"Hurray for Our Charlotte"

Her first day out of Liverpool, Charlotte could feel her spirits lifting. Her campaign in England had paid off in every respect save one--Rosalie Sully had not shared her victory. Now, pondering her fears about the reception ahead, she took comfort in the fact that her thirty-three years had seen her slay many dragons. For herself, she had proved the power of work as an antidote to sorrow, the force of courage as a formidable weapon.

On September 1, when she first sighted New York fear and grief and elation poured through her. Docking, she saw immediately that New York had gone on growing. Moving in her open carriage through scurrying crowds and jangling teams, she saw only vigor and drive lighting these American faces, a youthful urgency she suddenly realized she had missed in Europe. In her room, when Sallie brought her the papers, "California!" and "Gold!" leaped out from the pages. Only whisper the word "gold," cried the Weekly Yankee, "and its worshippers fall down on their knees." Tell where it could be found, "and millions rush to the spot faster than they would go to heaven."¹

In a sense, her coming home now was part of that gold rush, no less than the pell-mell dash of wagons and horses--over the plains and Rockies toward Sutter's Mill. She had made herself clear to John Povey: she had come home "to make as much money as possible."

To plan her campaign, she would first touch home base in Boston. In New York she must face whatever troubles the Forrest-Macready affair might foment, but here she could rally her forces and greet the friends, celebrity seekers, and editors who streamed to her door. The stream was the privilege--or penalty--of stardom. Who could predict what it meant about the public reaction she could expect on stage?

She had a clue one evening when she and Matilda went to the Howard Athenaeum, where Hackett was playing Falstaff. To avoid the crush, they had waited until the play was into its second scene before taking their seats. The minute she entered, a buzz began filtering over the audience. In spite of her wish to hide, out of courtesy to her old friend, somebody sent up a cry: "Three cheers for Charlotte Cushman!" When the cheers died down, another cried, "Charlotte Cushman, the Siddons of America!" And then, most heart-warming of all, "Hurray for Our Charlotte!"² Nodding to Hackett, who had stopped the play, she turned and smiled to the audience. Honor might be hard to achieve in one's home town, but returning to it proved much about the success one had captured abroad.

At home, she savored the fruits of her victory, renewing old friendships, proud and humble one day when Charley Wiggin came up to press her hand, then tilted his head and smiled ruefully as he backed through the door. When the new force in Boston publishing, James T. Fields, wrote to beg one of her poems, she could only send a formal regret: "Of late years her numerous engagements have prevented her from paying the attention she could have wished to composition, so that an original poem, worthy of consideration, is, she regrets to say altogether beyond her."³

Yet Fields was hardly a man to drop the matter. An editorial talent at thirty-two who would attract to his fold the likes of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, Thoreau, Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Tennyson, Thackeray and Dickens would not be deterred by a stiffly correct refusal. His plea brought a visit. In her rustling skirts, the woman whom Fields saw sweep into his shop at the corner of Washington Street and School was certainly no beauty. Successful people often entered his doors, hut this woman had an air, a quality.

Charlotte was sorry she could give him no poem, but she could use a goodly supply of his books. When Fields escorted her through the green curtains into his cluttered office, the talk that followed laid the keel of a friendship. The bright young man with the molded chin whiskers and the great flowing tie smiled his thanks, then dispatched a clerk with the long list of titles she needed.

Back at the Revere House, she relaxed at night with the books, after she had spent her days with her mind stuck firm to the New York days ahead. Fearful at heart, she gave no hint of the matter in the business letters that flowed from her pen. For her work in New York and beyond, she must have the same terms as those given to Macready and Forrest: half the box office each night. She could act no more than five nights a week. W. H. Chippendale could claim, as her agent, one percent of her profits. If Chip found serious objection in the New York managers or anywhere else, "I had rather not act, other means being open."⁴

The stand was a gamble, but she would not undersell herself or the market worth of her English name too soon. With her best, managers would get their money's worth. And with C. W. Couldock arriving soon from England, she could offer an added attraction "without extra expense to the management." She saw no need to mention Couldock's fiery temper. The important thing was that he held most of his fire for the stage.

Before she left Boston, the papers reported in full late developments in the Pierce Butler household. After persecutions and bitter restraints upon Fanny's freedom to see her children, Pierce had sued for divorce on grounds of desertion. On September 22, Fanny Butler became Fanny Kemble again, supporting herself with her tireless, sharp pen and the platform readings from Shakespeare that moved the New York Times to report, "No play can be as well rendered throughout as Mrs. Kemble reads it; we are bored by no miserable creatures in subordinate parts."

With Couldock's support Charlotte could be sure that her own casts would include few "miserable creatures in subordinate parts!"⁵ In that respect, her hopes for Matilda Hays had not quite worked out. Moving from town to town where she could never predict the skill she might find in local actors, Matilda's steady support on stage had been a blessing, but during the late months in England, Charlotte had seen a disheartening change come over the girl. In the strife to master new roles, the routine that Charlotte had thrived on for years, Matilda's zeal and conviction had quavered. Over tea one tearful afternoon, she and Matilda had reluctantly faced a difficult fact that was obvious to both of them. A stage career for Matilda was out of the question. But when it occurred to them that the change suggested a separation, Charlotte immediately offered a plan. From now on, Matilda would accompany her as confidante and companion. Matilda could earn her keep, as it were, by supplying a sense of home for Charlotte. Charlotte smiled in relief when Matilda put out her hand and agreed.

With her heart at ease, Charlotte could direct her attention to other matters. When a hopeful new playwright, George Henry Boker, sent her his Anne Boleyn, she promised to read it carefully, to consider bringing it out herself if she were right for it.⁶

In Boker centered a question about the profession she had chosen to work in. She expected her own labors to pay in good solid cash, but she could attempt a second mission during this uncertain return. In her absence Walt Whitman had pursued his favorite topic about the role the drama must play in his vision of mature America. The nation's stage could be the "mouthpiece of freedom, refinement, liberal philanthropy, beautiful love for all our brethren, polished manners and an elevated good taste." In it, men could observe the follies of "unbridled passions"; wives and husbands, the follies of "contentious tempers."⁷

Charlotte would lead no crusade, but with Brooklyn's young editor she could envision a future when Americans might value their actors and playwrights as they now did their novelists and poets. And her own talents, whether or not she performed in an American play, might be one means toward that new recognition.

In New York, approaching the new Broadway Theatre, where she had chosen to launch her campaign, Charlotte saw a magnificent structure at the corner of Pearl and Worth streets. Inside, its brilliant gas lights had lately enhanced the stunning debut of Lester Wallack, the young English talent Charlotte had encouraged. On its immense stage, between the festoons of its crimson curtains, Charlotte would soon know if New York had buried its memories of the Astor Place Riot, if it had forgotten whatever connection it might have seen between herself and the hated Macready. On October 8, she would open in Kotzebue's surefire old play, The Stranger.

Mrs. Haller in Kotzebue's dark tale of marriage had served her well with the English in 1845; it offered her ample chance now to show the Americans the genius London had recognized. Mrs. Siddons herself had long favored the role. In it, a superior actress could display the whole spectrum of human goodness, despair, and inner suffering.

When the heavy curtains swept open, in the sudden hush there might have been hisses and outcries against her links with Macready. Instead, whistles and cheers and a standing ovation exploded around her. To the 4,500 faces she nodded quickly, relaxed her pose slightly, then bent her thoughts to business. Within seconds, a happy, grateful American star must change in the crowd's eyes to a ravaged picture of heartbreak.

At the start of the play, the Baroness Waldbourg is a contented wife, the proud mother of two beautiful children, but a conniving friend convinces her that the Baron has long been unfaithful. Grief-stricken, she runs away with him; he seduces her, but learning the truth, she leaves him. Totally broken, she assumes the name Mrs. Haller and accepts a position as housekeeper to a Countess. When a kindly Stranger proves to be her husband, her shock is so great she faints. Discovering the tragedy between them, the Countess brings them together. The Baron forgives his wife, but Mrs. Haller cannot forgive herself. Their children dash in, the boy to his mother, the girl to her father. Mrs. Haller cries out her grief and dies.

The role had a fascination; the tears need hardly be faked. When Couldock's forgiving Stranger made her reclaim her jewels, Charlotte kept her eyes to the ground, afraid to look up. When she took the gems at last in her hands, she let her eyes rise slowly to his, then gasped wildly, shuddered, and poured out her shame in a flood of tears. When the children ran toward their parents, overjoyed at their reconciliation, Charlotte knelt silently weeping. As the curtains closed slowly, she tottered, swayed heavily, then fell senseless in a terrible heap of dying remorse.

No one could doubt the audience's sympathy for the stricken lives on stage. Watching Charlotte's death, women cried openly. When Charlotte, her calm self again, broke through the curtains for the first of her bows, bouquets at her feet and weeping faces greeted her.⁸ Nowhere in the tiers or boxes could she see any sign of the glowering eyes or resentful brows of Edwin Forrest.

The Spirit Of The Times, her old champion, found Charlotte "a little stouter in figure" but polished by time and experience abroad, though "she always was very clever," one of America's "intellectual jewels."⁹ Albion celebrated her return "in every sense of the word a complete triumph." Echoing Boston, the Weekly Yankee hailed the conquering heroine, "emphatically Our Charlotte."¹⁰

Careful critics recognized in this "new" Charlotte Cushman a precision with words that matched Forrest's; in her reading, meanings now came "as clear, as transparent" as if the thoughts themselves were "transferred through the senses."¹¹ Her "points," deliberately built moments of great intensity, burst, when they came, like great star showers. Her petrified motion seemed more thrilling than the action itself, as if in her sudden rigidity, she stood enthralled by some tumult of vast perceptions.

Reading such praise, Charlotte could acknowledge a double pride: Americans could appreciate now this virtuosity she had developed abroad; they had critics at last who could evaluate her properly. As for Couldock, if the Spirit could not label him "a theatrical gem of the purest character,"¹² it could salute him a thorough gentleman and scholar.

In the run that extended through the twenty-seventh of October and the return she played in December, Charlotte acted all the roles that now stood as her trademarks: Lady Macbeth, Rosalind, Julia, Queen Katharine, Beatrice, Mrs. Simpson, Juliana (in The Honeymoon), and Meg. Nightly, the Broadway stood packed to the rafters.

To questions about why she moved "so much" on stage, Charlotte tipped her cap to Mrs. Siddons. A beauty like Siddons could afford to stand still and be looked at, but she herself could not dare the scrutiny. To let her own lack be noticed would dissipate "half her influence."¹³ It was Charlotte's undying sense of ugliness that accounted for part of her style.

Now she could play Meg for all its chills and shudders. In her rags, beauty would have handicapped her. At her dressing room mirror, applying the ugly brown stains, her fingers felt a new, instinctive power. When a painter asked her how she knew where shadows and lines belonged, she replied, "I don't know, I only feel where they ought to come."¹⁴

Much as she herself preferred Lady Macbeth and Katharine, she soon accepted the fact that her American public rated her Meg her "greatest."¹⁵ "With an outlandish dress and a trick or two, I can bring much more money to the theatre than when I give the public my heart's blood in my finest characters."¹⁶ From now on, her old gypsy fortune-teller would be her fortune-maker.

In December, when the Spirit chided her for bringing home some of Macready's tricks--his posture, his drawling out words in "a most unnatural tone"--she could counter the barb with the smile the Weekly Yankee had given her a few weeks before. In a story headlined "Cush-mania,"¹⁷ one breathless man had rushed so hard to see her Meg Merrilies he had trampled a group of children.

A cartoon, "Cushmania, Before and After,"¹⁸ caused her more smiles. "Before" showed her, the American player, struggling to wake up her audience by threatening to stab herself. In "After," she stood grandly aloof, the English success, while a theatre manager implored her on bended knee to accept a money bag marked $1,000. Such was the reward of a London reputation.

If she had overheard it, the talk in one elegant New York household would have gratified her even more. Hearing his parents discuss Charlotte Cushman's brilliance, the seven-year-old Henry James "languished" while his parents dressed for the Broadway Theatre, then lay awake until they returned to hear them relive her vivid splendor¹⁹ as Queen Katharine.

By late fall, Charlotte had all the proof that her return had been wise. In the complications that success had brought her, she knew she must have the help of a full-time business manager and agent. William Corbyn would handle the welter of correspondence, the negotiations and contracts and travel details that her acting tour, after New York, entailed. Now, with Matilda and Sallie to tend to the homefires and Corbyn to badger the managers and railway conductors, she could relax a bit and relish her triumph.

Through her hotel windows in Philadelphia, when she saw a ragged heap below singing piteously for money, she opened her purse and sent Sallie down with the money.

"I never hear a woman sing like that but I think I might have been doing it myself."²⁰