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Of course he shocked England. He was a savage aesthete. I read the slim volume through at one sitting; I was horrified and fascinated. I met Grimshaw a year later. He was having a play produced at the Lyceum "The Labyrinth" with Esther Levenson as Simonetta. She entertained for him at her house in Chelsea and I got myself invited because I wanted to see the atrocious genius at close range.
Get me my pipe, you laughing dryad, and I will play for you." He played for her and all England heard. Dagmar heard and pretended acquiescence. According to her lights, she was magnificent she invited Esther Levenson to Broadenham, the Grimshaw place in Kent, nor did she wince when the actress accepted. When I got back to England, Dagmar was fighting for his soul with all the weapons she had.
It was a story of the passionate Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Esther Levenson drifted through the four long acts against a background of Tuscan walls, scarlet hangings, oaths, blood-spilling, dark and terrible vengeance. Grimshaw took London by the throat and put it down on its knees. Then for a year or two he lived on his laurels, lapping up admiration like a drunkard in his cups.
Not all you have heard and read about Grimshaw's career is true. But the best you can say of him is bad enough. He squandered his own fortune first on Esther Levenson and the production of "The Sunken City" and then stole ruthlessly from Dagmar; that is, until she found legal ways to put a stop to it.
Esther Levenson brought Ellen Terry over and he forgot me entirely in sparkling for the good lady showing his teeth, shaking his yellow locks, bellowing like a centaur. "The fellow's an ass," I decided. But when "The Labyrinth" was produced, I changed my mind. There again was that disturbing loveliness.
Unquestionably, Esther Levenson was his mistress, since she presided over his house in Cheyne Walk. They say she was not the only string to his lute. A Jewess, a Greek poetess, and a dancer from Stockholm made up his amorous medley at that time.
I shall never forget the frozen immobility of the three actors in the tragedy. Esther Levenson, wrapped in peacock-blue scarves, stood upright before the black mantel, her hands crossed on her breast. Cecil Grimshaw was lying full length on a brick-red satin couch, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. The dead man sprawled on the floor, face down, between them.
Esther Levenson had come back from the States and was casting about for a play. She sought out Grimshaw and with her presence, her grace and pallor and seduction, lured him into his old ways. "The leaves are yellow," he said to her, "but still they dance in a south wind. The altar fires are ash and grass has grown upon the temple floor I have been away too long.
I went to see her in her cool little town house, that house so typical of her, so untouched by Grimshaw. And, looking at me with steady eyes, she said: "I'm sorry Cecil isn't here. He's writing again a play for Esther Levenson, who was Simonetta, you remember?" I promised you a ghost story.
Suddenly Esther Levenson spoke in a flat voice, without emotion: "It isn't true! He struck him with that silver statuette. Like this " She made a violent gesture with both arms. "And before God in heaven, I'll make him pay for it. I will! I will! I will!" "Keep still," I said sharply. Grimshaw looked up at her. He made a gesture of surrender. Then he smiled.
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