The Troupers

by Hulbert Footner

 

The Troupers

Being Extracts from the Reminiscences
of Mrs. Samuel Barker, the
Veteran Actress

Transcribed by

HULBERT FOOTNER

ILLUSTRATED BY E. C. CASWELL

THE season 1903-4 was a frost. It was after Christmas before I finally landed an engagement with George Maynooth's company. He was reviving “Esperanza,” a three seasons' favorite; and so many of us were “resting,” he had no difficulty in reassembling the original company except two or three. We gathered in Lyric Hall for rehearsals with the pleased expressions of dogs waiting for a bone at the table. The first I ran into was Velma Garvey, who embraced me like her long-lost mother.

“Darling Mrs. Barker!” she screamed, with a preliminary glance around to make sure she was well observed. Velma never misses an effect on or off. “How sweet to be reunited!”

“Delightful!” I gasped, straightening my hat after the impact.

“And how young you look!” she went on. “Positively, if you wouldn't let your hair go white, you could play ingénues!”

And me sixty-nine years old at the time! But I will say I have kept my figure.

“I am getting a divorce!” Velma announced, in a tragical whisper.

Velma's grievance was a hardy perennial, like “Uncle Tom's Cabin.”

“Haven't you got it yet?” I asked.

“No; but this time I mean it,” she insisted. “Weston Garvey is a brute! I shall never let him talk me around again.”

Velma is a heavy woman professionally—also naturally. At this time, she confessed to twenty-eight, to which one should add the usual time allowance of, say, ten years. But, as she used to say, with a cast-up of the eyes, she had the heart of a child. At other times, she said she was all heart. She palpitates with emotion. She is not classically beautiful. Indeed, I have heard a confirmed knocker describe her face as a large suet pudding with two lonely currants in it—but that was ill-natured. She makes up well. It is the ambition of her heart to play Juliet. I hope I shall live to see that performance.

While we waited for our cues, we took stock of our prospective companions of the road.

“Maberly is out, I see,” said Velma. “I suppose they couldn't pay his salary. They have a man called Carver Mellen for the heavy lead. That is he with the auburn hair. I wonder if he's married? What do you think of him?”

I saw a big man, who refused to recognize his fifty years in passing. Once upon a time, he had been a real beau, no doubt; and he had acquired a peevish expression because the world now refused to applaud him in his old part. Finding our eyes upon him, he assumed a very interesting, romantic expression.

“Romeo shopworn,” I murmured.

Velma never waits for the answers to her questions.

“Darling Mrs. Barker!” she screamed. “How sweet to be reunited!”

“They say we've got eight weeks of one-night stands,” she rattled on. “They're only giving out the route three weeks in advance for fear of kicks.”

“I'd be thankful to play the tank circuit on a season like this,” I said.

“And there's Ed Skelton,” she continued, without a pause for breath. “They've got him for treasurer again. What beautiful brown eyes!”

“Ed has grown fat,” I remarked. “He begins to look like a Bartlett pear stood upon little legs.”

“Did you hear that Dan Staley was starring Ed's wife, Dolly Evans Skelton, and she's dropped the Skelton off her paper, and is suing Ed for a divorce? Dan can do more for her than Ed, she says. How mercenary!”

There was no use trying to get a word in edgewise, so I gave up.

“Mr. Maynooth is bringing along his wife to play the lead and save expenses. Heavens! How she's gone off! No wonder she wears three veils. And Daisy Stryker is out with Raymond Vincil's company; so Dalley, the stage manager, is bringing his wife to play the maid's part. Fancy a French maid with her figure! Goodness! What a domestic company we'll be!”

Velma suddenly pulled herself up and turned a large, pale, meaningful face on me.

“Good heavens, Mrs. Barker!” she gasped. “Do you realize that this year I will be the only girl in the company! Oh, I'm so glad you will be along to mother me!”

During the first few days on the road, it seemed as if Velma's fears were to prove unfounded. She was not annoyed by the attentions of any of the men. She continued to carry her own valise; and no one forced himself on her in the trains, though the other half of her seat was often vacant.

One night when she came into my room for a chat—Velma loves to waft through hotel corridors in a blue kimono, with her hair down her back and a Lady Macbeth expression—I ventured to rally her a little.

“Isn't it nice,” I said, “that the men are such a quiet, sensible lot, and do not hang around and bother one?”

Velma favored me with a sharp glance, but did not see the hook, and swallowed it whole.

“Delightful!” she breathed. “I never knew before what it was to be left in peace. Anyway, they're an impossible lot!” she added. “That is, all except Mr. Mellen. Don't you think he plays the heavy part beautifully?”

“Excellent appetite for the scenery,” I suggested.

It did not get to her.

“His note of rough brutality is just right in those scenes,” she said. “I would like to tell him how much I admire his conception of the part.”

“Why don't you?” I said.

Velma turned an indulgent smile on me.

“Ah! If I were your age, dear Mrs. Barker, I could,” said she. “But coming from me it might be misunderstood. I have to be so careful.”

“Then don't tell him,” I said.

“But I think one always ought to say those things when one feels them,” she persisted. “Any real encouragement is rare enough, goodness knows!” She turned, and fussed at her hair in the mirror. “You might tell him what I think of his performance,” she said, very offhand. “That could do no harm.”

“All right,” I said amiably.

I told him the next night on the stage, while we were waiting in the entrance for our first-act cues. He received it with an expression of conscious merit; and, as soon as he came off, he sidled over to Velma to hear more of the same. She was very much astonished at his approach, but not repellant. Next morning, he carried her valise to the train, and thereafter they were inseparable. I generally tagged along behind, for he was perfectly well able to carry my little bag, too. It was funny to hear them talk. Neither paid the slightest attention to what the other said; and, while one was holding forth, the other would sit just bouncing with impatience to begin.

This went on for a few weeks; and then one night, when Velma and I were sharing the same dressing room, she confided to me over the make-up that Carver Mellen did not understand her.

“He's a dear boy,” she sighed; “but selfish, I fear. All my thoughts, and feelings, and aspirations fall upon deaf ears. He cares only to talk about himself.”

“I could have told you from the first that he would not make a good listener,” I suggested.

“His personal vanity is almost a mania,” Velma went on. “What do you think, he let his beard grow for three days to prove to me it was the same color as his hair, so I would not think he dyed?”

“Did you ever learn if he was married?” I asked.

“He is,” said Velma, “terribly so! She's in burlesque. 'The Cherry Blossom Girls.' A dreadful woman! He showed me a telegram from her the other day. It read: 'For Heaven's sake send me five dollars. Love and kisses. Estelle.' Just ten words.”

“Love and kisses thrown in,” I murmured.

Velma did not notice.

“I wish I could wake Carver up to the real big things of life!” she said thrillingly. “The things that take us out of ourselves, and make us akin to the angels.”

This was a line from Velma's part in “Hearts Athrob.”

“For instance?” I queried.

“I do not think the poor boy has ever been in love,” she sighed.

 

We had been out about five weeks, when it became known to the company that Dolly Evans had secured her divorce. I cannot say that we felt any overwhelming sympathy for her late husband. Ed Skelton was not popular in the company. He was too much inclined to think because he held our railway tickets, and herded us this way and that between musty railway stations and worse theaters, that he had a sort of mortgage on our souls. Ed was entirely too fond of getting us up at the screech of dawn when a later train would have done just as well—just to show us his authority, But there! I make a point of never kicking against the management. Still, everybody said Ed was too big for his shoes. No one was sorry when the doorkeeper at Edwardsville knocked him downstairs, or when he got a black eye somehow or other in Ithaca.

Velma, however, was convulsed with sympathy when she heard of the divorce. At the time, we were huddled in one of those wretched junction stations, with nothing to do but yawn and twiddle our thumbs.

“The poor man!” sighed Velma. “I alone can understand what he is suffering!”

“No one is divorcing you,” I suggested.

“It's the same thing,” she returned, with dignity. “I wish I could tell him what I feel.”

“No one is stopping you,” I said.

We could see the object of her commiseration through the window, walking up and down the platform with his head on his breast, and his hands clasped behind him, like Napoleon on the Bellerophon.

Velma shook her head.

“No, it might look unwomanly,” she said sweetly. “But I could write him a little note.”

She immediately busied herself with fountain pen and pad. At the end of half an hour, she showed me the result. It read something like this:

Dear Mr. Skelton: My heart goes out to you in your grievous loss, and I cannot help sending you these few lines of sympathy. I, too, have suffered. I knew and loved poor Dolly in happier days—Little Sunbeam we called her. The recollection of those days must be a strong consolation to you in your sorrow. That you may rise from it strengthened and ennobled is the heartfelt wish of your sincere friend,

Velma Garvey.

“Very pretty,” I said, handing it back. “But doesn't it sound a little as if Dolly were dead?”

“So she is,” returned Velma crushingly. “To him.”

“Oh!” I said.

“Strengthened and ennobled!” murmured Velma. “Don't you think that was well expressed?”

“Beautiful!” I said. “But—er—what would Carver Mellen say?”

“Carver Mellen has nothing to do with me,” she said quickly. She glanced at the heavy man where he sat having a snooze in the corner of the station. “Besides, dear Mrs. Barker,” she added penitently, “I'm afraid I have been seeing too much of Carver.”

Velma's windings are sometimes hard to follow.

“Eh?” I said, surprised.

Velma looked out of the window.

“They say Ed Skelton still has an interest in several good companies,” she said thoughtfully. She transferred her eyes to the corner of the station. “I do wish some one would tell Carver to keep his mouth shut when he sleeps,” she said irritably. “It looks so coarse! No, Mrs. Barker,” resuming her penitent air, “I must see less of him. My conscience has been troubling me! A married man!"

“But you're married yourself,” I exclaimed.

“Yes; but I'm almost divorced,” replied Velma, with dignity.

The note was sent, and Ed Skelton, presumably grateful for the proffered sympathy, gradually replaced Carver Mellen as the carrier of Velma's valise. When I sat behind them in the train, I could hear them talking by the hour about their respective divorces.

Carver Mellen did not seem to mind the changed state of affairs at all; but Velma was never the woman to let the matter drop so easily.

One day she announced to me in her tragical whisper:

“Mrs. Barker, they are talking about me.”

“I haven't observed it,” said I.

“Oh, yes,” she insisted. “I see them looking and whispering.”

“Then why not sit alone?” I suggested.

“It is my duty as a woman not to forsake poor Ed in his time of trouble,” she said.

Weeks of one-night stands had got on my nerves a little, and I was becoming weary of Velma's endless dramatics. I wanted to sleep.

“I do hope there won't be any trouble between them,” she breathed. “You are very close to Carver. You might find out delicately how he feels toward me.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” I said under my breath.

“A spark might precipitate an explosion at any moment,” she went on. “Ed is frightfully jealous. If Carver ever heard the frightful things he says about him——”

This was too much.

“If you keep them to yourself, he won't,” I said sharply.

Velma gave me “one look,” as she calls it, and arose with great dignity.

“Thank you,” she said magnificently. “I see what I have to expect from you in future.”

However, I had my nap in peace.

That finished me with Velma. She transferred her confidences to the wife of the stage manager. Fanny Dalley is dumpy, and keeps her hair blond, while Velma is majestic and dark; but inside they are much alike, a pair of child's balloons, the pair of them—inflated with emotional hydrogen. Velma whispered to Fanny, and Fanny whispered to Sid Covey, and Ben Brattle, and Carver Mellen; and whispering was soon general up and down the car aisles, and in the dressing rooms at night. I was glad I was out of it. Velma bore herself like a Christian martyr—and enjoyed it all thoroughly.

“Out you go, gooseberry!”

Scraps of a conversation I overheard between Fanny and Carver Mellen, while the train stood in a station, showed how it was brought about.

“You are so magnanimous, Mr. Mellen,” said she.

“Oh, Mrs. Dalley!” said he, assuming a magnanimous expression.

“Miss Garvey and you were good friends, of course—no more.”

“Sure!” he said. “She's welcome to go with Skelton. Miss Garvey's a fine actress undoubtedly; but a man would hardly think of her in a sentimental light; at least, not a man like me. Besides, I have a wife already.”

“Then there's nothing in all this talk!” said Fanny. “I'm so glad!”

“Who's been talking about me?” demanded Carver, interested immediately.

“Oh, I hear nothing,” said Fanny. “But unfortunately all men are not so high-minded as you are.”

“It's a man, is it?” said Carver. “Name him!”

“Indeed, I'll do no such a thing. It's only the little men who have envious natures, isn't it?”

“Skelton, by gad!” he cried. “The little gooseberry! I could squash him between finger and thumb!”

“Gooseberry!” said Fanny, giggling. “Oh, excuse me, but that is really so good.”

“What does he say about me?” demanded Carver.

“I am no mischief-maker,” said Fanny piously.

A good deal more of this passed back and forth before she finally murmured:

“Anyway, it's perfectly absurd to speak of a man like you in the fullness of his youth and powers as a 'has-been.'”

“A has-been!” cried Carver, with fire in his eye. “Did he say that? Me! Oh, the fat pug! The toad!”

And so the fuse was lighted.

 

After giving our performance in Plattsburg, we were routed out of bed before daylight on the coldest morning I can remember. Ordinarily the jump to Ogdensburg takes four hours, but we ran into a howling blizzard, and we were obliged to stop every few minutes to allow the engine, they told us, to get up steam enough to pull us a mile or two farther. At this rate, it was the middle of the afternoon before we reached Malone, halfway.

On a long, long day such as this, with everybody idle, and hungry, and peevish, all the little plots thicken and curdle. The car buzzed with whispering like a beehive. Fanny Dalley circulated busily from group to group. All day Ed Skelton and Carver Mellen glared at each other sidewise, like two strange dogs spoiling for a fight. Velma, palpitating with excitement, held the spotlight.

The car had only been prepared for a day journey, and, when the early darkness fell, it was found there was no oil in the lamps. They burned for a little while, then one by one sputtered and went out, and we rode in inky blackness. Carver Mellen was sitting with me, while Velma and Ed Skelton were some four seats ahead.

As the last light flickered out, Carver grumbled aloud: “Rotten mismanagement somewhere!”

I suppose that he meant the railroad; but a very sarcastic voice spoke out of the darkness ahead:

“Now for the anvil chorus!”

Of knockers, he meant.

“Have you ever noticed, Mrs. Barker,” said Carver, raising his voice, “that when a cap fits, it is generally put on?”

There was a silence in the dark car like just before a fearful thunderstorm at night. The rest of us sat there still as mice, not knowing what would happen next. I gathered that Velma was imploring Ed to be calm.

Said Ed to Velma:

“These prima donnas blame the management every time they get a sore toe.”

“A sore toe may be got in a good cause, Mrs. Barker,” said Carver significantly. I suppose he meant from kicking something offensive.

“Or from kicking a brick under a hat,” put in the voice ahead.

“Isn't it strange some people are so egotistical they apply everything you say to themselves?” said Carver.

“Ever hear about the peacock, Miss Garvey, who thought all the birds but himself were conceited?” drawled Ed.

This shot told. There was a burst of nervous laughter up and down the car. In the darkness, one could laugh without being accused of taking sides. Carver fumed beside me, searching for a crushing rejoinder. Finally he said grandly:

“Once a gentleman always a gentleman!”

I thought this rather feeble myself; but Carver was immensely pleased with it.

“Huh! The peacock's an amusin' bird,” came from ahead.

I always try to keep out of trouble myself; but a funny thing occurred to me, and, before I thought, I prompted Carver.

“How about the squab?” he asked.

It made a great hit with the company. Everybody roared.

“Let me go! Let me at him!” we heard Ed saying, in a muffled voice.

“Mrs. Barker,” Carver went on, “did you hear about the nut that was cracked on the stairs in Edwardsville, and the turnip that got bashed in Ithaca?”

“By gad! There's a red headlight going to be smashed right now!” roared Ed.

Everybody sprang up at once, and a scene of dreadful confusion followed. Fortunately the train had run into a snowdrift, and was standing still. Carver darted into the aisle, I after him. Some one else collided with me, and Carver escaped me. We were all in a bunch, You couldn't see your nose before your face. I grabbed somebody. Somebody else grabbed me. Everybody implored everybody else at the top of their voices to keep quiet. Velma was screeching like one possessed. Goodness knows what the other travelers in the car must have thought!

While we were clutching vainly at each other, the two adversaries escaped us. They must have picked each other in the dark by instinct. Suddenly, from the direction of the front door, we heard a great scuffling, and panting, and smacking, and swearing, and then the glass of the door went out with a horrifying crash.

He snapped his fingers under Velma's nose.

Velma screeched: “Oh, my poor Ed!”

We made a rush to separate them, but all got wedged in the aisle. One would have thought from the sounds that we were all fighting together. Before we got there, the door was banged open.

We heard Carver cry: “Out you go, gooseberry!”

“Oh, save him!” cried Velma.

As we reached the platform, the door of the smoker ahead was thrown open, and a brakeman appeared, holding up a lantern to see what was the matter. By its light, we saw Carver Mellen knee deep in a snowdrift below, holding Ed Skelton down, and vigorously washing his face with the cindery snow. Velma screeched again, and hid her face on my shoulder.

“Oh, why didn't Heaven make me an ugly woman!” she moaned.

Carver, when he saw us, left off, and, coolly lighting a cigarette, boarded the smoker. The other men helped poor Ed on our car, gasping and spluttering. The brakeman hung up his lantern to give us a little light. Ed was dropped into a seat beside Velma; and she borrowed all our handkerchiefs to mop his streaming face.

I found myself in the seat behind them. In the uproar, Velma had forgotten her differences with me. Finally, when things had quieted down, she turned to me, and said very impressively:

“Well, Mrs. Barker, at least no one can talk about me now!”

I confess I could not follow her reasoning.

 

The dove of peace returned to the company. Carver Mellen was given notice; but he said it was worth it. Ed Skelton wired to the management, in New York, to have a new man join us in Chicago. Ed was very subdued; and it was noticeable that he avoided Velma. It worried her, though she would not confess it.

“Ed doesn't wish to compromise me,” she explained. “He is waiting until after next Sunday. I respect him for his delicacy.”

It occurred to me he might have another reason.

“My case comes up on Wednesday,” Velma went on, “and my lawyer writes me there is not a doubt of our winning. I shall receive the notice of the decision in Chicago on Sunday. You and Fanny must come to the theater with me when I get my mail. I want my closest friends to share my happiness.”

And, as soon as we landed in Chicago, the three of us set off for the theater. Velma had put on her very best, and she bought roses for the three of us. One would have thought she was a bride welcoming the shackles, instead of striking them off. She asked us to lunch with her afterward.

Coming in from the street, it was some moments before we could accustom our eyes to the darkness of the stage. On our way across, we ran into a strange man.

“Hello!” he said familiarly.

Velma gave one look, gasped, staggered, and went off into violent hysterics. I got her a chair, and she dropped into it, moaning, crying, and clinging to us. Fanny and I were terribly distressed. Fanny ran to get her some water, while I slapped her hands, and begged her to control herself.

Through it all, the man stood looking at her sarcastically, and smoking. He was a lean man, with a long nose and a mop of lank, dust-colored hair. He was ordinary-looking except for his eyes, which were bright. His callousness exasperated me.

“Can you do nothing but stand there and smile at this poor woman's distress?” I said sharply.

He made a flourishing bow.

“Excuse my apparent hard-heartedness, ma'am,” he said. “But I am so accustomed to it.”

A ray of light began to filter through my brain.

“If you'll accept a suggestion from a mere man,” he went on, “you'll never cure her with your attentions. Sympathy only heaps fuel on the fire. Let me show you my way.”

Fanny and I were so astonished, we actually let him have his way. He snapped his fingers under Velma's nose.

“Shut up, pie face!” he said, with the utmost brutality. “Come to! Come to! You're making a perfect guy of yourself.”

To our astonishment, Velma sat bolt upright.

“Weston Garvey, I always said you were a brute!” she said.

“That's understood,” he said imperturbably. “Come to my arms, darling.”

And actually, after all she had said, she went to him, and, hiding her face on his shoulder, wept real tears. He patted her back, and gravely winked at Fanny and me.

“But the divorce?” I gasped.

“Up the spout,” he said. “'Judge,' says I, when I appeared before him; 'judge, your honor,' says I, 'my wife's all right, but she's just naturally got the artistic temperament. I'm terrible soft on the old girl, though she takes a deal of handling; but I can do it. It's this working in separate companies that makes trouble. We've been married fifteen years, and she's sued me for divorce ten times; but I always got hold of her in time. By a lucky chance, I've just landed an engagement in her company, and if you'll postpone this case, judge, I'll guarantee to fix things up. What's more, I'll guarantee that hereafter it'll be a joint engagement or none, and we won't make any further work for you, your honor.'”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“'Case dismissed.' And leans over and shakes me by the hand.”

Velma, still sniffling, raised her head and prodded her back hair. Suddenly she attacked her husband's shoulder.

“Weston Garvey,” she stormed, “you didn't brush your coat this morning. As for your tie—here, let me fix it!”

Weston winked at us again. I declare I began to like that man.

“Will you join wife and me in a little luncheon, ladies?” he said. “Just to celebrate this joyful reunion.”