. " But we love each other, Angela ? " " Oh yes, of course we love each other, Hector. Only " A real lover would easily have wrung the promise from her ; she would have yielded to his passion, if he himself had been swept off his feet by it. But Hector was only a stage-lover ; and the passion was more pose than reality, albeit partly real. The comedy of love-making was more to him than the dream of marriage ; and as Angela let him kiss her when he chose, he could listen to her when she spoke the words of wisdom. " Only it doesn't do for actors and actresses to get married before they know whether they're going to get on ? Haven't I often heard you say so ?" She had, indeed, often heard him say so at other than love-making hours.