great one—that is something different—but a very good one. She even looked a Gilda—quite a tough assignment for some who have essayed the role. With her oval, Renaissance type of face, her magnificent dark eyes, and that essential touch of melancholy, which could sometimes transform her face as well as her voice, she was the living embodiment of Rigoletto’s daughter.
As well as our Galli-Curci performance, we heard Turandot, Falstaff, Tosca, Romeo and Juliet, and La Forza del Destino. We also heard La Bohème and I think that it was on this first visit that we heard Martinelli in Pagliacci.
It will be seen from this list that we leaned very much to the Italian side of the operatic repertoire. Later, at our own Covent Garden, we discovered the great German artists of this rich period. But meanwhile, did we have fun among the Italians!
I cannot complete an account of these magical weeks without mentioning the amazing American hospitality we received. I mean the heart-warming welcome Americans extend to anyone they recognize as an eager and interested visitor. Because of the particular events in our later lives, we thought that the golden, happy things of life lay largely on the other side of the Atlantic. Because of those lovely, carefree, happy days of our youth, we found a particular touching significance in the words, “Westward, look, the land is bright.”
Like all good things, our American visit could not last forever, and finally we had to go to say goodbye to Lita and Homer. It was a melancholy occasion, but Lita said something that changed everything.
“If you come back one year in the fall, we will give you a really lovely holiday at our home in the Catskill Mountains.”
“If you’ll wait while we save up the money,” we cried, “we’ll come. But it takes two years.”
Lita promised to wait. And then she added thoughtfully, “Time and distance don’t matter, if you are really fond of someone.”
A profound and simple assertion, put to the test again and again in the years that followed, but always to prove true.
We went home on the Aquitania. Third class this time, which was the nearest thing to steerage that existed in our day. In working out our expenses, we had realized that we must travel one way in lowly state; we reasoned that, on the return journey, there would be no emigrants. This was true, but there were deportees—twenty-two of them, if I remember rightly. But it was an experience and we could hardly expect roses all the way.
As we ste pped off the Aquitania at Southampton, a man approached us: “Are you the Misses Cook?”
When we replied in chorus that we were, he went on, “Well, I’m from the Daily Mail.” And a milder version of our New Yorker publicity experience began all over again. We returned to the bosom of our amused family as minor celebrities of a moment; to this day, there exists an incredible photograph of Louise and me smirking falsely at each other in an attempt to “look sisterly,” as requested by the press.
We were spent out, down to our last shilling. Since we intended to return to New York, I thought it was time I tried to make some extra money and decided—like many a deluded creature before me—that the easiest thing might be to write something. Since they seemed interested, I sent a breezy little article about us and our trip to the Daily Mail.
Luckily for me, we were news in a very limited way; the article was accepted, and I saw myself in print for the first time. Intoxicated by success, we thought we were famous for life. Needless to say, in two or three days everyone had forgotten all about us, and in rather chastened mood, I pondered on possible topics that would interest anyone.
I hit upon a brilliant idea—or so it seemed to me. Mabs Fashions m ight like to have an article on how we made our clothes to go and hear Galli-Curci.
I wrote the article, typed it out carefully on my office machine, and sent it in. It too was accepted. But for a while, this was the full extent of my journalistic career. To become a shorthand-typist, instead of a mere copying typist, I had to take an exam, and this took up all my time and energy.
I passed my exam—top marks in English and bottom marks in shorthand, which is rather thought provoking when one reflects that I was offering myself as a shorthand-typist—and found myself in the Official Solicitor’s Department of the Law Courts.
There were four of us in that particular section, and very soon I turned the other three into operatic enthusiasts, with a gramophone apiece. We all earned approximately three pounds a week, made our own clothes, saw life in simple terms, envied no one, often worked shockingly hard, but saved systematically for whatever we wanted and enjoyed it extravagantly when we got it.
The height of social glamour in those days was to sit for two hours over a pot of tea and a roll and butter at a Lyons Corner House, talking endlessly about ourselves, our hopes and the deliciously distant glitter of our favourite stars. The short International Season of Opera at Covent Garden was the most expensive time of the year.
For those unfortunately born too late to know Covent Garden in those days, and for the nostalgic enjoyment of those who shared those joys with us, let me recall the life of a Covent Garden gallery-ite.
I think it was the German conductor, Heger, who was reputed to have said of the Covent Garden audience that our enthusiasm was kindled to red heat by the simple expedient of starvation for ten months, and stuffing for two. Whether he really said it or not, the analogy was, largely speaking, correct. For nearly ten months of the year, Covent Garden was a dance hall, covered with yellow posters bidding anyone who wished to spend one shilling or half a crown to come and dance there.
But in the spring, those notices would be torn down and replaced by the preliminary lists of works and artists for the coming season. On the Sunday afternoon before the opening Monday—could it always have been as sunny as it now seems in retrospect?—the “regulars” gathered—some having seen little of each other since the previous year. Those Floral Street reunions stand out in my memory as among the happiest days of my life.
In those days, the gallery seats could not be reserved. Instead, under the masterly direction of Gough and Hailey, our two “stool men,” we hired camp stools, which marked our places whenever we had to leave for such unimportant matters as earning our living. Rumour had it that both Gough and Hailey did a substantial amount of betting on the side. Certainly their financial situation fluctuated in the most extraordinary way, and it was always difficult to know if Gough were employing Hailey or Hailey employing Gough. But from our point of view, they were splendid. I can see Gough now, pontificating gravely when called on to settle any question of queue-jumping. Not that there was much of this; anyone caught cheating was regarded with boundless contempt and handled with something less than kid gloves.
Apart from the first night of the season—marked by the Sunday gathering—and big “star” nights—when most of the real enthusiasts would gather overnight—we put down our camp stools at six or seven in the morning. Those of us fortunate enough to work near Covent Garden rushed over at lunchtime and sat on our stools, munching sandwiches—or a mere roll and butter if hard up—while watching the stars go to and from rehearsal.
The one disadvantage was that, for those of us who went almost every night, life became a series of late retirings and early risings. But either we were tougher then or youth cares little for that sort of thing. Louise and I regularly caught our last train from Victoria at twenty-to-one in the morning and rose to catch the first train to town next day
