“I think so,” she said, studying the script.
“You must first suggest to the audience my accusations against your faithfulness are true. Then in a few minutes you must convince both them and me, that I was wrong. The big emotional moment is when I accept your words as truth and thank you for sending me to the Crusade with a whole heart. That is the crux of the scene.”
“I’ll try,” she said.
“Very well,” Sir Alan said firmly and spoke the first line.
In that moment Fanny’s training came back to save her. All her nervousness ended as she concentrated on the lines she was reading. She gave them the touches of emotion she felt were right, the slight pauses and the proper emphasis, and she lost herself in the character she was playing. Suddenly the scene was at an end. There was a long silence on the stage and in the theatre.
Then from his seat down front Charles Dickens applauded. “A magnificent first reading!” he told her.
Sir Alan was smiling as he said, “Wherever he may be, your father must be proud at this moment. You have the part!”
Chapter Seven
The opening night of “The Knight and the Lady” began a new phase of Fanny’s life. She was given a thunderous ovation by the fashionable audience and in the newspapers the next day the various critics gave praise to her remarkable talents. Nor were Sir Alan Tredale and the play ignored by those gentlemen of the press. It was agreed that the play was one of Sir Alan’s best productions and that in Fanny he had offered London a new star.
Fanny’s success opened to her a different kind of London, the London of the wealthy and privileged! She moved into a smart flat not far from the theatre and hired a maid and housekeeper-cook. Her new companions were people like Charles Dickens, Lucy Vestris, Charles Matthews and Sir Alan Tredale. It was a gay, romantic world which she had often dreamed about but which she’d hardly dared hope to attain.
However, she did not forget her old friends. She still occasionally paid a visit to the eccentric Gilbert Tingley at his Museum of Freaks and he considerea her his greatest success.
He never missed a chance to take her around the museum and introduce her to his current freaks and tell them, “What this young lady accomplished under my training, any one of you can do!”
The gaunt Silas Hodder was quite disgusted by this. One day as Fanny left the museum in his company, the skull-faced man said with scorn, “To hear him tell it you’d think you’d received all your training playing a mermaid for him! It is your acting in the provinces and especially the coaching by your late father which brought you success!”
“That is true, Silas,” she said sadly, thinking of those good days and wondering what had become of David Cornish from whom she’d heard nothing since she ran away from his company. Then brightening, she squeezed the arm of the odd, old man and told him, “Still, if it makes Gilbert Tingley happy to think of me as a protegée, I confess I don’t mind!”
“Aye,” the thin man lamented. “Trust you to be too tender-hearted. You have conquered London, my lass. But you must be made of stern stuff to keep your footing in this city!”
She gave him an amused glance as they walked along the narrow sidewalk of the grubby street. “You have managed very well, it seems!”
He snorted with derision. “I’m what you might well call a confounded failure! A beggar who torments gentlemen to give him alms! Not much to be proud of there! Meeting you is the best thing that ever happened to me!”
“And my meeting you was a turning point in my life,” Fanny insisted. “Had you not handled things so well that first day at the theatre I should never have got in to see Sir Alan.”
The gaunt face showed modest pleasure. “It was a small business, but I did manage it with a certain flair!”
“I’ve mentioned it because I have an offer for you,” she said as they walked along, she in an enchanting brown taffeta and matching bonnet and he in his somber black suit and tophat.
“What sort of offer?” he wanted to know.
“Sir Alan Tredale needs a new stage door manager for the People’s,” she told him. “And he favors you. He admires your way of handling people. He asked me to broach the matter to you.”
The tall, gaunt man halted and stared at her, his deep-set eyes moist with tears. “You are actually offering to restore me to a place in society?”
“I’m not sure it’s what you want,” she said. “You have so long made your way by your wits.”
Silas Hodder said bitterly, “A way which will certainly see me in paupers’ prison if I continue to pursue it.” He squeezed her hand. “You are a dear girl! I’m certain you have spoken to Sir Alan on my behalf!”
Fanny smiled. “I did bring up your name when he mentioned the position would soon be vacant.”
“I shall take it, my girl,” the gaunt man said excitedly. “It is my one hope of not losing touch with you!”
“That will never happen! You are too good a friend!”
“It will! It must!” the old man insisted. “You are now part of a London society which tolerates me only on occasion to enjoy me as a freak! I’m as odd to them as any of the displays in Tingley’s museum! Gradually they will drop me and I will no longer be part of your circle. But this solves everything! I shall guard your stage door every night!”
“I’m so happy you’ve accepted,” Fanny said. And then she added, “There is just one thing more.”
“And what, pray is that?”
“Your … appearance,” she said, warily. “I know it is helpful to look weird as a professional beggar. But Sir Alan will demand that you properly shorten your hair, dress a bit less somberly, and present a more normal facade. Do you mind?”
Silas Hodder hesitated for a moment, causing her to think she had offended him. Then he burst into laughter and said, “I declare, child, Sir Alan asked you to approach me because he feared to say such things himself.”
“True,” Fanny admitted.
“I don’t mind sprucing up in the least!” the gaunt old man said happily. “And I shall lose none of my dignity in the doing of it. I shall still make a first class guardian of the backstage area!”
“That is why Sir Alan wants you for the post,” Fanny assured him.
He patted her hand and they resumed their walk. “Consider that I have accepted!”
And so it came about that a new-born Silas Hodder arrived to serve at the backstage entrance of the famous old theatre. The transformation in him was satisfyingly complete. He donned a fresh brown frockcoat with yellow checkered trousers and a fawn vest. His battered, black tophat was replaced by one of dark glossy brown. A golden watch-chain graced the fawn vest and he stood at his post with a dignified air. His short gray hair gave his face a less macabre appearance and he soon became a favorite of all the company.
Fanny would have considered this new life on which she’d embarked the happiest time of her existence, had it not been for some memories which haunted her. She had never truly been able to forget her first love Viscount George Palmer. And she felt pain whenever she thought of David Cornish. She knew her running away had caused him unhappiness and she had cared for him greatly and believed in his talent.
But her promise to her father to strive for success on the London stage had been more important to her than anything else. She had deserted David because he’d wanted to tie her to acting in the small towns and cities of the provinces. Her father had warned her that this could easily be a dead end for her, and had urged that she try London. He would have shared the adventure with her had it not been for his untimely death.
As for Viscount George, the old Marquis had soon made her realize that this perfect love was one which could never be. So she had come to think of this early romance in that way, even though she knew she would never forget the handsome young man. For his sake, and her own, it was a dream to be forgotten.
There was no reason why this should be difficult since she had been caught up in the theatrical excitement of the London Stage.
Discounting Lucy Vestris and her husband, Charles Matthews, there were no more gifted actor-managers on the London boards than Sir Alan Tredale. She was sure she might have fallen in love with the aristocratic, older actor if he had not been a happily married man with a family of three girls not much younger than herself.
As it was, he became a sort of foster-father to her in addition to being her co-star. There was no question that she would continue to be his leading lady and that her popularity would grow with each new play in which they appeared. Meanwhile she was making many important friends in the world of London’s upper classes. The fantastic events of her first descent on the city seemed to belong to a dark world which no longer existed. Though one of her new friends, Charles Dickens, told her in his solemn way, “Do not be deceived by your good fortune, Fanny! Behind the facade of this world of fashion we know there exists a sewer of dangerous slums!”
“I had some experience of them when I first came to the city,” she assured him. “But I have hoped that things are better now.”
The famous novelist’s handsome face was bitter. “Not so!” he said. “The other evening I toured some of these slums with Inspector Field of Scotland Yard. I confess I was sickened. We opened the door of a dilapidated house and were stricken back by the pestilent odor issuing from it! Field held held up a lantern to show ten, twenty, thirty—it was hard to tell—men, women, children, for the most part naked, heaped upon the floor like maggots in a cheese! Poor souls evicted from their homes so that we might build New Oxford Street and other fine streets without regard to where these unfortunates whom we clear out are to find shelter!”
“Must it always be like this?” she lamented.
“That is a question I often ask myself,” Dickens said with a sigh. “I have used my pen to fight such conditions but I begin to fear it has been too feeble a weapon!”
“That is untrue! Your writings are not only popular but they have shown up many social evils.”
“To what avail?” the famed novelist asked. “I begin to wonder about my purpose in life. What has it all meant and how much is it worth? My domestic life is no longer happy. I find escape only in my friends in the theatre like Sir Alan, Forester and Macready!”
Fanny was all sympathy for her friend. “You must not feel so! You are a success and doing much good!”
This discussion ended when Sir Alan and some friends came to join them. They went on to supper at a favorite restaurant in the Strand. Fanny sat a distance away from the novelist at the long table heaped with fine food and wines, but she watched him during the lively conversation and revelry and saw him to be more restrained and sober than the others.
• • •
Months went by and it seemed that this new life on which Fanny had embarked would continue forever. Sir Alan scheduled new plays and they all were successful. Offstage, Fanny led a quiet life in her small flat near the theatre. And it was there one day in February of the following year that she had an unexpected visitor, none other than the elderly character woman with whom she’d worked in the provinces, Hilda Asquith!
The aristocratic old actress wore a shawl over her thin coat and her lined face under a black bonnet looked more gaunt than when Fanny had last seen her. The two embraced on this gray, winter afternoon and then sat together over tea and cakes provided by Fanny’s housekeeper.
“But what are you doing in London?” Fanny asked the old actress.
As if in answer Hilda Asquith coughed, a deep, hacking cough. “I have been ill,” she confessed, after the seizure passed. “I’m not longer well enough to travel. David Cornish gave me two months salary and urged me to rest until I regained my health.”
Fanny smiled her approval. “David always had a kind heart.”
“That he does,” the old actress agreed. “But I grew weary of my small room in Manchester. And feeling better, I decided I would come to London.”
Fanny took the old woman’s thin hand in hers and said, “I’m so glad you’re here. You must live with me until you’re completely well!”
Looking embarrassed, the old actress protested, “I could not dream of that! Imposing myself on you!”
“I’d like to have you here! I’m lonely!”
“With all your new friends and your success? We have heard about your London triumphs!” Hilda Asquith said.
Fanny smiled ruefully. “To be truthful, my success hasn’t made me all that happy! Though I do admit I have been more fortunate than I deserved.”
Hilda eyed her fondly. With emotion, she said, “That is not so! You have worked hard for your success! And you inherited much of your dear father’s talent!”
“Thank you,” Fanny said. “My father will always be a guiding force in my life.”
“He dearly loved you!”
“I know,” she said, her eyes blurring with unshed tears. “He wanted me to become a star of the London stage, and I have.”
Hilda agreed, “He would be so pleased.”
Fanny smiled at the old actress. “As soon as you are well again I shall have Sir Alan find a role for you in the new play. Then you can work without having to travel.”
“You think me talented enough for the company?”
“I say you have much more talent than many playing with us now,” Fanny assured her. “And what of the others? Has David made a success of his touring group?”
“He has done remarkably well,” the old actress said. “He is now a respected name in the provinces. He has his choice of the best theatres in all the towns.”
“I’m so happy for him!” Fanny said fervently.
Hilda gave her a knowing glance. “He took your leaving us hard.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“He was in a black mood for weeks after,” the character actress confided. “We all tried to help him. I talked to him and tried to make him understand you’d left to carry out your father’s wishes. In the end I think he came to terms with your decision.”
Fanny bit her lip. “I hope so,” she said in a small voice. Her eyes met the bleak, faded, blue eyes of the old actress. “In a way, I loved him.”
“And he had eyes for no one but you!”
“It made it doubly hard for me.”
“And for him,” the old actress sighed. “But then life is never easy, is it? He has achieved success and so have you.”
Fanny said, “Has he ever mentioned my being on the London stage?”
“He spoke of it one day when I was alone with him, after I became ill and he had come to my room to visit me. He had read a review of your latest London appearance and he was proud of you. He came close to saying that you had done right in leaving us.”
“But he did not say it?”
“You know David Cornish. His pride would not allow that. Yet I feel he now realizes you followed the right path. The bitterness has passed.”
“I pray so,” Fanny said.
“It has, I’m sure!”
She asked, “What about him? Has he shown any interest in anyone else?”
Hilda Asquith smiled bleakly. “It is a question I expected you to ask. For a while it seemed that girl whom you trained to take your place, Maude Lyons, would win his affections. I can promise you she tried hard enough.”
“And?”
“It didn’t work,” the old actress said. “Maude did well enough as leading lady but he showed no interest in her off the stage. In fact he treated her so coldly she left at the first opportunity and David had to find a new leading woman.”
Fanny felt both pleasure and sadness in the news. It was warming to know that David’s love for her had been so true, but troubling to think she might have turned him into a bitter bachelor.
She said, “I wish he would find someone to love and who would love him. He needs someone.”
“What about yourself?”
Fanny blushed. “I have been too busy for romance. I have many male friends to escort me about, but I have made no romantic friendships.”
Hilda nodded. “I think it has been much the same with David. He has worked hard to become a provincial star. And if I’m not wrong, one day he’ll make his mark here in London.”
“I hope he does,” Fanny said sincerely. “I’m sure he could be a success here if he tried hard enough. My complaint was that he could not see beyond the provinces.”
“He does now,” Hilda assured her. “I think you have shown him the way.”
Fanny hoped this was true. She could think of no happier development than David Cornish coming to London and gaining a reputation in the great city. They could be friends again if only he could find it in his heart to forgive her. But would it ever be the same? Would they resume as lovers? She was not sure. Still vivid in her mind and heart was the image of Viscount George Palmer. Though she hadn’t seen or heard of him in a long while she knew that he was still the great romance of her young life!
With the arrival of Hilda Asquith life in the London flat became less lonely. And as soon as Hilda was well enough she took her place in the company with Fanny and Sir Alan.
Silas Hodder, secure in his position of stage door manager, was much impressed with the old actress. He privately told Fanny, “Miss Asquith is not only a talented actress but a fine woman! It is my intention to invite her out to supper one night!”
And to Fanny’s amusement, he did. Hilda accepted and the two became close friends. The company appeared before enthusiastic large audiences every night and it seemed that nothing would change this pleasant world.
Vintage Love Page 134