Skylark (8 page)

T
HE JOURNAL OF
L
ILY
A
LOUETTE CONTINUES …

S
CENE:
The Royal Victoria Theatre, Wellington

I am introduced to the dramatic arts

I never understood, until I entered theatrical employ, what an uncompromising, driving monster of a woman was Mrs W.H. Foley. Not three days in Wellington and she had me on stage, playing a cripple in
The Hunchback!
Well, the part was small and not really a cripple, but Mrs Foley was short of an actress, so she thrust me into the part.

‘Hold your head up! Up, up, up!' she cried, as I tried to keep the broom under my armpit steady while I hopped across the stage to deliver a letter to her.

‘Oh dear God, that voice will not carry past the two-shilling seats! Louder! And smile prettily, a pout will never win hearts.'

And so on. My ankle was a raging pit of fire; I missed Maria, Tommy and the circus family; I was hungry, tired and ready to fall in a heap of tears. But Mrs Foley drove me on. Drove the whole company. We had five days to prepare not only
The Hunchback!
but the farce which followed. What was it?
The King's Gardener, or, Nipped in the Bud
, I fancy. Not a great piece. Crude and rude. But popular with the mechanicals who made up the bulk of our audience. My task was to shake out Mrs Foley's wardrobe, heat the flat-iron and smooth the worst of the wrinkles, bring her flask of ‘cordial' to her in between acts, and perform whenever she was short.

I should have hated it. I could have run away — or at least hopped! Truth to tell (once the pain in my ankle became bearable) I loved every madcap, rowdy, terrifying minute.

The Royal Victoria in Willis Street was a large room behind the Ship Hotel. It had served on and off as a theatre for nearly a decade, and showed it: the paint peeling off the walls, the gas lamps lacking glass here and there, the benches and seats stained and chipped. But once a new backdrop was painted and the actors gaudily strode over the raised stage, all the drab was forgotten as the audience was transported to grand halls of England, bright Turkish tents or a leafy English countryside.

Mr Marriott, who owned the theatre, was a marvel. What couldn't that man do or make? He had built the theatre, ran a clock-making business, and acted the villain or the hero with enormous dash. He could recite whole scenes from Shakespeare without glancing at any book or calling for a prompt. He designed the billboards and had them printed, and often painted the flats. His English manor scenery was truly beautiful. It always received applause, even though he said he had painted it years ago. The two big flats ran together from each side of the stage to make a marvellous whole, and then drew back again in a trice — some mechanical magic that I could not fathom — to reveal a flat behind, painted most realistically to show all the finery of a duke's grand parlour! That wonderful scenery transformed all on stage; suddenly we adopted all the airs and graces of lords and ladies. Oh, it was wonderful!

In those days Mrs W.H. Foley was famous throughout the length and breadth of the country (and Australia and California too, if the lady herself were to be believed) but to my mind Mr Marriott deserved plaudits and bouquets just as numerous. His wife, they said, was back in England with several of his children, but that did not deter Mrs Foley from casting her eyes (and other parts of her anatomy) in his direction. She was a terrible woman for luring men away from their wives. For all that, Mr Marriott did not appear to fall for her wiles and she had to make do with one of the gentleman amateurs for escort.

When the settlement of Wellington was still an infant, Mr Marriott had built this theatre, and persuaded people to come and enjoy themselves at a time when most minds were fixed on hammering nails, laying bricks and clearing bush. Mr Marriott had the foresight to see that ‘man cannot live by hard work alone' (if I have got the saying correct).

‘We all need the release of a good cry and a guffaw, not to mention a fright or two,' he would say in his lovely golden voice. ‘We may be rough pioneers, set down in a wild and trying clime, but we are members of the human race all the same.'

How true. A sentiment I have often repeated to Jack.

After we'd been performing several weeks and I was able to walk after a fashion, Mrs Foley decided I must have a stage name. ‘Nothing too fussy,' she boomed. ‘Short enough to fit on the programme.' She studied me, pursed her lips, muttered to herself.

‘My name is Lily,' I offered, at which she frowned.

‘No, no, no, we have a Lily. Rosie will suit. Miss Rosie Short.'

And that was that. I hated the name, so ugly and dull. But in truth I didn't often play under my stage name. In that first year I was dogsbody. Understudy to everyone. Whenever an amateur lady was indisposed with her monthly, or a pregnancy, I was charged with learning the lines quickly and imitating as best I could the style of the actress in question. So I played dying heiresses, surly country wenches, haughty countesses and sometimes raggedy young boys, all under the name of whoever had fallen ill. To change the name on the programme would have been too much bother for the busy Mrs Foley.

Audiences loved her. Her name on the billboards and in the newspaper advertisements was always writ bold and large. She was cheered as she made her grand entrance on stage, no matter if it was a tense dramatic moment, requiring the rest of the cast to wait mid-declamation. Often she would hold up the drama to sing a favourite song, quite unsuitable for the sense. The audience loved it all.

Once, I recall, a rough fellow brought his dog into the
two-shilling 
benches. The man was clearly drunk and the dog in a frenzy of yipping and growling. Of course we were used to rowdy audiences and drunkenness, but this was more than Mrs Foley could accept. She broke off in the middle of a dramatic scene, where she was about to be abducted by the villain, played by Mr Marriott. One moment her hand was to her forehead as she fell into a screaming faint, the next she was fully recovered and striding down to the footlights.

‘This play will not go on,' she projected in her most ominous tones, ‘until that lewd fellow and his dog are removed from My Theatre!'

The crowd, made restless by the rude antics of the man and the noisy dog, fell silent immediately. All eyes turned to the fellow, who wagged his silly head, but sat down again. Mrs Foley waited. The crowd began to growl. Slowly the fellow staggered out, aided none too gently by several of the audience. Even then Mrs Foley would not continue. She strode from the stage, stating grandly that she was too upset to continue.

Mr Marriot appealed for calm. He was a real gentleman, James Marriott, quietly spoken, very handsome and wonderful in dramatic roles. I saw him do a whole evening of Shakespearean characters once; he had me in tears from start to finish. Well, he rushed Mr Ackroyd on stage to do a couple of his comic songs, while backstage Mr Marriot sweet-talked the bad mood out of the lady. Finally, the celebrated Mrs Foley consented to finish the melodrama. Oh, yes, my dears, she was Queen of the Theatre, no doubting that.

About a month after we had arrived, near Christmas I think it was, Jack turned up, bright as a penny, sitting in the three-shilling seats and clapping and cheering, just as he'd done at the circus. I was struggling with a Scottish accent, playing Mrs Heskitt in the
Highlander's Revenge, or, the Fatal Prophet!
One of the lady amateurs had fallen ill at the last moment. It was not a big part, but Jack cheered me on and off stage, to Mrs Foley's annoyance. Naturally she played Martha McAlpine, though she was far too old for the heroine. In the interlude Jack called for a song from the ‘Lady
Amateur', as my part was billed. Mr Marriott gave me the nod: Mrs Foley was backstage having her ‘nip'. So I sang ‘The Lost Child' for Jack, as sweetly as I could. His admiring face was a pleasure after all Mrs Foley's frowns.

Fancy him giving up his good position with Doctor Ingram to follow me to the city! I told him he was foolhardy, as Mrs Foley had a keen eye for money, and would likely be moving north or south as soon as the Wellington audience found our fare growing stale.

‘But Lily,' he cried, ‘I have a good position here, at the Baron's. I can take you away from all this sordid life. We could get married at once.'

‘Sordid!' I wouldn't speak to him for a week. He came to the theatre when his tasks allowed, and enjoyed our entertainments; he clapped and cheered along with the rest. And drank his pint. And hissed the villain. What did he find sordid, I wanted to know, when I finally spoke to him again?

‘It's not a proper life for a lady,' he said lamely.

All very well, but he couldn't have it both ways. The crowd liked me, I could tell. Jack was proud of my singing and my good looks. Rosie Short's name had been up on the billboards more than once, and I was called on for a song now and then.

‘This is my life,' I told him. ‘I want to be as famous as Mrs Foley, and one day I will be. I don't want to settle down, Jack.'

The truth was that Jack was older than me by several years. He was ready for a wife and children and the status that gives a man in society. But my heart, I believe, was still childish. Perhaps the loss of parents and hometown had kept me from developing. Perhaps I needed a family more than a husband. Many
sixteen-year
-olds were ready for marriage, but I was not. It hurt poor faithful Jack, but I was not ready to break from theatre life, my new family, so soon.

But alas, the dreadful aftermath of the January celebrations shook my resolve.

T
HE
F
IRST
A
BDUCTION
S
CENE

Enter the blackguard

Now we have come to the villain. Be ready to hiss. It is the latest fashion in melodramas in England to hiss and boo the villain. The louder the better. And it is catching on in New Zealand too. Imagine you are here, in the Royal Victoria Theatre, Willis Street, Wellington. It is about nine p.m. on Tuesday the twenty-third of January, 1855. The theatre is packed with a noisy, revelling crowd, many of them from out of town. This is the end of a
two-day
holiday, celebrating fifteen years of European settlement in Wellington. The melodrama has finished and also the musical interlude. Stage hands are rolling away the painted backdrop of the fearsome Duke’s castle and sliding into place the sunny picture of thatched cottages and colourful hollyhocks for that hoary old farce, favourite of all and sundry,
The Village Lawyer
.

Every detail of that night is etched into my memory. Mr Marriott was onstage, warming up the audience with a few bumbling antics; I stood behind the backdrop, buttoning on my smock with one hand and dabbing a little rouge on my pretty cheeks with the other. Mrs Foley had gone back to her boarding house.

Old Mr Franklin played a chord on the piano, and Mr Marriott clapped his hands for attention. ‘Lovely little Miss Rosie will now sing to us that sweet old number “Kate Kearney”, to remind us of all our loved ones back in the Home Country.’

But the crowd was ready for the farce. Someone called for
The Village Lawyer
and the chant went up. There I was, marooned on stage, scarcely able to hear the opening chords. I swallowed
and took a deep breath as Mrs Foley had taught me. In those days I had not the knack of quieting an unruly audience. ‘Stage Presence’, Mrs Foley called it. At this moment a large fellow seated near the back in the five-shilling seats rose.

‘That’s enough o’ that,’ he bellowed. ‘Let’s have silence for little Rosie.’

The man had a strange effect on the audience. Those close to him looked away; those in front turned to see who was shouting, then quickly returned their eyes to the stage. The silence was profound and eerie. I had the feeling that the crowd knew and feared him — or were they in awe? The big fellow was not dressed like a wealthy man: his jacket was rumpled, his collar open. The cap he wore had seen better days. He stood there, dark-haired, burly, belligerent, swinging his body from side to side, fists on hips as if ready to clout anyone within reach.

Still standing, he nodded to the stage. ‘On with it then, Rosie my dear,’ he said with a wink and a grin. ‘They’ll listen to ye now.’

I opened my mouth to sing. No sound emerged, for at that moment I felt a slow rumble growing in the room. Were the patrons angry? The room swayed and oh! I suddenly felt I would faint. Was I ill? Had I stood too long on my injured foot? Then a grinding, roaring hell threw the whole theatre into panicked confusion. I fell to the floor; it heaved up to meet me. One of the gas lamps crashed to the stage; the other swung wildly as if a great wind was rushing through the room. Did I scream? I suppose so. We all screamed, but even that noise was swamped by the roar of — of what? The whole world, it seemed, was groaning, tearing itself apart. Pray you never have to live through such a terrifying experience. No one could stand. Heaps of shouting, fearful bodies writhed on the floor among tumbled chairs and benches. The glass of a window shattered with an explosion like gunfire.

And then it was over. The rumble died away like thunder in a retreating storm. The building rocked gently, occasionally breaking into a trembling, then subsiding again. I dared to open my eyes and found the burly fellow from the audience bending
over me. I had no idea who he might be, but any helper in this fearful maelstrom was welcome. None too gently, he hauled me to my feet and dragged me through the back entrance and away down Willis Street towards the sea.

‘We’ll make for the ship!’ he shouted. ‘That’ll be safer.’

‘What is it, what is it?’ I sobbed. My leg hurt; the street was full of running, shouting people; a kicking horse lay on his side, his cart overturned and the goods tumbled everywhere. My rescuer stopped to examine the wreckage, picked up a box in one hand, then dragged me along with the other.

‘An earthquake, that’s what,’ he said. ‘I never felt worse. This damned hell-hole. It’s a death-trap.’

On we ran to the jetty. The planks were twisted this way and that, some of the piles listing drunkenly.

‘Oh God!’ shouted the man in a rage. ‘My boat is high and dry! Would you look at it!’ His little row-boat sat on the mud, where once sea had lapped. But at that moment we saw the strangest thing. Slowly the tide began to run in, not wavelet by wavelet like any normal incoming tide, but in a steady stream, rising as we watched. The boat began to bob and then to rock, straining against its rope.

Captain Hayes, for that was his name, jumped down into the little clinker, handed me and the box aboard, cast off, and began to row before I had time to wonder what was afoot. At first he could make no progress at all against the steady shoreward flow, then all of a sudden the tide reversed and we were heading out into the harbour at a great pace. Captain Hayes muttered and growled, watching over his shoulder as he tried to steer us toward his ship: a two-masted brig, anchored in the bay.

As we approached he bellowed orders. ‘We’re coming in too fast! Throw a rope! For God’s sake you idiots, shake a leg or we’ll be swept over to the other shore!’

A pair of frightened, moonlit faces appeared over the side; then a lantern and a snaking rope. Captain Hayes grabbed at the rope most handily and held on grimly. The fierce tide wanted to take us out, but for what seemed like an hour he held us there
against the side of the ship. To make matters worse, a fierce wind blew from the north. At last the flow ebbed and we were able to scramble aboard.

‘Well, now,’ he grinned at me, panting after all his exertions. ‘Let us make our introductions. Captain William Hayes at your service! You’ll have heard of me?’

I had not, but he seemed in high good spirits now, so I thought it best not to disappoint him. Something made me hesitate over my real name. I introduced myself as Miss Rosie and thanked him for the rescue.

‘All in a day’s work for Bully Hayes,’ he shouted. The fellow seemed to have only one style of speech: a full-throated bellow. But his manner, at first, was kind enough. Something about his face reminded me of Papa: the dark eyes, perhaps, and the way they crinkled when he smiled.

‘Come below and we’ll have a bite and a sup to calm our nerves. There will be more shocks, mark my words. Houses will be tumbling ashore, chimneys crashing. We are safest here awhile.’

Just then the ship shuddered as if she had hit a rock. Captain Hayes jumped to his feet and swore. He had the foulest mouth on him when roused. Out of the cabin he strode, shouting for his men, berating them for being lazy stupid —s. In fact we were not on rocks at all but experiencing another shock, up from the
sea-bed
and through the timbers of the ship. A strange, unsettling feeling, as we were apparently in several fathoms of clear water. In a few minutes we were aground, the anchor-chain lying loose on a greasy sea-bed, which, said the Captain grimly, had not seen open air since Adam walked the earth. The ship tilted drunkenly, while captain and crew ran uselessly back and forth. Ten minutes more and we were slowly but surely righting as the tide or shock-wave refloated us. I began to doubt we were safer afloat than back on dry land.

Ashore we could see two big fires: houses burning, by the look, and people running on the sand. My heart beat to think of Jack. He was bound to be searching for me, if he wasn’t trapped himself somewhere among the rubble. But it seemed churlish to
suggest to my rescuer that we return after all his efforts on that fearsome night.

‘By Jesus,’ swore Captain Hayes, his eye to his spy-glass, ‘the houses along Lambton Quay are two feet in water!’ He turned to me grinning. ‘You’ll not forget this night!’

I believe he was enjoying the disaster.

Then for perhaps an hour the strange rise and fall of the water calmed, and the Captain took me below to finish our interrupted supper.

He toasted me with his mug of liquor and spoke soft as a dove for a change. ‘Well, my sweetheart, I have seen you at the theatre four times now, and every night more beautiful, with a voice to put angels in the shade.’ My fingers were grasped in his hot hand and kissed one by one. ‘’Tis an honour to rescue such an entertainer. Think,’ he said, wagging his big head and grinning, ‘what a loss to mankind should you have been killed in that disaster.’

But the shock was beginning to tell on my reserves and all his flattery was lost on me. I could scarcely hold my eyes open. I began to shake. The Captain stroked and gentled me with kind words. He laid me on a bunk and brought me a tot of foul and fiery liquid: rum, he said. But I would take no more than a sip, which was just as well, as I would shortly be in need of a clear head.

I fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion, an hour or five, I know not. I woke with the Captain’s hands fumbling at my clothes and a great stink of liquor fuming from his panting mouth. Roughly I pushed him away, but he came back at me with renewed vigour.

‘Captain!’ I cried. ‘What are you thinking? Are you drunk?’ I landed a stinging slap on the side of his face.

He reared back then, surprised, but grinning in a very unpleasant manner. ‘Miss Rosie,’ he said, ‘you are a lady of the theatre, which I understand to mean — shall we say — a lack of scruples when it comes to certain matters? I am a sea captain and a trader. The same applies. Surely we can come to an arrangement suitable to both?’

I was outraged to think he might view me thus. Or view my
new profession thus. Mrs Foley would have put him right on that matter. She was forever warning the younger ladies in the cast to beware the attentions of the rougher element among our audiences. He listened to my protestations, head on one side, smiling as if I were some child to be humoured. I
was
a child! And told him so. Thus not one to be treated in this coarse manner.

‘Well then,’ he sighed, ‘it seems as if I am at fault.’ He bowed to me. ‘My apologies. I had not taken you for a lady. Go back to sleep and we will see in the morning what is about on shore.’

He left me then, but I dared not fall asleep. He seemed kind, even charming, but could I trust one who changed from hot to cool so quickly? I began to realise how foolish I had been to come aboard with him. I resolved to keep watch, while feigning sleep on my stuffy little bunk in the dark.

Towards morning there came the thump of a rowboat on the side of the ship. It was my good fortune that it had come abreast immediately opposite my bunk. A voice hailed the Captain. I could hear the shouted exchange clearly.

‘I am taking a boatload of homeless folk to temporary quarters on HMS
Pandora
,’ shouted a voice from the craft alongside. ‘Commander Drury has offered help. Will you do the same? There’s a hundred or more terrified souls waiting on the beach.’

‘My apologies, but we cannot help,’ replied the Captain. ‘I am casting off directly for the Pacific Islands. At any rate we are a trading ship and have space only for my crew.’

Casting off directly! Was I to be abducted? In a trice I was out of the bunk and up the companionway to the deck. Fortunate for me that I had spent hours with Mr Rossiter at Foley’s Circus. I was over the side, scrambling hand over hand down the mooring rope and into the surprised arms of the fellow who held it.

‘Cast off, cast off!’ I shouted.

The man did so, more out of surprise than good management, and set to his oars.

To my surprise, Captain Hayes was more amused than en raged. Peering down over the side, he let out a great guffaw. ‘Oh-ho, an acrobat as well as an actress! Well, Miss Rosie, we will no
doubt meet again. I will never be thwarted, as many will tell you. Our paths will cross, be sure of that. Grow up quickly, my dear!
Au revoir
!’

Over the next five years, as I travelled the length and breadth of New Zealand with Mrs Foley, learning my craft, performing in every manner of theatre and room, I would remember Captain Hayes’s promise that we would meet again. His face, his bold manner, his strange hypnotic charm all dogged me. I both feared and hoped to see him. I think now that the emotional experience of that dreadful earthquake somehow also heightened my memory of the Captain. How else can I explain my later behaviour?

[Archivist’s Note: At my publisher’s request I here insert a chapter from the second journal, written by Samuel Lacey. It concerns his father, Jack Lacey’s, memories of the same earthquake. There may be some discrepancies between the two accounts, granted. But memory is a selective faculty, as any archivist or historian knows only too well. My publisher, naturally cautious, fears that Lily Alouette’s account is fanciful. There is no record, she points out, that Bully Hayes was in Wellington at the time. True. But there is no historical detail to prove that he was not. The earthquake occurred at a time when we have very few records of that infamous pirate’s movements. Furthermore, I must point out that Lily’s mention of HMS
Pandora
and Commander Drury is verifiable. How would she know this detail if she had not been on the harbour that night? E. de M.]