Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/500

 "Because you have been kind to me," written in large letters on the sack, which contained a bushel of potatoes, sent from an old woman last birthday.

Yet, a very precious present was given to her once. She was playing Frou-Frou in the provinces. One of the actors got to know that it was her birthday. In the last act of this play, when Frou-Frou is dying, she asks for her locket, in which rests the portrait of her little child. The locket was brought. Frou-Frou opened it, and there was a picture of her own two children. Needless to say, the acting at this moment did not lose in its intensity.

Together we looked through her album. A portrait of the Queen comes first, then follows a view of Hampton Court, where Miss Terry's first cottage was situated. The album is full of friends, and by the side of views of places visited are tiny flowers, bits of grasses and ivy gathered there. Both her children always give her a present on the first night of a play. Here is a faded rose from her daughter on the first night of "The Dead Heart," and next to it the original of a piece of music which her boy composed in honour of the event.

As we shut the album, Miss Terry cried out merrily:—

"Now let's go and see the hop-pickers. There will be plenty of time before dinner. Come along."

It was quite dark when we—Miss Terry, her daughter, and myself—got into the carriage. As we drove along the lanes of Kent, what merry stories we listened to!

"People think they see everything on the stage," Miss Terry said. "Nothing of the sort. Acting is an art which can show what you want to show, and hide what you want to hide. I remember years ago playing with a well-known actor. He was full of tricks, and was the possessor of a false tooth. In a certain play he was on the stage with me, and I had to sit with my face in full view of the audience. Suddenly—in a most serious part—he pulled out his handkerchief and put it to his mouth. I knew what was coming—I knew it—the false tooth! He dropped something from his handkerchief on the ground at my feet! I trembled—I could scarcely go on. The manager noticed it and at the conclusion of the scene came up.

Why, what has upset you, Miss Terry?'

I expect I did,' said the culprit, who was standing by; 'but I think it very hard on me that Miss Terry should be upset only because I let fall—an acid drop!

We had reached the hop-pickers, and our carriage drew up by the side of the hedge in the dark lane. It was a most impressive scene—the tents of the pickers standing out like phantoms, the whole thing being made all the more weird by the light of the fires over which the hoppers were bending, cooking their evening meal. It was all so silent, save for the voice of a hop-picker who would suddenly shout out some command, or the cry of a child; for the tiniest of workers may be found "helping mother" in the fields by day. I can see Miss Terry now, as she stood up in the carriage and looked upon this striking picture.

"If that could only be reproduced on the stage!" she said. "Look at it now. Wait a moment—until it is very still. Now. Now what does it look like? Why, the finest idea of a battle-field by night it is possible to have."

As we drove back again we stopped for a moment to hear the owls hissing amongst the ivy which covers the walls of the old church. How they hissed—a positive warfare in hissing!

Miss Terry leant across to me, just as an extra strong noise came from the ivy, and said merrily:—

"I don't think I have ever been hissed, but in future I shall come here and study my parts. Then I shan't get vain!"