Only a Dream Read online

  Then she laughed at the idea as being quite ridiculous.

  Ever since she could remember her mother had forbidden her to have anything to do with the theatrical side of her father’s life.

  She had been to the theatre, but not to see him.

  Instead, her mother had taken her to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear and Hamlet.

  She had also seen The Silver King, a great melodrama acted by Wilfred Barrett, the great romantic actor.

  She watched him in Hamlet and in a play called Junius written by Bulwer-Lytton, which was a failure.

  Last year Wilfred Barrett had presented and acted Clito, a tragedy set in Athens in 500 B.C.

  It was not a financial success but an artistic one.

  It made Isla know what she wanted of life, the noble and spiritual love that lifted those who found it up to the stars.

  Strangely it was an absolute rule that she should never see her father perform.

  What was more, she was not even allowed to be known as an actor’s daughter.

  Her mother, by some means she had not understood, had managed to get her into a school that was a Seminary for Young Ladies.

  Before that she had a Governess and her mother also had taught her.

  When she was fourteen, after a great deal of talk in which she did not join, she was finally told that she was to be a pupil at one of the most expensive schools in London.

  But, and this was most important, it was not to be known that she was the daughter of Keegan Kenway.

  “But why not, Mama?” Isla had asked.

  At first her mother had not answered the question and then she said,

  “You know, dearest, what a success Papa is on the stage and it would be very embarrassing if the girls were always talking about him and perhaps asking you for his autograph.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would be a little – uncomfortable,” Isla agreed.

  “What is more,” her mother said, “I have a feeling that the Head Mistress, who is very impressed by the aristocracy, would think that the daughter of an actor should not associate with those who are born into a different way of life.”

  “Do you mean she disapproves of actors, Mama?”

  “Yes, I mean exactly that,” her mother had answered.

  “Then perhaps it would be a mistake for me to go to that school and be among – people who would – look down on Papa.”

  Isla knew as soon as she spoke that she had said the wrong thing.

  There was a hard note in her mother’s voice when she replied,

  “You will do what I want you to do! You have to be properly educated and one day you will thank me.”

  She paused before she had added,

  “And who knows, you might one day have to earn your own living.”

  “How could I do that, Mama?”

  “I have no idea,” her mother replied, “but if Papa cannot leave you any money, and if you don’t get married, at least you will have some means of supporting yourself.”

  There was almost a note of despair in her mother’s voice and Isla had said quickly,

  “Of course I will do anything you want, Mama, but it does seem strange.”

  “I have told the Head Mistress that your name is Isla Arkray and that you come from Scotland. Arkray, like Isla, is a Scottish name!”

  “I hope I shall remember it!” Isla had said.

  “It was, in fact, the name of your grandmother.”

  “Is my grandmother still alive?”

  “No, dearest, she has been dead a long time and so have my other relatives.”

  Her mother had turned away as if she did not want to talk about it anymore.

  It was only when she was older that Isla thought it strange that her mother seldom if ever talked about her childhood and never of her father and mother.

  All she knew was that she had lived in Scotland and that seemed very far away.

  She had, therefore, gone to school as ‘Isla Arkray’ and, because she was very intelligent, had moved quickly into a class where the girls were older than she was.

  As a newcomer she never had a chance of talking very much.

  After her mother died, she left school and it seemed extraordinary that she had been there so long without anyone suspecting that she was Keegan Kenway’s daughter.

  Very occasionally he would bring the Manager of the theatre or a very distinguished actor back home.

  They would tell Isla how clever her father was and how much they admired him and yet she had the impression that her mother did not welcome people from the theatre coming to the house.

  When she went out with her husband to parties and Isla saw her mother dressed for the evening, she thought that there could be nobody as beautiful as she was.

  That was exactly what her father thought too.

  “Wherever I take your mother, she is always the belle of the ball!” he would say. “And my friends tell me that I am the luckiest man in the world, which, of course, I am!”

  “And you are so handsome, Papa, I expect that the ladies think Mama is very lucky too!”

  Her father had laughed and she had known that the compliment pleased him.

  When she had been in the hall to see them step into the hansom cab, which was waiting for them outside, she thought it impossible that any two people could look so entrancing.

  She was aware that none of the fathers of the girls at school could rival her own.

  They would usually arrive in smart carriages driven by a coachman in uniform with a cockade in his top hat and a footman sitting beside him.

  Their mothers would wear large crinolines and smart bonnets that were very elegant.

  But when Isla compared their faces with her mother’s, she knew that no money or title could make ant of the ladies as beautiful as ‘Mrs. Arkray’. She and her mother would walk away from the school and take a horse-drawn bus, which would carry them as near as possible to their little house.

  It was tucked away in a narrow road not far from the Chelsea Hospital.

  Isla thought it very romantic because the hospital had been founded by Nell Gwynne in the days of Charles II.

  She was quite sure that, if King Charles were still on the throne, he would find her father entertaining and perhaps they would all be asked to Court at the Palace of Westminster.

  However, she had been told that Queen Victoria, although she patronised the legitimate theatre, disapproved of the Music Hall.

  One thing was quite certain, neither she nor her mother would ever be invited to Buckingham Palace.

  However, there were compensations, such as when her mother took her to the Crystal Palace, the Zoo at Regent’s Park and what she enjoyed most of all, the British Museum.

  It was then she realised how very well educated her mother was, for she knew a great deal about almost every exhibit.

  “Where did you go to School, Mama?”

  “In Edinburgh.”

  “In Scotland?”

  “It was a very good school and taught me a great deal. And Edinburgh was a very enjoyable City to live in when I grew older.”

  Her eyes seemed to be looking back into the past as she said,

  “There were lots of balls and, before I was old enough for them, there were parties for the young.”

  Isla had been enchanted, but, when she wanted to question her mother further, she could elicit no more information and she gradually learnt that her mother had no wish to talk of her childhood, but only of her husband.

  He was certainly an exciting person to talk about.

  When Isla was old enough, she accompanied him on the piano when he practised the songs he sang.

  She found the way he sang fascinating.

  He could turn himself from a ‘la-di-da’ smart young man-about-town into a Cockney, selling his wares in the market while he extolled them in song.

  What she liked best was when he sang the classical ballads, for which she knew he would be dressed in the armour of a Knight or as
some Shakespearean character.

  It was after he joined The Oxford Music Hall that he was identified as an ‘upper class swell’ and became the outstanding figure whom all London recognised.

  Only when her mother died was Isla aware of the very large part she had played in pushing him to the top.

  She would make him practise a ballad over and over again and she would criticise his movements, his gestures, and the inflections of every word he sang.

  It was only when her mother was no longer there that Isla realised he would never have been the success he was without her.

  Lying in her small bed in the room not far from where her father was sleeping, Isla prayed to her mother for help,

  ‘What am I to do about Papa, Mama?’ she asked. ‘He must have the benefit and anyway it will depress and upset him if he cannot appear when so many people go to the Music Hall just to see him.”

  As she prayed, she remembered what her father had suggested just before he fell asleep.

  She had thought that it was an absurd idea. If it was possible, she wanted to help him, but, if that involved her going on the stage, she was sure that it was something he would never allow her to do.

  She knew what her mother had felt about her going to the theatre.

  “Why can I not see Papa?” she had asked.

  “Because I do not wish you to be known as ‘Keegan Kenway’s daughter’,” her mother answered.

  “But I am proud to be Papa’s daughter!”

  “I want you to be proud to be yourself,” her mother had argued. “You are very lovely, my dearest, and you have a very good brain. You have to learn to stand on your own feet.”

  “I still cannot understand why that prevents me from watching Papa perform! We could sit in the ‘pit’ and no one would realise that we were there!”

  Her mother’s lips had tightened and she knew that had been the wrong thing to say.

  “Please, Mama, let me go just once and watch Papa do that song we were rehearsing yesterday. It has a beautiful tune and he sings it magnificently.”

  “I have said ‘no’ and I will not discuss it any further!” her mother had replied.

  Because she knew that she had denied Isla something she really wanted, she had taken her instead to the National Gallery.

  They had walked round looking at the pictures, admiring and discussing each one.

  Her mother had been able to tell her stories of the artists and also to point out the different ways, methods and styles they were painted in.

  It had been delightful and Isla loved being with her mother.

  At the same time she still longed, if only once, to go to the Music Hall.

  ‘Supposing I do help Papa by taking the place of the lady in the picture,’ Isla said to herself in the darkness, ‘it would not be difficult. I can waltz very well. My dancing master commended me the last term before I left school.’

  She thought that she could wear one of her mother’s gowns, which were very much more elaborate than anything she possessed.

  There had been a great banquet the year before her mother died given for all the leading actors and actresses of the London theatres in which, to his delight, her father had been included.

  Her mother had worn a large crinoline of very soft blue silk, ornamented with tiny bunches of musk roses. The wide bertha was of lace embroidered with pearls and diamonds like drops of dew.

  “You look exactly like a Fairy Princess, Mama!” Isla had said as her mother kissed her good night. “I wish I was coming with you!”

  “I wish you were too,” her father had said, “but it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to squeeze any more people round the banqueting table tonight!”

  Isla had laughed.

  “That is because the ladies’ crinolines take up so much room!”

  “I agree with you,” her father had replied. “Equally it makes it more difficult for the gentlemen to dance too close to your mother, which otherwise would make me very jealous and that is something I will not allow!”

  Her mother had smiled.

  “The only person I want to dance with is you, darling,” she said, “and if anybody is going to be jealous, it is me!”

  Her father kissed her.

  “You are not only the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said, “but to me you are perfection and everything that a man could ask of a woman.”

  He had kissed her again before he said,

  “The truth is – I love you!”

  Isla had seen the happiness in her mother’s eyes and told herself that was what she wanted when she married.

  They drove away and she had gone back into the house, closing the door.

  She knew that many people lived in great houses and had very expensive carriages.

  But wherever her father and mother went there was love and that was more important than anything else.

  She had, however, felt lonely as she went up to bed.

  ‘Perhaps no one will ever love me,’ she thought sadly.

  Then she remembered that she resembled her mother. It was what her father had said often and also the occasional men from the theatre who had come to the house.

  “It’s not fair, Keegan,” one of them had said, “that you should have a whole theatre of women applauding you when you are on the stage and two such beautiful ones waiting for you when you come home.”

  “I am very grateful for their attention,” her father had replied, “and you can understand now why I come home as soon as the show is over.”

  That had been true when her mother was alive.

  Now, Isla thought sadly, she was not important enough in her father’s life to prevent him from staying out night after night and drinking too much.

  Although she hardly dared express it to herself, she knew that he was not looking as handsome as he had been in the past.

  “I must help him! I must!” she cried out aloud.

  She had the uncomfortable feeling that, if he could not take part in the benefit tomorrow night, he would drink even more heavily than usual to assuage his disappointment.

  ‘Surely there is somebody who can help him?’ she asked, thinking how little she knew of the theatre.

  Once again she was thinking of the strange thing he had said when he told her she could take Letty’s place.

  ‘I could do it! I know I could do it!’ Isla whispered to herself.

  She had an impulse to go into his bedroom and talk it over with her father and then she realised that he would be fast asleep by now.

  It would be sleep induced by the large amount of alcohol he had consumed, which would result in him waking up in the morning with a dry mouth and an aching head.

  She felt as if everything was too difficult for her to cope with and, like a child frightened in the dark, she cried out for her mother,

  “Help me Mama, oh – please – please help us! Everything has gone wrong without you – and I am afraid for Papa – and, if he goes on like this, what will – happen to – both of us?”

  Her voice seemed somehow to be lost in the darkness and she thought that her mother did not hear her.

  Then it was almost as if her mother was in the room, talking to her as she had when she was small and had woken up crying because of a bad dream.

  ‘It will be all right, darling,’ she could hear her mother saying. ‘Quite all right in the end.’

  Chapter Two

  Isla stayed awake most of the night worrying over her father and especially the benefit.

  By the morning, when she had slept for a short while, she had decided the only thing that could be done was for her to take Letty Liston’s place.

  There was no sign of her father at breakfast time and it was only when luncheon was cooking and waiting on the stove for his appearance that he came downstairs.

  As usual, despite the state he had been in the night before, he looked extremely smart, and to Isla very handsome.

  He walked up to her, put his
arms round her and, kissing her cheek, said,

  “Forgive me, my dearest, I know I behaved badly last night.”

  Isla walked into the dining room, where she had prepared a dish for him that he had always said was one of his favourites.

  There was also cold beef left from the steak she had cooked the night before, part of which she had prudently kept back for his luncheon today.

  He had never cared for puddings and instead she had bought him some excellent cheese that was ripe and exactly to his liking.

  There was no question of his having any wine or whisky, as there was none left in the house.

  Instead, she poured him out a glass of cider that an admirer from the country had given him a month ago and he drank it without comment.

  When he sat back in his chair, obviously feeling better than when he had first come downstairs, Isla said,

  “I think, Papa – we should talk about what is going to happen – tonight.”

  “Nothing is going to happen!” he said briefly.

  “You suggested last night that – I should take Letty’s place.”

  “If I allowed that to happen, your mother would turn over in her grave. You know she would never allow you to visit a Music Hall.”

  “I think Mama would rather you obtained the benefit than have us both starve to death!”

  “There is no question of that.”

  “But there is, Papa, as I discovered this morning when I looked through the bills on your desk.”

  “You had no right to do that!” her father reacted angrily.

  “I am trying to do what Mama would have done had she been here.”

  Her father was silent.

  She saw the pain in his eyes and knew perceptively that he was thinking that, if her mother were alive, they would not be in the mess they were in now.

  “The rent is due next week,” Isla said, “and I added up the bills that have been awaiting payment for over three months.”

  There was silence.

  Then her father said,

  “I don’t want to know. They will just have to accept that I cannot pay them until I have made some more money.”

  “In that case, Papa, your tailor is threatening legal action. In fact he insists on having something on account.”