My Actor-Husband. Anonymous

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СКАЧАТЬ the strolling players and the Player-Queen. The Company made one night stands only; we made early and long jumps to out-of-the-way towns, which Will declared were not on the map. The hotels were often so bad that we were driven to patronizing the village grocer, and to supplement our meals with chafing-dish messes. Through rain, snow and slush we plodded our way to the railroad stations; sometimes there was a hack and the women rode back and forth. The theatres were cold and the dressing-rooms filthy. The stage entrance invariably gave upon a foul-smelling alley, and a penetrating draught swept the stage when the curtain was up. Once, after Will in the character of the King had been killed by Hamlet and lay dead upon the stage, he sneezed explosively. The audience appeared to enjoy the situation. But, in spite of the physical discomforts and the stultifying grind, we were happy—we were together.

      By the end of the season we had saved almost three hundred dollars. Then Will played a few weeks with a summer stock company—a "summer snap," as it is termed—and in the autumn we were able to make a stand for the much-desired joint engagement.

      When the Company gathered at the railroad station bound for a city of the middle West, it more resembled a family party than a theatrical organization. The manager himself played a part, and his wife was the lady villain. The comédienne and the stage carpenter were man and wife, and the leading lady—a girl not much older than I—was chaperoned by her mother. Will was the leading man and I the ingénue. There was the prospect of a pleasant season ahead. I smiled a little contemptuously when I thought of Miss Burton's terrible arraignment of the stage. She had been unfortunate in her association, that was all, I told myself.

      The comédienne and I shared dressing-rooms. She was a beautiful woman with a strain of Latin blood. I loved her from the first moment I met her. I was disappointed in her husband; her superior breeding and education caused me to wonder at her choice. Later, when I better understood the needs of the woman, I grew to like him; he was clean-minded and sincere—virtues I later discovered to be rare ones among actors.

      It was about the second week of the season when our family party first showed signs of incompatibility. There had been some gossip connecting the leading lady's name with that of the manager, but as she was protected by her mother it appeared to me ridiculous and unwarranted. One night, as the curtain fell on the first act, the manager's wife ordered the leading lady's mother out of the wings. Immediately there followed a war of high-pitched voices which penetrated the walls of our aerial dressing-room. The curtain was held and the orchestra played its third overture.

      During the wait Margherita, my dressing-room mate, told me the circumstances of the case. The leading lady's mother was the "friend" of the "angel" of the Company; in this capacity she assumed privileges which were galling to the manager's wife. Adding to this the fact that her husband was too obviously interested in the leading lady, the outbreak was not to be wondered at. The manager himself was one of those round, flabby men, suggestive of a fat, spineless worm. Physique is often coindicant of character.

      This night the mother had been more obnoxious than usual. It was her habit to stand in the wings while the manager's wife was on the scene, and by petty distractions to goad the actress to expression.

      Gradually members of the Company were drawn into the dissension; it was an intolerable situation. Our sympathies were with the manager's wife, but we diplomatically held aloof. Matters finally reached a climax. One night during the performance there was a stage wait. In vain Will and the heavy man filled in the hiatus. The manager's wife had surprised the leading lady in the arms of her husband somewhere behind the scenes, and thereupon slapped the girl's face. A moment later she came upon the stage to play her "big" scene; she was labouring under great emotion, and I thought she had never acted so well. In a speech to me (I played her daughter)—it was part of the stage business that I take her hand in mine; I am not sure that I did not press her hand in silent sympathy. She drew me towards her; in another moment the lady villain was sobbing in my arms, and there was an emotional storm not indicated in the manuscript of the author. I led her up stage as the house fairly rose to her splendid acting. When the storms of applause had died away we went on with the scene as if nothing had happened.

      I wonder why it is that women invariably punish their own sex and exempt the man? Do they instinctively demand a higher code of honour from their kind while meekly acquiescent to the conventional license for men?

      Subsequently the "angel" joined the Company, and, to all appearances, an adjustment was reached. For a time peace was restored. The leading lady assumed an air of injured innocence, and left off rouging her cheeks to heighten the effect. Then, suddenly—or gradually, I never realized how it came about—it became obvious to all that the leading lady was "making a play" for Will. Her attentions became so marked that the men of the Company chaffed him about it, declaring the manager would presently challenge him to mortal combat, or—and what was more likely—discharge him from the Company. Will accepted their allusions in good part, but I observed the subject was distasteful to him. To me he called the woman "a little fool," and was irritated with being placed in so ridiculous a position. Indeed I think Will suffered as much as I did. Without being rude or boorish, there was nothing he could do to check her advances. She was planning her début as a star the following season, and made Will a proposition to become her leading man; she consulted him concerning the new plays which were being submitted to her, and planned for the current season special matinées of classic plays with which Will was familiar. She called him to preliminary rehearsal and discussions in her rooms at the hotel; sometimes, between the acts of the performance, called him to her dressing-room, where she received him in a state of négligé. New bits of stage business were introduced, or the old elaborated; she would run her fingers through his hair, or prolong the kisses which the rôle demanded; or, in his embrace, she would draw her body close to his and writhe about him to a point of indecency. In countless, intangible ways she brought her blandishments to bear upon him. Will declared she was playing him against the manager, whose relations with her had become strained since his wife had interfered. In all things she was aided and abetted by her mother, who fawned on Will and made his position the more equivocal. My own emotions were confused; it was inconceivable that I should be jealous of the woman. No, the sensation she aroused was nothing more than disgust. To be jealous of my husband connoted a lack of faith, and he had done nothing to betray my trust in him.

      Jealousy had always appeared to me a debasing and an undignified emotion.... I resented the position in which my husband was placed; I would not add to his discomfiture by hectoring. I had promised myself when I married that never should I be jealous when I saw my husband making stage-love to another woman—perhaps in the back of my mind was the hope that I should always be the other woman, his leading lady. Nevertheless, I was determined to stand the test without flinching. It was high time that I began to realize that the conditions which confronted me were but a part of the game—the game! The word was reminiscent of Miss Burton. I fought down the suggestion blindly, passionately.... I began to dread going to the theatre; often, while I was making up, I found Margherita's eyes fastened wistfully upon me—they told how she longed to comfort me. Unhappily I could not talk about the thing which was troubling me. What was there to say? There are emotions which never find tangible expression. Then the idea of asking my husband to resign from the Company suggested itself. I endeavoured to look at the question from a material standpoint: it would not be easy to find another engagement in mid-season, besides, there were the expensive railroad fares back to New York—we were then touring California—and probably another separation....

      Perhaps it was the strain of hard travel, or it may have been the certainty of my condition which I had heretofore only suspected, or a combination of both, which made me lose my self-control. I had always believed strongly in the influence of suggestion upon the unborn child, and the unclean atmosphere in which I was living preyed upon my mind until it became an obsession. I grew to hate the woman and her witch-like mother. We had had some racking railroad jumps, and the loss of sleep was telling on every member of the Company; the leading lady was stimulating on champagne. Her mother stood in the wings, bottle and glass in hand, and applied the restorative whenever СКАЧАТЬ