The performance made amends to her for the rehearsal. The tragedian surpassed himself; and Madge was compelled to admire him, although he was in his fiftieth year and personally disagreeable to her. For her delivery of the soliloquy following her scene with him, she received, as her share of the enthusiasm he had excited, a round of applause which gratified her the more because she had no suspicion that he bad earned the best part of it. The scene of Ophelia’s madness was listened to with favor by the audience, who were impressed by the intensely earnest air which nervousness gave Madge, as well as by her good looks.
Next day she had leisure to study the part of Lady Anne in Cibber’s adaptation of “Richard III,” which was rehearsed on the Wednesday; and this time the tragedian was so overbearing, and corrected her so frequently and savagely, that when he handed her his sword, and requested her to stab him, she felt disposed to take him at his word. In the scene from Richard’s domestic life in which he informs his wife that he hates her, he not only spoke the text with a cold ferocity which chilled her, but cursed at her under his breath quite outrageously. At last she was stung to express her resentment by an indignant look, which fell immediately before his frown. When the rehearsal, which, though incomplete, lasted from eleven to four, was over, Madge was angry and very tired. As she was leaving, she passed near Richard, who was conversing graciously with the manager and one of the actors. The night before, he had threatened to leave the theatre because the one had curtailed his stage escort by two men; and he had accused the other of intentionally insulting him by appearing on the stage without spurs.
“Who is that little girl?” he said aloud, pointing to Madge.
The manager, surprised at the question, made some reply which did not reach her, his voice and utterance being less sonorous and distinct than the tragedian’s.
“Unquestionably she has played with me. I am aware of that. What is she called?”
The manager told him.
“Come here” he said to Madge, in his grand manner. She reddened and stopped.
“Come here,” he repeated, more emphatically. She was too inexperienced to feel sure of her right to be treated more respectfully, so she approached him slowly.
Who taught you to speak?
“A gentleman in London,” she said, coldly. “A Mr Jack.”
“Jack:” The tragedian paused. “Jack!” he repeated. Then, with a smile, and a graceful action of his wrists, “I never heard of him.” The other men laughed. “Would you like to tour through the provinces with me — to act with me every night?”
“Oho!”said the manager, jocularly, “I shall have something to say to that. I cannot afford to lose her.”
“You need not be alarmed,” said Madge, all her irritation suddenly exploding in one angry splutter. “I have not the slightest intention of breaking my present engagement, particularly now, when the most unpleasant part of it is nearly over.” And she walked away, pouting and scarlet. The manager told her next day that she had ruined herself, and had made a very ungrateful return for the kindness that she, a beginner, had received from the greatest actor on the stage. She replied that she was not conscious of having received anything but rudeness from the greatest actor on the stage, and that if she had offended him she was very glad. The manager shook his head and retired, muttering that a week’s leading business had turned her head. The tragedian, who had been, for so terrible a person, much wounded and put out of heart by her attack, took no further notice of her, demanding no fresh rehearsal of Ophelia, and only giving her a few curt orders in the small part of Marion Delorme. At last he departed from Nottingham; and Madge, for the first time since his arrival, lay down to sleep free from care.
Her next part was that of a peasant girl in an Irish melodrama. She looked very pretty in her Connemara cloak and short skirt, but was hampered by her stage brogue, which only made her accent aggressively English. During this period, she was annoyed by the constant attendance in the stalls of a young gentleman who flung bouquets to her; followed her to her lodging; and finally wrote her a letter in which he called her a fairy Red Riding Hood, describing his position and prospects, and begging her to marry him. Madge after some hesitation as to the advisability of noticing this appeal, replied by a note declining his offer, and requesting him to discontinue his gifts of flowers, which, she said, were a source of embarrassment, and not of pleasure, to her. After this, the young gentleman instead of applauding, as before, sat in his stall with folded arms and a gloomy expression. Madge, who was by this time sufficiently accustomed to the stage to recognize faces in the audience, took care not to look at him; and so, after a week, he ceased to attend and saw him no more.
The Irish melodrama passed on to the next town; and an English opera company came in its place for a fortnight, during which Madge found the time hung heavy on her hands, as she took no part in the performances, though she went to the theatre daily from habit. She was glad when she was at work again in a modern play with which a popular actress was making the tour of the provinces. This actress was an amiable woman; and Madge enacted Celia in As You Like It at her benefit without any revival of the dread of Shakespeare which the tragedian had implanted in her. She was now beginning to tread the boards with familiar ease. At first, the necessity of falling punctually into prearranged positions on the stage and of making her exits and entrances at prescribed sides, had so preoccupied her that all freedom of attention or identification of herself with the character she represented had been impossible. To go through her set task of speeches and man oeuvres with accuracy was the most she could hope to do. Now, however, there mechanical conditions of her art not only ceased to distract her, but enabled her to form plans of acting which stood the test of rehearsal. She became used to learning parts, not from a book of the play, but from a mere list of the fragments which she had to utter; so that she committed her lines to memory first, and found out what they were about afterwards. She was what is called by actors a quick study; and in Nottingham, where, besides the principal piece, one and often two farces were performed nightly, she had no lack of practice. In four months, she was second in skill only to the low comedian and the old woman, and decidedly superior to the rest of the stock company, most of whom had neither natural talent nor even taste for the stage, and only earned their livelihood