Records of Later Life Part 51

My physical power of voice and delivery is not diminished, which is good for tragedy; my self-possession is increased, which ought to be good for comedy; and I do trust I may succeed, at least sufficiently to be able, by going from one place to another, and returning to America when I have worn out my public favor here--say, in two years,--to make what will enable me to live independently, though probably upon very small means.

I write this after my first night's performance, and I trust my views are not unreasonable. How I wondered at myself, as I stood at the side scene the other night, without any quickening of the pulse or beating of the heart--thanks to the far other experiences I have gone through, which have left me small sensibility for stage apprehensions; and yet I could hardly have believed it possible that I should have been as little nervous as I was. When I went on, however, I had to encounter the only thing I had dreaded; and the loud burst of public welcome (suggestive of how many a.s.sociations, and what a contrast!) shocked me from head to foot, and tried my nerves to a degree that affected my performance unfavorably through several scenes.

But this was my first appearance after thirteen years of absence from the stage; and, of course, no second emotion of the kind awaits me. The exertion and exposure of the performance gave me a violent cold and sore throat, and I have been obliged to send for a doctor. I had _two_ rehearsals yesterday, which did not mend matters, but I have bolstered myself up _pro tem._, and what with inhaling hot water and swathing my throat in cold, and lozenges and gargles, etc., I hope to fight through without breaking down.... I have heard from Catherine Sedgwick, who says that it is a long time since she heard from you or Emily. She adds: "I shall be very glad to hear from them again. In your absence, I had nothing to give interest to my letters to them, and I have not written; and they, naturally, had no sufficient motive to write to me, so that I have been in complete ignorance about them. Harriet S---- I reckon among my friends for both worlds."

G.o.d bless you, my dear Hal. Give dear Dorothy my love.

Ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

MANCHESTER, Tuesday, 23d.

A thousand thanks, my dear Lady Dacre, for all your kind inquiries about, and sympathy in, my concerns. I am going on prosperously. The theatre is quite full when I play, in spite of the very bad weather, and I think my employer can afford to pay me, without grudging, my nightly salary.

I think you are right in saying I am my own best critic; my mother being gone, I believe I really am so.

I have played, since I last wrote to you, Juliana, in the "Honeymoon," a rather pretty, foolish part, which I act accordingly; Lady Macbeth, which I never could, and cannot, and never _shall can_ act; and Juliet, which, I suppose, I play neither better nor worse than formerly, but which, naturally, I am no longer personally fit to represent.

I am not very well, for the returning to such labor as this after thirteen years' disuse of it, and at thirty-seven years of age, is a severe physical trial, and has, of course, exhausted me very much.

Nothing more, however, ails me than fatigue, and I have no doubt that a few more nights' "hard use" will enable me to stand steady under my new load of heavy circ.u.mstance.

You have asked me for newspaper reports, and I send them to you. You know my feeling about such things, but that is nothing to the purpose; if you can care for such praise or dispraise of me, it is no less than my duty to furnish you with it, at your request, if I can. You know I never read critiques, favorable or unfavorable, myself; so I do not even know what I send you.

Good-bye. Remember me respectfully and affectionately to Lord Dacre, and believe me ever

Yours truly, f.a.n.n.y.

MANCHESTER, Thursday, 25th.

DEAR HAL,

Mr. H. F. Chorley I believe to be a great friend of mine, and an uncommonly honest man, but I may be mistaken in both points. Your inquiry about my health I cannot answer very triumphantly. I am not well, and my feet and ankles swell so before I have stood five minutes on the stage, that the prolonged standing in shoes, which, though originally loose for me, become absolute instruments of torture, like those infamous "boots" of martyrizing memory, is a terrible physical ordeal for either a tragic or comic heroine--who had need indeed be something of a real one to endure it.

Some of this trouble is due to general debility, and some to the long-unaccustomed effort of so much standing, and will, I trust, gradually subside as I grow stronger and more used to my work....

I acted Juliet last night, and I am very weary to-day, but thankful to have my most arduous part well over.

Give my love to dear Dorothy. I am very sorry to hear of her being so unwell, for I know how anxious you must be about her. Thank her for her kind words to me....

G.o.d bless you, my dear,

I am ever as ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

MANCHESTER, Friday, 26th.

DEAR HAL,

My throat has given me no more trouble since my first night's acting. I have a pertinacious cough, and a tremendous cold in my head, which are nuisances; but I am free from irritation in the throat, and have found hitherto, in my performances, my voice stronger, instead of weaker, than it was.... I am better than I was last week, and have no doubt I shall acquire strength as I go on, as my first start in this dismal work did not quite break me down.

The people here have shown me the most extreme kindness and hospitality, and I have had invitations to dine out every day this week that I have not acted.

My brother Henry has come over from Dublin, to spend a couple of days with me, and his visit has been an immense pleasure and comfort to me.

My time, thank G.o.d, is so incessantly occupied with all kinds of business--writing letters to managers, acquaintances, and friends; rehearsing, acting, looking after my dresses, correcting proof-sheets, and receiving visits--that I have no leisure but what I spend in sleep.

Henry has promised to mount me on a horse of his, when I get to Dublin; and I am sure that my favorite exercise will be of the greatest benefit to me.

The actors here are not more inattentive than they generally are, everywhere, to their business; their carelessness and want of conscience about it is nothing new to me, and all my bygone professional experience had fully prepared me for it. The company here is a better one than I shall probably find anywhere, even in London; and I have the advantage of having to do with a very civil, considerate, and obliging stage-manager.

I have made, at present, no further engagement for acting here. I shall spend Pa.s.sion-week at Sutton Park with the Arkwrights, who have written to beg me to do so, and whose vicinity to this place makes that arrangement every way best for me, as in Easter-week I am to act in Manchester again, for the benefit of the above-mentioned courteous stage-manager. From the 12th to the 17th of April, I act at Bath and Bristol; and after that I think it is probable I shall act for a short time in London,--but this is uncertain.

Your questions, for which you apologize, are particularly agreeable to me, as, in spite of the ready invention and fluent utterance on which you compliment me, I am always charmed to have the subject of my letters suggested to me by the questions of my friends.

As my engagement in Dublin, like all the engagements I make, is _a nightly one_, if it does not answer to the manager I shall of course immediately put an end to it. I am secured from loss by payment after each performance but should never think of taking what I do not bring to my employer.

Mr. Calcraft writes me that he is sanguine about the engagement, in spite of the public distress, and wants me to leave three nights open after the 22d for the extension of it. We shall see.

G.o.d bless you, dear Hal. Give my affectionate love to Dorothy. I am most happy to hear she is better. The kindness of the Manchester people has filled my room with flowers, my "good angels," about which I am becoming every day more superst.i.tious, for I am never four-and-twenty hours in a place that some do not make their appearance, to cheer and comfort me.

Farewell.

Ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

BIRMINGHAM, Sunday, 28th.

MY DEAR LADY DACRE,

I played last night for the last time in Manchester. The house was immensely full, and when I went on the stage after the piece, so loud and long and cordial were they in their kind demonstrations of good-will to me that, what with the exhaustion of a whole day's packing (which I have to do for myself, my maid being utterly incompetent) and the getting through my part, the whole thing was too much for me, and I turned quite faint, and all but fell down on the stage. But I am not a fainting woman, and so only went into violent hysterics as soon as I was carried to my dressing-room. So much for that "pride" which you speak of as likely to prevent my shedding tears when encountering the kind acclamations of a mult.i.tude of my "fellow-creatures;" the most trying to the nerves of all demonstrations, except, perhaps, its howl of execration.

I came to this place to-day, and feel indescribably cheerless and lonely in my strange inn. The room at Manchester was the _home_ of a fortnight, but this feels most disconsolately unfamiliar. Moreover, I only act here one night, Tuesday, and then go to Liverpool, where the master of the Adelphi Hotel, where I shall stay, is a person to whom I have been known for many years, in whose house I have been with my children, and where I shall feel less friendlessly forlorn than I do here.

I shall remain there about a week, and then go to Dublin, where I expect to stay about a fortnight, and where I shall find my youngest brother--a circ.u.mstance of infinite consolation and comfort to me. Pa.s.sion-week I spend at Sutton Park with the Arkwrights; after that go to Bath and Bristol, and then to London, where I have now an engagement for a month at the Princess's Theatre.

You have now the map of my proceedings for the next six weeks, after which I hope I shall see you in London. I direct this to Chesterfield Street, as you say you shall be back there on Thursday. I have been kept constantly supplied with the loveliest flowers all the time of my stay in Manchester, by one kind person or another, which has greatly helped to keep up my courage and spirits.

Pray give my respects to Lord Dacre.

I am ever, my dear Lady Dacre, Yours truly, f.a.n.n.y.

ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, Thursday, March 4th, 1847.

MY DEAR HAL,

I do not go to Bath, but to Manchester, on the 25th and 27th, and perhaps on the Monday of Pa.s.sion-week; but this is not certain. If not on that Monday, then early in Easter-week; and Pa.s.sion-week I shall spend with Mrs. Arkwright at Sutton.

On Thursday in Easter-week, April 8th, I must be in London, as I act there for two nights gratuitously for your poor starving fellow-countrymen, for whom an amateur performance is being got up.

On April 15th I go down to Bath, and act there on the 17th, and my engagement at the Princess's Theatre does not begin till the 26th of that month. This is the plan of my campaign as far as it is laid out; should any change occur in it, I will let you know as soon as I know of it myself.

And so your plan for my taking the air, my dear, was to get into a _close_ fly. I confess that would not have occurred to my ingenuity, or I should think to that of any but an Irish humorist. I don't feel sure that there mayn't be a pun hidden somewhere in your proposition. _The damp_, indeed, I might have taken, to the greatest perfection, for there did stand a whole row of vehicles before my very windows at Manchester which were being saturated through and through with the rain that fell upon them all day long, and must have adapted them admirably for the purposes of a healthful drive for an invalid suffering from sore throat and a heavy cold.

I have nothing to say to your impertinent remarks on my zigzag progress to my various engagements, neither any observation to make about Emily's information upon the subject of my white cashmere gown.

I am perfectly persuaded that, as a considerable amount of food goes into one's stomach, the use of which is merely to produce necessary distension of all the organs, channels, receptacles, machinery, etc., in short; so a considerable amount of words proceeds out of our mouths, the use of which is merely to keep our lungs aired and our speaking organs in exercise; and for that purpose the follies, and foibles, and even faults of our friends are excellent material, provided no bitterness mixes in the process; from which, as I feel myself very safe between you and Emily, I abandon myself absolutely to you both; and as I believe scribbling (apparently unnecessary) is as necessary to the health of both of you as the apparently superfluous food and words which people swallow and utter, I am quite content you should fill up your paper with the mad eccentricity of the order of my engagements, the rotation of my gowns, and the dripping street-cabs in which I refuse to take the air for the benefit of my health....