XII

The next morning, 13th October, I went to Irving at half-past twelve. Loveday as had been arranged came at one o’clock. We three discussed matters ahead of us fully. We decided on the changes to be made in the bill for the following week when we were to play in Birmingham. Irving seemed quite calm, and, under the circumstances, cheerful. He endorsed the decision of the previous evening as to leaving The Bells out of the répertoire for the remainder of the tour; he seemed pleased at not having to play the piece for the present. We then decided on such other arrangements as were consequently necessary. During our conversation Irving said:

“Of course the American tour is absolutely impossible! It will have to be abandoned! But time enough for that; we can see to it later.”

That morning he was undoubtedly feeble. He was so unusually amenable in accepting the changes of his plans that when we were walking back I commented on it to Loveday, saying:

“He acquiesced too easily; I never knew him so meek before. I don’t like it!”

When he came down to the theatre that night Irving seemed much better and stronger, and was more cheerful than he had been for some time. He played well; and though he was somewhat exhausted, was infinitely less so than he had been on the previous evening. There was no speech that night, so that the last words he spoke on the stage were Becket’s last words in the play:

“Into Thy hands, O Lord! into Thy hands!”

I sat in his room with him while he dressed. He was quite cheerful, and we chatted freely. I thought that he had turned the corner and was already, with that marvellous recuperative power of his, on the way to get strong again. I told him that it was my opinion that now he was rid of the apprehension of having to play The Bells he would be himself soon:

“You have been feeling the taking up of your work again after an absence from it of four months, the longest time of rest in your life. Now you have got into your stride again, and work will be easy!”

He thought for a moment and then said quietly:

“I really think that is so!” Then he seemed to get quite cheery.

Percy Burton, who arranged our advance matters, had in answer to my telegram come over from Birmingham, so that he might be fully told of our prospective changes. He was coming home to supper with me before he got the train back to Birmingham. I had asked Irving if he wanted to see him; but he said he did not, as Burton quite knew what to do. Then, always thoughtful of others, he added:

“But if he is going by the one o’clock train you must not wait here. He will want time to take his supper.” I stood up to go and he held out his hand to say good-night. Afterwards, the remembrance of that affectionate movement came back to me with gratitude, for it was not usual; when men meet every day and every night, hand-shaking is not a part of the routine of friendly life. As I went out he said to me:

“Muffle up your throat, old chap. It is bitterly cold to-night and you have a cold. Take care of yourself! Good-night! God bless you!”

Those were the last words that I heard Henry Irving speak!

Burton and I were at supper when a carriage drove rapidly up to the door of my lodging. I suspected that it was something for me and opened the door myself at once. Mr. Sheppard, one of my assistants who always attended to Irving’s private matters, stepped in, saying quickly:

“I think you had better come down to the Midland Hotel at once. Sir Henry is ill. He fainted in the hall just as he did at Wolverhampton. When the doctor came I rushed off for you!” We all jumped into the carriage and hurried as fast as we could go to the hotel.

In the hall were some twenty men grouped round Irving who lay at full length on the floor. One of the doctors, there were three of them there then, told me quietly that he was dead. He had died just two minutes before. The clock in the hall showed the time then as eight minutes to twelve. So that he died at ten minutes to twelve.

It was almost impossible to believe, as he lay there with his eyes open, that he was really dead. I knelt down by him and felt his heart to know for myself if it was indeed death. But all was sadly still. His body was quite warm. Walter Collinson, his faithful valet, was sitting on the floor beside him, crying. He said to me through his sobs:

“He died in my arms!”

His face looked very thin and the features sharp as he lay there with his chest high and his head fallen back; but there was none of the usual ungracefulness of death. The long iron-grey hair had fallen back, showing the great height of his rounded forehead. The bridge of his nose stood out sharp and high. I closed his eyes myself; but as I had no experience in such a matter I asked one of the doctors, who kindly with deft fingers straightened the eyelids. Then we carried him upstairs to his room and laid him on his bed.

I had to send a host of telegrams at once to inform the various members of his family and the press. The latter had to go with what speed we could, for the hour of his death was such that there was no local information. Loveday arrived at the hotel after we had carried him to his room. He was indeed greatly distressed and in bitter sorrow.

The actual cause of Irving’s death was physical weakness; he lost a breath, and had not strength to recover it.

Sheppard told me that when Irving was leaving the theatre he had said to him that he had better come to the hotel with him, as was sometimes his duty. When he got into the carriage he had sat with his back to the horses—this being his usual custom by which he avoided a draught. He was quite silent during the short journey. When he got out of the carriage he seemed very feeble, and as he passed through the outer hall of the hotel seemed uncertain of step. He stumbled slightly and Sheppard held him up. Then when he got as far as the inner hall he sat down on a bench for an instant.

That instant was the fatal one. In the previous February at Wolverhampton, when he had suffered from a similar attack of weakness, he had fallen down flat. In that attitude Nature asserted herself, and the lungs being in their easiest position allowed him to breathe mechanically. Now the seated attitude did not give the opportunity for automatic effort. The syncope grew worse; he slipped on the ground. But it was then too late. By the time the doctor arrived, after only a few minutes in all, he had passed too far into the World of Shadows to be drawn back by any effort of man or science. The heart beat faintly, and more faintly still. And then came the end.

Before I left the hotel in the grey of the morning I went into the bedroom. It wrung my heart to see my dear old friend lie there so cold and white and still. It was all so desolate and lonely, as so much of his life had been. So lonely that in the midst of my own sorrow I could not but rejoice at one thing: for him there was now Peace and Rest.

I was at the hotel again at 7.30, and then went to meet his eldest son, H. B. Irving, at the Great Northern Station at 9.35. He had received my telegram in time to start by the newspaper train. His other son, Laurence, with his wife, arrived later in the day; my telegram to him had not arrived in time to allow his coming till the morning train. The undertaker had come in the morning at nine, and the embalming done before Irving’s sons had arrived.

That afternoon all the Company, including the workmen, came to see him. It was a very touching and harrowing time for all, for he was much beloved by every one.

At seven o’clock in the evening the body was laid in the lead coffin. I was present alone with the undertakers and saw the lead coffin sealed. This was then placed in the great oak coffin—which an hour later was taken privately through the yard of the Midland Hotel by a devious way to the Great Northern Station so as to avoid publicity; for the streets were thronged with waiting crowds. At Bradford, Saturday is a half-day, and large numbers of people are abroad. The ex-mayor, Mr. Lupton, who had entertained Irving in the Town Hall at his previous visit, kindly arranged with the Chief Constable that all should be in order in the streets. All day throughout the City the flags had been at half-mast, and there was everywhere a remarkable silence through which came the mournful sound of the minute-bells from seemingly all the churches.

At half-past nine we left the hotel to drive to the railway station. The appearance of the streets and the demeanour of the crowd I shall never forget; and I never want to. Everywhere was a sea of faces, all the more marked as all hats were off as we drove slowly along. Street after street of silent humanity; and in all that crowd nothing but grief and respect. One hardly realised its completeness till when, now and then, a sob broke the stillness. To say that it was moving would convey but a poor idea of that attitude of the crowd; it was poignant—harrowing—overwhelming. In silence the crowd stood back; in silence, without hurry or pushing or stress of any kind, closed around us and followed on. It was the same at the railway station; everywhere the silent crowd, holding back respectfully, uncovered.

For a quarter of a century I had been accustomed when travelling with Irving to see the rushing crowd closing in with cheers and waving of hats and kerchiefs; to watch the moving sea of hands thrust forward for him to shake, to hear the roar of the cheering crowd kept up till the train began to move, and then to hear it dying away from our ears not from cessation but from mere distance. And now this silence! No nobler or more loving tribute than the silence of that mighty crowd could ever be paid to the memory of one who has passed away. Were I a Yorkshireman I should have been proud of Bradford on that day. It moves me strangely to think of it yet.