How I Got On the Stage
Good Lord, how it rained! It wasn't a shower or a squall; it came down in bucketsful; the whole reservoir of Heaven seemed to have burst and emptied the accumulated water of centuries upon our devoted decks. I was one of the mates of a big passenger liner, a large three-masted, ship-rigged vessel with double top-gallant yards, not then so much in use as they are today. She was the "Thomas Stevens," one of the quickest and smartest ships afloat with passengers from Melbourne to London. We were swinging into position to enter the Milwall docks. My foot touched land for the first time for ninety days when I leaped from the rail onto the dolphin at the Dock gates, slipped the end of our guess-warp over the bollard, and sang out to them inboard to take in the slack.
"Hullo!" came a hail from the pier-head, muffled by the mist and noise of the falling rain.
I looked around. On the pier I could see indistinctly a few miserably wet-looking men and one or two dockhands comfortably enveloped in oilskins, off which the water poured in torrents.
"Hullo!" came the hail again. "Hullo, is that you, Harold?"
Harold was my name right enough, but I didn't know who on earth could be hailing me. I had been out in Australia for nearly five years. My dear father was dead. My sisters were married; one was in India, the other with her husband's regiment God knows where, and my elder brother had been in Canada for many years, and for all I knew was still there. I hadn't a friend in the world I could expect to greet me. Though I heard my name, I thought there must be some man among the passengers with the same name, so I took no notice. When the ship swung alongside the dolphin I jumped aboard into the mizzen-rigging and then, just as I reached the deck, out of the mist came the hail again.
"Hullo, Harold, is that you?"
I turned and peered through the rain. A slight, clean-shaven man stood on the pier-head waving a stick. God, how wet he was! I looked again. There was something familiar about him. The voice, too, I seemed to have heard before.
The ship was creeping nearer every moment, and the figures ashore getting more distinct. Out of the mist came the voice again:
"Is Harold Bellew on board?"
There was no mistake about that anyway. I turned and sang out, "Yes, who are you?"
"Evelyn," came the answer.
It was my brother. We had not met for thirteen years. We stood staring at each other speechless.
When we got alongside he climbed aboard. He had heard by some means that I had shipped on the "Thomas Stephens" and come down to meet me at the dock. I was enveloped in oilskins, and he, poor chap, was soaked to the bone. We couldn't speak, either of us, and I felt a lump in my throat, and was glad it was raining. Hurrying him into my berth to put on some of my dry clothes, I returned on deck to my duties, which would end when the decks were cleared up.
"That will do, men," sang out the mate.
Wet as they were, the hands tumbled over the side and went off in a body to get their first drink at a little public house outside the gates.
"What are yo going to do, Mr. Bellew?" asked the mate as we walked aft together.
"I don't know till I get ashore."
I had shipped only for the run home, and I knew the owners would have another man of their own to take my place on the ship's next voyage.
My brother and I were about the same size, so my clothes fitted him all right. "Where shall I go?" I asked him.
"I have a room up in Maida Vale, near dad's old church. Come there with me, old chap."
So I went.
We had sorry stories to tell each other. He was down to his last penny, and I, after the ship paid off, found myself the possessor of just eight pounds in the world. We divided the money and then discussed the past. Poor old fellow! he's dead now. He had made just as big a mess of life as I had, worse even, for he had greater chances which he had thrown to the winds. He had gone to America with McHenry, the great railroad magnate, and might have done anything, for he was a splendid engineer. But he had got bitten by an absurd stage fever and thrown up everything to follow the fortunes of a company of players in Toronto. How many years he had been roaming about doing what he could to keep body and soul together he didn't say. But, at my father's death, he had come home, and when we met on that pelting wet August morning he was literally strapped.
We discussed the question what was to be done.
"I can't get anything to do. The theatrical managers won't look at me," he told me. The truth was, poor chap, he never was a good actor.
"I must go back to engineering," he admitted, "but how—how—how? Every billet seems to be full."
He scanned the columns of the Daily Telegraph. There were lots of "Wanteds." He told me he had answered hundreds until he was sick of being turned down and of getting no answers to his letters.
In the middle of one column my eyes fell upon the following advertisement, which I read out aloud:
STAGE—Wanted, a light comedian
to support Miss Helen Barry on tour,
commencing August 22d. Apply
personally to Charles Barrington, Esq.,
Adelphi Hotel, Adams Street, Strand.
"Won't that do?" I asked him.
"Good God, that's been there for a week. I've sat on the doorsteps of the Adelphi for hours only to get turned down for my pains."
"Well," said I, "I haven't got a ship. I don't see any chance of getting one. I won't go before the mast. I can't starve, and I haven't any money except these few sovereigns. I'm the lightest comedian I know just now and I'm going to have a shot at Charles Barrington, Esquire."
My brother laughed at me. "What sort of a chance have you got?" he cried.
"There are lots of damned fools who know no more than I do and get billets every day in other businesses. I'll have a try, anyway."
"If you give your name as 'Bellew' he'll tarn you down at once. He will think it is I and refuse to see you."
"That's easily fixed. I'll send in my Christian name, 'Harold Kyrle.' That sounds like a theatrical name, anyway."
After considering the matter further it was agreed that I should go to the Adelphia the next morning and try my luck. I had no clothes except what I had been wearing at sea. My best coat, a blue serge, bore the gilt anchor-buttons the company insisted that its officers should wear. We went out, and finding a little tailor's shop where "Repairs Neatly Executed" was posted in the window, we went in, and the little tailor soon clipped off my buttons and in their place sewed a set of neat plain black ones. Barring my cap, which bore the company's badge, I was now turned into a civilian.
"Now for a pot-hat," cried I, "and I'm all ready to pass for a 'light comedian.'"
The eventful morning arrived. At half-past ten I found myself ushered into the presence of a very pale, thin-faced, clean-shaven, mouse-colored man who was sitting at a table busy opening letters taken from a pile scattered in front of him. He looked up for an instant, and then, resuming his work, said in rather a soft, pleasant voice:
"You wish to see me, Mr.—Mr.—?"
"Kyrle, Harold Kyrle, sir," I broke in as he took up the little piece of paper on which my name was written.
"Kyrle—Kyrle, I don't think I know the name," he said, still gazing at the piece of paper. "What can I do for you?" He settled back, his elbows resting upon the arms of his chair and joining the tips of his fingers, looked me up and down.
I was bronzed, hard as a nail and salt-pickled—a direct contrast to the anaemic gentleman before me. I remember feeling a kind of pity for him, he looked so weak and puny.
"I came to see Mr. Charles Barrington in answer to this advertisement in the Daily Telegraph.
"Oh!" said he, "I am Mr. Barrington. Are you a light comedian? I don't remember your name."
"Probably not," I answered; "I only arrived from Australia a couple of days ago."
"Australia? Oh! Have you had much experience out there?"
Experience! thought I to myself. I had been in every mortal thing a man could be except in gaol. As he failed to specify what kind of experience I answered boldly:
"Any amount."
"Ah! They change the bill very frequently out there—stock companies, I believe?"
"Very frequently," I replied, which was quite true.
"It must be very hard work, I should imagine."
I assented.
Our conversation continued in this way for some time. During it all he never asked me once directly or indirectly whether I had ever been upon the stage, so I felt my conscience perfectly clear in conforming my answers to the questions he put without volunteering anything else.
At last Mr. Barrington seemed satisfied. "Well, Mr. Harold Kyrle," he said, "I think you will suit me. Go round to Blackmore's, the agents, in Garrick Street, give him this note and he will give you a contract. The salary will be two pounds per week. We find costumes, except wigs, shoes, stockings, swords, jewelry and laces. Will that suit you?"
Anything would have suited me! With a profusion of thanks in my heart, which I carefully concealed from him, I bowed myself out of Mr. Charles Barrington's presence and walked out into the strand.
My poor brother was waiting for me nearby. When I told him of my success he stared at me open-mouthed.
"Well, I'm damned!" he said.
"All right, old chap, don't anticipate things," I responded gleefully. "Now let's go up to this bally agent's, or whatever he is, 'sign on,' and then we'll go and 'wet' the commission. Where is Blackmore's?"
"You don't mean to say that he has made you go to Blackmore's?" exclaimed my brother.
"He has. Why shouldn't he?"
"Only that Blackmore will take ten per cent of your miserable salary for ten weeks, that is all."
"The devil he will," cried I.
"It's a sort of authorized custom of the profession," explained my brother. "You'll have to submit until you are strong enough to tell the agents all to go to the Devil."
I determined that time should come—and it did eventually.
To make a long story short, I went to the agent's and came away with a contract in my pocket to play light comedy on a provincial tour under the management of Mr. Charles Barrington for two pounds a week. And I was muleted of ten shillings and ten per cent of my salary for ten weeks, just for the privilege of inscribing my name on Mr. Blackmore's books.
But anyway, I was a full-fledged actor now! Ten days later I found myself, about half-past eight at night, walking onto the stage of the Theatre Royal, Brighton, dressed up in a gorgeous costume of pale blue and silver, and with a long fair-haired wig upon my head, acting "Lord Woodstock" in Tom Taylor's successful and picturesque play, "Clancarty."
The papers the next morning—shall I ever forget them?—said I "played splendidly."
The moral of this story is doubtful, but it only goes to show what a sailor with a face like a brazen image and illimitable cheek can do when put to it.