*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51923 ***

THE IMPUDENT COMEDIAN & OTHERS

By Frank Frankfort Moore

Herbert S. Stone & Co

1896




THE IMPUDENT COMEDIAN

“Nelly--Nelly--Nell! Now, where's the wench?” cried Mrs. Gwyn, before
she had more than passed the threshold of her daughter's house in St.
James's Park--the house with the terrace garden, where, as the sedate
Evelyn records, the charming Nelly had stood exchanging some very lively
phrases with her royal lover on the green walk below, giving the grave
gentleman cause to grieve greatly. But, alas! the record of his sorrow
has only made his untold readers mad that they had not been present to
grieve, also, over that entrancing tableau. “Nelly--Nell! Where's
your mistress, sirrah?” continued the somewhat portly and undoubtedly
overdressed mother of the “impudent comedian,” referred to by Evelyn,
turning to a man-servant who wore the scarlet livery of the king.

“Where should she be, madam, at this hour, unless in the hands of her
tirewomen? It is but an hour past noon.”

“You lie, knave! She is at hand,” cried the lady, as the musical lilt of
a song sounded on the landing above the dozen shallow oak stairs leading
out of the square hall, and a couple of fat spaniels, at the sound,
lazily left their place on a cushion, and waddled towards the stairs to
meet and greet their mistress.

She appeared in the lobby, and stood for a moment or two looking out of
a window that commanded a fine view of the trees outside--they were in
blossom right down to the wall. She made a lovely picture, with one hand
shading her eyes from the sunlight that entered through the small square
panes, singing all the time in pure lightness of heart. She wore her
brown hair in the short ringlets of the period, and they danced on each
side of her face as if they were knowing little sprites for whose ears
her singing was meant.

“Wench!” shouted her mother from below. The sprites that danced to the
music of the mother's voice were of a heavier order altogether.

“What, mother? I scarce knew that you were journeying hither to-day,”
 cried Nelly, coming down the stairs. “'T is an honour, and a surprise
as well; and, i' faith, now that I come to think on't, the surprise is
a deal greater than the honour. If you say you have n't come hither for
more money, my surprise will be unbounded.”

It was nothing to Nelly that she spoke loud enough to be heard by the
footmen in the hall, as well as by the servants in the kitchen. She knew
that they knew all about her, and all about her mother as well. Perhaps
some of them had bought oranges from her or her mother in the old days
at Drury Lane, before she had become distinguished as an actress, and in
other ways.

“I 'm not come for money, though a trifle would be welcome,” said the
mother, when Nelly had shown her the way into one of the rooms opening
off a corridor at one side of the hall--a large apartment, furnished
with ludicrous incongruity. A lovely settee, made by the greatest artist
in France, and upholstered in bright tapestry, was flanked by a couple
of hideous chairs made by the stage carpenter of Drury Lane, and by him
presented to Nelly. A pair of Sèvres vases, which had for some years
been in St. James's Palace stood on a side-board among some rubbish of
porcelain that Nelly had picked up in the purlieus of Westminster.

The mother was about to seat herself heavily on the gilded settee, when
Nelly gave a little scream, startling the elder lady so that she, too,
screamed--a little hoarsely--in sympathy.

“What's the matter, girl--what's the matter?” she cried.

“Nothing is the matter, so far, mother, but a mighty deal would have
been the matter, if you had seated yourself other where than in that
chair.'Snails, madam, who are you that you should plump your person down
on a seat that was made for a legitimate monarch?”

“I'm a legitimate wife, hear you that, you perky wench?” cried the
mother, craning her neck forward after the most approved fashion of
pending belligerents at Lewkinor Street, Drury Lane.

“The greater reason you should avoid that settee, dear mother; it has
never been other than the chattel of a prince,” laughed Nelly. “And now,
prithee, why the honour of this visit, while the month is not yet near
its close?”

“I have met with an old friend of yours, this day, Nell,” said the
mother, “and he is coming hither,--'t is that hath brought me.”

“An old friend! I' faith, good mother, 't is the young friends are more
to my taste. The savour of Lewkinor Street doth not smell sweet, and it
clings most foully to all our old friends.”

“Oh, ay, but you once was n't so dainty a madam!”

“'T were vain to deny it, mother, since it can be urged against me that
I became your daughter. No, no, good mother, friend me no old friends--I
like them new--the newer the better--plenty of gilding--none of it
rubbed off--gingerbread and courtiers--plenty of gilding, and plenty
of spice beneath. But the old life in Lewkinor Street--in the
coal-yard--ah! 't was like to sour oranges, mother, thick skin above, and
sourness under. 'Snails! it doth set my teeth on edge to think of it.”

“Oh, ay; but now and again we lighted upon a Levant orange in the midst
of a basketful--a sweet one to suck, and one to leave a sweet taste
behind it.”

“The best were mightily improved by the addition of a lump of sugar.
But what hath all this vegetable philosophy to do with your visit to
me to-day? If you mean to stay, I'll send out for a couple of stone of
sugar without delay!”

“Philosophy, Madame Impudence! You accuse your mother of philosophy,
when everyone knows that your own language was--”

“Worthy of a lady of quality, mother. It seemeth that you are anxious to
hear whether or not I retain anything of my old skill in that direction,
and by my faith, dear mother, you shall learn more than will satisfy
your curiosity, if you beat about the bush much longer. Whom say you
that you met to-day?”

“What should you say if I told you that his name was Dick Harraden?”

“What, Dick! Dick!--Dick Harraden!”

Nell had sprung to her feet, and had grasped her mother by the shoulder,
eagerly peering into her face. After a moment of silence following her
exclamation, she gave her mother a little push, in the act of taking
her hand off her shoulder, and threw herself back in her own chair
again with a laugh--a laugh that surrounded a sigh, as a bright nimbus
surrounds the sad face of a saint in a picture.

“What should I say, do you ask me?” she cried. “Well, I should say
that you were a liar, good mother.” Nell was never particular in her
language. As an exponent of the reaction against the Puritanism of the
previous generation, she was admitted by very competent judges to have
scarcely an equal.

“I'm no liar,” said the mother. “'T was Dick himself I met, face to
face.”

“It puzzles me to see wherein lies your hope of getting money from me by
telling me such a tale,” said Nell.

“I want not your money--at least not till the end of the month, or
thereabouts. I tell you, I saw Dick within the hour.”

“'T was his ghost. You know that when he threw away his link he took to
the sea, and was drowned in a storm off the Grand Canary. What did the
seafaring man tell us when I asked him if he had seen Dick?”

“A maudlin knave, who offered you a guinea for a kiss at the pit door
of Drury Lane, and then bought a basket of oranges and gave them away
singly to all comers.”

“But he said he had sailed in the same ship as Dick, and that it had
gone down with all aboard save only himself.”

“Oh, ay; and he wept plentifully when he saw how you wept--ay, and
offered to be your sweetheart in the stead of poor Dick, the knave! For
I saw Dick with these eyes, within the hour.”

“Oh, mother--and you told him--no, you durs n't tell him--”

“He had just this morning come to London from the Indies, and it was
luck--ill-luck, maybe--that made him run against me. He plied me with
question after question--all about Nell--his Nell, he called you, if you
please.”

“His Nell--ah, mother! his Nell! Well, you told him--”

“I told him that you would never more need his aid to buy foot-gear.
Lord! Nell, do you mind how he bought you the worsted stockings when you
were nigh mad with the chilblains?”

“And you told him... For God's sake, say what you told him!”

“I did n't mention the king's name--no, I'm loyal to his Majesty, God
save him! I only told him that you had given up selling oranges in
the pit of Drury Lane, and had taken to the less reputable part of the
house, to wit, the stage.”

“Poor Dick! he did n't like to hear that. Oh, if he had stayed at home
and had carried his link as before, all would have been well!”

“What is the wench talking about? Well--all would have been well? And
is not all well, you jade? 'T were rank treason to say else. Is n't this
room with its gilded looking-glasses and painted vases pretty well for
one who had been an orange girl? The king is a gentleman, and a merry
gentleman, too. Well, indeed!”

“But Dick!--what more did you say to him, mother?”

“I asked him after himself, to be sure. I' faith the lad has prospered,
Nell--not as you have prospered, to be sure--”

“Nay, not as I have prospered.”

“Of course not; but still somewhat. He will tell you all, himself.”

“What? You told him where I dwelt?”

“'I meant it not, Nelly; but he had it from me before I was aware. But
he knows nothing. I tell you he only came to London from Bristol port
in the morning. He will have no time to hear of the king and the king's
fancies before he sees you.”

“He is coming hither, then? No, he must not come! Oh, he shall not come!
Mother, you have played me false!”

“I? Oh, the wench is mad! False? What could I say, girl, when he pressed
me?”

“You could have said that I was dead--that would have been the truth.
The girl he knew is dead. He must not come to this house.”

“Then give your lacqueys orders not to admit him, and all will be well.
But I thought that you would e'en see the lad, Nell, now that he has
prospered. If he had n't prospered it would be different.”

“Only an orange-seller, and yet with the precepts of a lady of quality!
I'll not see him. Did he say he'd come soon?”

“Within an hour, he said.” Instinctively, Nell looked at her reflection
in a mirror.

“I'll not see him,” she repeated. “That gown will do well enough for one
just returned from the Indies,” said the mother, with a leer.

“Oh, go away, go away,” cried her daughter. “You have done enough
mischief for one morning. Why could not you have let things be? Why
should you put this man on my track?”

“'T is a fool that the wench is, for all her smartness,” said the
mother. “She was picked out of the gutter and set down among the noblest
in the land, and all that held on to her gown were landed in pleasant
places; and yet she talks like a kitchen jade with no sense. If you will
not see the lad, hussy, lock your door and close your shutters, after
giving orders to your lacqueys to admit him not. If needful, the king
can be petitioned to send a guard to line the Park with their pikes to
keep out poor Dick, as though he was the devil, and the Park the Garden
of Eden.”

“Oh, go away--go away!”

“Oh, yes; I 'll go--and you 'll see him, too--no fear about that. A
girl, however well provided for--and you're well provided for--would n't
refuse to see an old sweetheart, if he was the old serpent himself;
nay, she'd see him on that account alone. And so good day to you, good
Mistress Eve.”

She made a mock courtesy, the irony of which was quite as broad as that
of her speech, and marched out of the room, holding her narrow skirts
sufficiently high to display a shocking pair of flat-footed boots
beneath.

Her daughter watched her departure, and only when she had disappeared
burst into a laugh. In a moment she was grave once again. She remained
seated without changing her attitude or expression for a long time. At
last she sprang to her feet, saying out loud, as though some one were
present to hear her:

“What a fool thou art, friend Nell, to become glum over a boy
sweetheart--and a link boy, of all boys. Were I to tell Mr. Dryden of my
fancy, he would write one of his verses about it, making out that poor
Dick was the little god Cupid in disguise, and that his link was the
torch of love. But I'll not see him.'T were best not. He'll hear all,
soon enough, and loathe me as at times I loathe myself--no, no; not so
much as that, not so much as that: Dick had always a kind heart. No;
I'll not see him.” She went resolutely to the bell-pull, but when there,
stood irresolute with the ornamental ring of brass in her hand, for some
moments before pulling it. She gave it a sudden jerk, and when it was
responded to by a lacquey, she said:

“Should a man call asking to see me within the next hour, he is to be
told--with civility, mind you: he is a gentleman--that--that I am in
this room, and that I will see him for five minutes--only five minutes,
mind you, sirrah.”

“And the man--the gentleman--is to be admitted, madam?”

“Certainly--for five minutes.”

“Your ladyship will regulate the time?”

“Go away, you numbskull! How could I regulate the time? I'm no
astronomer.”

“Madam, I meant but to inquire if you are to be interrupted at the end
of five minutes.”

“I gave you no such instruction, sirrah. It is enough for you to carry
out the instruction I gave you. Carry it out, and yourself in the
bargain.”

The man bowed and withdrew. He was familiar with the colloquial style of
his mistress and her moods.

When the man had gone Nelly laughed again, but suddenly became graver
even than she had yet been.

“What have I done?” she cried. “Oh, there never was so great a fool as
me! No, no; I'll not see him! I have as kind a heart as Dick, and I'll
prove it by not seeing him.”

And yet, when she had her hand on the lock of the door, she stood
irresolute once again for some moments. Then she went out with a firm
step, her intention being to countermand in the hall the instructions
she had given to the servant in the parlour; but in the hall she found
herself face to face with her old friend, Sir Charles Sedley. He had
brought her a bunch of violets.

“The satyr offers flowers to Aurora,” said the courtier to the
courtesan, bowing as gracefully as a touch of rheumatism permitted.

“And Aurora was so fond of flowers that she accepted them, even from the
most satiric of satyrs,” said Nell, sinking into a courtesy.

“I plucked these flowers for the fairest flower that--”

“Ah, that is one of Mr. Dryden's images in the reverse,” laughed Nell.
“What was the name of t' other young thing?--Proserpine, that's it--who
was plucking flowers, and was herself plucked. 'Snails! that's not the
word--she was n't a fowl.”

“'Fore Gad, Nell, I never heard that story; it sounds scandalous, so
tell it us,” said Sir Charles. “What was the name of the wench, did you
say?”

“Her name was Nell Gwyn, and she was gathering oranges to sell in
the pit of Drury Lane, when, some say Satan, and some say Sedley--the
incongruity between the two accounts is too trifling to call for
notice--captivated her, and she had nothing more to do with oranges or
orange blossoms.”

“And her life was all the merrier, as I doubt not Madame Proserpine's
was when she left the vale of Enna for--well, the Pit--not at Drury
Lane.”

“That were a darker depth still. You 've heard the story, then. Mr.
Dryden says the moral of it is that the devil has got all the pretty
wenches for himself.”

“Not so; he left a few for the king.”

“Nay, the two are partners in the game; but the King, like t' other
monarch, is not so black as he is painted.”

“Nor so absolutely white as to be tasteless as the white of an egg,
Nell.”

“His Majesty is certainly not tasteless.”

“On the contrary, he is in love with you still, Nell.”

They were standing apart from the group of servants in the hall. Nell
Gwyn had pretended that she was about to ascend the stairs, but loitered
on the second step, with her right elbow resting on the oak banister,
while she smelt at the violets with her head poised daintily, looking
with eyes full of mischief and mirth at the courtier standing on the
mat, the feathers of his broad-leafed hat sweeping the ground, as he
swung it in making his bows.

Suddenly Nell straightened herself as she looked down the hall toward
the door; she started and dropped her violets. All the mischief and
mirth fled from her eyes as a man was admitted, with some measure of
protestation, by the porter. He was a young man with a very brown face,
and he carried no sword, only the hanger of a sailor; his dress was of
the plainest--neither silk nor lace entered into its manufacture.

Before Sir Charles had time to turn to satisfy himself as to the
identity of the man at whom Nell was gazing so eagerly, she had run down
the hall, and seized the newcomer by both hands, crying:

“Dick--Dick--It is you, yourself, Dick, and no ghost!”

“No ghost, I dare swear, Nell,” cried the man, in a tone that made the
candles in the chandelier quiver, and Sir Charles Sedley to be all but
swept off his feet. “No ghost, but--O Lord, how you've grown, Nell! Why,
when I burnt my last link seeing you home, you was only so high!” He put
his hand within a foot of the floor.

“And you, too, Dick! Why, you're a man now--you'll grow no more, Dick,”
 cried Nell, still standing in front of him, 'with his hands fast clasped
in her own. Suddenly recollecting the servants who were around, she
dropped his hands, saying: “Come along within, Dick, and tell me all
your adventures since last we were together.”

“Lord! Adventures! You do n't know what you 've set yourself down for,
Nell. If I was to tell you all, I should be in your company for at least
a week.”

[Illustration: 0042]

She led him past Sir Charles Sedley, without so much as glancing at the
courtier, and the newcomer had no eyes for anyone save Nell. A servant
threw open the door of the room where she had been with her mother, and
the two entered.

Sir Charles took snuff elaborately, after he had replaced his hat on his
head.

“If his Majesty should arrive, let him know that I am in the long
parlour,” he said to a servant, as he walked toward a door on the left.

He paused for a space with his hand on the handle of the door, for there
came from the room into which Nell Gwyn and Dick Harraden had gone a
loud peal of laugh ter--not a solo, but a duet.

He turned the handle.

So soon as he had disappeared, there came another ripple of laughter
from the other room, and the lacqueys lounging in the hall laughed, too.
Within the room, Nell was seated on the settee and Dick Harraden by her
side. She had just reminded him of the gift of the worsted stockings
which he had made to her, when he was a link-boy, and she an orange-girl
in Drury Lane. They had both laughed when she had pushed out a little
dainty shoe from beneath her gown, displaying at the same time a
tolerably liberal amount of silk stocking, as she said:

“Ah, Dick, it 's not in worsted my toes are clad now. I have outgrown
your stockings.”

“Not you, Nell!” he cried. “By the Lord Harry! your feet have got
smaller instead of larger during these years--I swear to you that is
so.”

“Ah, the chilblains do make a difference, Dick,” said she, “and you
never saw my feet unless they were covered with chilblains. Lord! how
you cried when you saw my feet well covered for the first time.”

“Not I---I didn't cry. What was there to cry about, Nell?” he said.

She felt very much inclined to ask him the same question at that
moment, for his face was averted from her, and he had uttered his words
spasmodically.

“Poor Dick! You wept because you had eaten nothing for three days in
order to save enough to buy my stockings,” she said.

“How know you that?” he cried, turning to her suddenly.

“I knew it not at the time,” she replied, “but I have thought over it
since.”

“Think no more of it, Nell. O Lord! to think that I should live to see
Nell again! No--no; I'll not believe it. That fine lady that I see in
the big glass yonder cannot be Nell Gwyn!”

“Oh, Dick, would any one but Nell Gwyn remember about Nell Gwyn's
chilblains?”

“Hearsay, mere hearsay, my fine madam!”

“By what means shall I convince you that I'm the Nell you knew? Let me
see--ah, I know. Dick, I 'll swear for you; you know well that there was
not one could match me in swearing. Let me but begin.”

“O Lord! not for the world. You always knew when to begin, Nell, but you
ne'er knew when to stop. And how doth it come that you have n't forgot
the brimstone of the Lane, Nelly, though you have become so mighty fine
a lady?”

“'Snails, Dick, the best way to remember a language is to keep
constantly talking it!”

“But in silks and satins?”

“Oh, I soon found that I only needed to double the intensity of my
language in the Lane in order to talk the mother tongue of fashion.”

“If swearing make the fine lady, you'll be the leader of the town, Nell,
I'll warrant. But do n't say that you doubled your language--that would
be impossible.”

“Oh, would it, indeed?”

“Not so? Then for God's sake do n't give me a sample of what you reached
in that way, for I 've only lived among the pirates and buccaneers of
the Indies since.”

“Then I'll e'en spare thee, Dick. But take warning: do n't provoke me.
You would n't provoke a pirate whose guns you knew to be double-shotted.
Do n't say that I'm not Nell Gwyn for all my silks and lace. Why, man,
doth oatmeal porridge cease to be porridge because it's served in a
silver platter? Did your salt pork turn to venison when you ate it off
the gold plate that you stole from the chapels?”

“Lord, Nell, I was n't a pirate.”

“What! Did n't you say just now that you had been among pirates and
buccaneers in the Indies?”

“I was among them, but not of them.”

“You mean to say that you were neither a pirate nor a buccaneer?”

“Neither!”

“Then all I can say is that I'm mightily ashamed of you, Dick. I counted
on your being at least a pirate. Don't say that you became a merchant; I
never could abide dishonesty, Dick.”

“Well, no; I never became just a merchant, Nell--at least, not the sort
of merchant that merchants would call a merchant.”

“Oh, then, there's some hope for you yet, Dick. We may be friends
still.”

“Friends? Well, I should say so! What did I work for, do you think,
through all these years? What did I lay up a store of guineas
for--guineas and Spanish doubloons and pieces of eight for----”

“And you have made a fortune, Dick? Think of that! Ah, I fear that you
must have been a regular merchant after all; only regular merchants make
fortunes in these days.”

“Ay, but some irregular ones do pretty fairly for themselves.”

“And you were somewhat irregular, I dare swear?”

“Well, I wasn't regularly irregular, dear, only by fits and starts. Ah,
what I said to myself was: 'I've put the stockings on Nell, but I've
to get the shoes for her yet.' That's what gave me the strength of ten
men--working for those shoes, Nell.”

“Poor Dick! and now when you come home, you find that I am already
provided for.”

Again she showed him the dainty tips of her shoes.

“Those are fair weather shoes, Nell,” he cried.

“Ay, that they are, Dick,” she assented, with a note of sadness in her
voice.

“But what I would offer you would stand the stress of all weather--fair
or foul, Nell.”

“I believe you, Dick, with all my heart. I know what you had to offer
me; but it 's too late now, too late, Dick.”

“Too late? What do you mean, girl?”

The look that came into his face frightened her. She threw herself back
on the settee and laughed loudly for a minute or two.

“That's what I mean,” she cried, tilting up her toes until they were
on a level with his knees. “What else could I mean than that I'm already
sufficiently shod? Even Nell Gwyn can't wear more than one pair of shoes
at a time, Dick. It's rather a pity, but 't is an ill that must be
borne. Now tell us all about yourself, Dick. Tell us how you fought with
pirates and buccaneers--never mind telling how you made a fortune in
pieces of eight: there's no romance about making a fortune--tell us
about the pirates, and above all, tell us what the Spanish Main is.”

“The Spanish Main--why, it's the Spanish Main, to be sure--south of the
Indies--a good place for trade, and a good place for pirates. But you,
Nell; I wonder if you meant anything by saying that I had come back too
late? I thought, you know, when I met your mother----”

“Oh, I want to hear about the fighting--the buccaneers! I do n't want to
hear about my mother; I hear enough about her. You fought the pirates?
Well, next to being a pirate yourself, that's the best thing.”

“Well, if you must know, I got about me a few score of lads--most
of them were stout Irish lads who were sold to the plantations by
Cromwell.”

“The monster!”

“Ay, we made up a brave crew, I can tell you. Our plan was to do no
pirating on our own behalf, but only to attack the pirates when they had
a deck-load of spoil. Taking from thieves is n't stealing, is it, Nell?”

“No; that's business.”

“A bit irregular, it may be, as I said just now; but bless you, Nelly,
it was like sermon-preaching compared to some sorts of business that
thrive mightily at the Indies. Anyhow, here I am to-day, sound and
hearty, Nell, with a pretty nice fortune made already, and more to
come--here I am, ready and willing to buy you the best pair of shoes in
London town, and every other article of attire you may need for the next
dozen--ay, the next fifty years.”

“Dick--Dick!”

“Is n't it true that you were always my sweetheart, Nell? Didn't you
say that you would never marry another? Well, you've kept your word so
far--your mother told me that.”

“Ah, that's the worst of it.”

“The worst of it! That's the best of it, Nelly; for though a fine lady,
living in a mansion like this--why, it might be a palace--the King
himself might come here-----”

“The King--you've heard that--that the King?”

She grasped him fiercely by the sleeve, and was eagerly peering into his
face.

He burst out laughing, but suddenly checked himself.

“The King--the King--what was there for me to hear?” he asked in a low
voice. “I only arrived from Bristol port in the morning. How could I
hear anything?”

“I do n't want to hear anything, except to hear you say that you have
n't broken your promise--that you have n't married any one else.”

“Oh, go away, Dick--go away!” she cried, burying her face on the arm of
the settee.

He got upon his feet slowly and painfully, and stood over her.

“Why should I go away?” he asked, in the same grave voice. “If I love
you--and you know I do--and if you love me--and I believe that you
do--it is not for me to go away. Ah, is it possible that you have given
your promise to marry some one else? Do n't weep, Nell; that's it, I
see, and it can be made all right. Is that it, dear?”

“No, no. Oh, go away--go away, and never return to make me feel how
miserable I am!”

“I'll not go away. There's some mystery about you and this house, and
I'll not go before I fathom it.”

She looked up and saw him standing there with his arms folded.

She leaped up so quickly that she almost seemed to spring into his arms.
He thought so, at any rate, and was about to clasp her when she caught
both of his hands in her own, gazing tearfully--eagerly--wistfully, into
his face.

“Dick--dear Dick,” she said; “if you love me still--and I know you
do--you will leave me now. Oh, you should never have come here--I
did not mean you to come; but if you love me, Dick, you will leave me
now--leave me and go into the nearest coffee-house, and ask of the first
man you see there who is Nell Gwyn? What is Nell Gwyn? If you return
to me after that, then--then, Dick, I swear to you that I'll marry
you; there will be none to stay us then, none to come between--the King
himself shall not come between us.”

He gripped her hands fiercely, his face close down to hers.

“By God, I 'll do it!” he said, through his set teeth. “I'll do it. You
have put it upon me. I know that I shall hear nothing but what is
good of you, and I'll return to claim you, as sure as there's a sun in
heaven.”

He dropped her hands, snatched up his hat, and walked firmly to the
door. When there, he turned slowly and looked back at her. She was
standing pale and lovely where he had left her. Her eyes were upon his
face.

He flung himself through the door, and she fell on her knees beside the
settee, burying her face in one of its cushions.

For some minutes, nothing was heard in the room but the sound of her
sobs; but then the silence was broken by a shout outside--a shout and
the noise of a scuffle. Cries of “Hold him back! Hold him back!” came
from the servants, and mixed with some full-bodied imprecations in other
voices. Nell started to her feet, as the door of the room was all but
crashed in, and she was standing with a startled look on her face, as
the door was flung wide open, and Dick Harraden hurled a limp antagonist
into the room.

“He shall eat his words--every foul word he uttered he shall swallow in
the presence of Nell herself,” cried Dick, and then Nell recognised Sir
Charles Sedley as the man who was standing panting, with a broken sword
in his hand, by her side, facing Dick.

“For God's sake, Dick!--Sir Charles--what has happened?”

The courtier was too breathless to speak--he signified so much very
pleasingly to Nell.

“The cowardly knave!” panted Dick. “But I swore that I'd make him eat
his words, and by the Lord Harry, I'll keep my oath!”

“Sir Charles, pray--oh, Dick!”

“Dick me no Dicks, Nell, until this popinjay has gone down on his knees
before you and asked your pardon for his foul words,” cried Dick. “Down
you go, my gentleman, were you fifty times Sir Charles.”

“For heaven's sake, Nell, keep that fire-eater at a distance,” gasped
Sir Charles; “he's fit for Bedlam!”

“Stand where you be, Dick,” said Nell. “What said Sir Charles Sedley to
give you offence?”

“He said that you--no, I 'll hang in chains in Execution Dock before I
repeat the lie--but he'll take it back, every word, if I have to wring
his neck!”

Dick was with difficulty kept at a distance.

“Did he say aught about the King and me?” asked Nell, in a low voice.

“It was, I swear, a most unhappy _contretems_, Nell,” said Sir Charles,
smiling in a somewhat constrained way. “How could I know that there was
one man in England who did n't know how splendid, yet how natural, a
conquest the charms of Mistress Eleanor Gwyn have achieved?”

“Then you only spoke the truth, Sir Charles,” said Nell. “God above us!”

Dick staggered back, and grasped the frame of a chair to support
himself. There was a long silence.

He took a faltering step or two towards where she stood in the middle of
the room.

“I see it all now,” he said, in a low voice. “I see it all. This
house--the lacqueys in scarlet--the King's servants--they are the King's
servants, and you--you, Nell, are the King's----Oh, God! let me die--let
me die! This is what I came home for! You told me to go to the first
coffee-house; I did n't need to go so far. Oh, Nelly, if I had come home
to stand beside the green hillock of your grave I could have borne it,
but this--this!”

He dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands. His sobbing
was the only sound in the room.

After a long pause he got slowly upon his feet.

“I'm going away,” he said. “My heart is broken, Nell--my heart is
broken. Good-bye, Nell.”

“Good-bye, Dick.”

She had not moved from the middle of the room. She did not hold out a
hand to him. He walked slowly to the door. Then he turned round.

“I humbly ask your pardon, sir,” he said to Sir Charles.

“Sir,” said the courtier, “I honour you more than any living man.”

“Nell--Nell--come to me--come away with me--come to my arms, Nell,”
 cried the man, holding out his hands to her from where she stood.

Sir Charles watched her face. He saw it light up for a moment. Her hands
moved; she was going to him.

No, she only looked at the man who loved her and was ready to offer her
everything, and said:

“Dick, I have a boy in a cradle upstairs.”

There was another long pause before Dick whispered the words: “God bless
thee, Nell,” Then the door was flung wide in his face by a lacquey, who
bowed to the ground as he ushered in a rather plainfaced man wearing a
diamond star and a broad blue sash, as well as a diamond garter.

Nell sank in a courtesy, and Sir Charles Sedley made an obeisance. Dick
remained unmoved.

“Ha! what have we here?” said the stranger. “'Odsfish! a pretty family
picture! Who may you be, good sir?” he asked of Dick.

“Who may _you_ be?” asked Dick.

“Well, who I may be in a year or two, the Lord and Nelly only knows--she
says a merry pauper. But who I am is easier said; I happen just now to
be the King.”

Dick stood unmoved.

“Then I could tell you _what_ you are, sir,' said Dick.

“Not half as well as I could tell you, my friend,” said the King.

“I wonder if your Majesty ever hears the truth?” said Dick.

“Seldom; any time I do, it comes from the lips of Nelly, yonder,”
 replied the King. “And by my soul, sir, I would rather hear the truth
from Nelly, than a lie from the most honourable of my subjects.”

“Profligate!” cried Dick.

“I answer to that name, sir; what then?” said the King.

“What then? God only can reply to your 'what then?' The answer rests
with Him. He will not forget to answer you when His time comes.”

“Even so,” said the King, in a low tone, bending his head.

Sir Charles had moved round the settee, and had opened the door. He
touched Dick on the elbow. Dick started for a moment and then stalked
through the door. Sir Charles went out with his face turned towards the
King.

“A straightforward fellow, but as conceited as a Puritan, Nell,” cried
the King, with a laugh. “What brought him here?” But Nell had sunk once
more on her knees beside the settee, and her face was, as before, buried
in the cushion.

“Ha, what's this, Nelly? What's amiss?” said the King, bending over her.

“Oh, go away--go away! I never want to see you again. You heard the
word, profligate, profligate!”

“I'll go away, Nell, so soon as I pass to you the two papers which I
hold in my hand.”

“I want no papers; I want to be alone.”

“Come, dear child; see if you will like your new plaything.”

He pushed before her one of the two papers which he held.

She glanced at it without rising, and without taking it from him.
Suddenly she put out a hand to it.

“What?” she cried. She was now on her feet. “You have done it for
me--all for me? The hospital to be built at Chelsea! Oh, my liege!”

“Now the other paper,” said the King.

She took it from him.

“Ah, Royal Letters Patent--our boy--our Charlie--Duke of St. Albans! Oh,
my liege--my King--my love forever!” She sank on her knees, and,
catching his hand, covered it with kisses--with kisses and tears.




KITTY CLIVE, ACTRESS

At the King's Head Inn at Thatcham on the Bath Road a post chaise drew
up, but with no great flourish, for the postilion knew that his only
passenger was a lady, and he had no intention of pulling his horses on
their haunches merely for the sake of impressing a lady. In his youth he
had made many flourishes of such a type, but had failed to win an extra
crown from a traveller of this sex.

The groom, who advanced with some degree of briskness from the
stable-yard, became more languid in his movements when he perceived that
only a lady was descending from the chaise. He knew that briskness on
the part of a groom never caused a coin to spring from the purse of a
lady. The landlord, however, taking a more hopeful view of the harvest
prospects of the solitary lady as a guest--he had lived in London,
and had heard of assignations in which the (temporarily) solitary lady
became a source of profit to the inn-keeper--made a pretence of bustling
out to assist the occupant of the chaise to alight, bowing elaborately
when he perceived that the lining of her travel-ling-cloak was of
quilted silk, and once again as she tripped very daintily over the
cobble-stones in front of the King's Head, and smiled very bewitchingly
within the satin frame of her hood. The landlord had a notion that
he had seen her face and her smile before. He carried with him the
recollection of a good many faces and smiles within the frame-work of
quilted satin hoods.

“Madam, you honour my poor house,” he said in his best London manner as
the lady passed through the porch. “'T is rarely that a person of your
ladyship's quality--”

“Spare us good lord--good landlord,” cried the lady in an accent that
had a certain amount of Hibernian persuasiveness about it. “Spare
us your remarks about our quality.'T is two horses and not four that
brought me hither. It's of your quality, sir, that I'd fain have a
taste. If I do n't have breakfast within an hour, I honestly believe
that my death will be at your door, and where will your compliments be
then, my good man?”

“Your ladyship is pleased to be facetious,” said the landlord, throwing
open the door of the public room with as great a flourish as if he were
giving admittance to sixty-foot _salle_, instead of a twenty-foot inn
parlour. He looked closely at his visitor as she passed through: her
voice sounded strangely familiar to him. “'T is a poor room for one,
who, I doubt not, is no stranger to the noblest mansions,” he added.

“There's no one better accustomed to the noblest mansions than myself,”
 said the lady, going to the looking-glass that occupied a place in a
panel between the windows, throwing back her hood, and then arranging
her hair.

“Yes, faith, many's the palace I've lived in--for the space of half an
hour at a time--but I make no objections to the room I 'm in just now.
See the pictures!” She raised her hands in an attitude of surprise and
admiration, so well simulated as to deceive the landlord, though he had
lived in London.

“Pictures! Oh, the grandeur of it all! And what about breakfast? Give us
your notions of the proper decorations of a breakfast-table, good sir.
It's a picture of rashers that I've got my heart set on.”

“The best breakfast that my poor house can afford your ladyship shall be
prepared.”

“And soon, good Mr. Landlord, I implore of you, sir. Breakfast for two.”

“For two, madam!” The landlord began to feel that his experience of
assignations was about to be augmented.

“For two, sir--I look for my brother to arrive by the coach from
Levizes. If he should enquire for me at the bar, just show him in here.”

“Your commands shall be obeyed, madam. Will he enquire for your ladyship
by name?”

“By name? Why, how else would you have him enquire, my good man? Do you
fancy that he carries a Bow Street runner's description of so humble a
person as myself?”

“Nay, madam; but you see your name is just what I have n't yet had the
honour of learning.”

The lady burst out laughing.

“Faith, good sir, my name is a somewhat important detail in the
transaction I speak of. The gentleman will ask for Mistress Clive.”

“Ah,” cried the landlord, “I could have sworn that I knew the face and
the voice, but I failed to think of them in connection with our Kitty.”
 He checked himself in his cackle of laughter, and bowed in his best
style. “Madam, I implore your pardon, but--oh lord! how I've laughed in
the old days at Kitty's pranks!--nay, madam, forgive my familiarity. I
am your servant. Oh, lord! to think that it's Kitty Clive herself--our
Kitty--madam--”

Only when he had fled to the door and had opened it did the man
recover himself sufficiently to be able to repeat his bow. After he had
disappeared at the other side of the door, the lady heard his outburst
of laughter once again. It grew fainter as he hurried off to (she hoped)
the kitchen.

Kitty Clive laughed, also, as she seated herself carefully on the
settle, for it was a piece of furniture whose cushions required to be
tenderly treated.

“And this is real fame,” she murmured. “To be 'our Kitty' to a hundred
thousand men and women is my ambition--a laudable one, too, I swear--one
worth struggling for--worth fighting Davy for, and Davy Garrick takes
a deal of fighting. He has got more of it from Kitty Clive than he
bargained for.”

The recollection of her constant bickerings with David Garrick seemed to
offer her a good deal of satisfaction. It is doubtful if David Garrick's
recollection of the same incidents would have been equally pleasing
to him; for Kitty Clive was very annoying, especially when she got
the better of her manager in any matter upon which he tried to get the
better of her, and those occasions were frequent.

She remained on the settle smiling now and again, and giving a laugh at
intervals as she thought of how she had worsted David, as his namesake
had worsted the champion of Gath. But soon she became grave.

“I should be ashamed of myself,” she muttered. “David Garrick is the
only one of the whole crew at the Lane that never varies. He 's the only
one that 's always at his best. God forgive me for the way. I sometimes
try to spoil his scenes, for he 's worth Quinn, Macklin, and Barry bound
up in one; only why does he keep his purse-strings so close? Ah, if he
only had a pint of Irish blood in his veins.”

She yawned, for her contests with Garrick did not cause her any great
concern; and then she tucked up her feet upon the settle and hummed an
air from the _Beggars' Opera_. Hearing the sound of wheels she paused,
listening.

“Sure it can't be the coach with my brother yet awhile,” said she. “Ah,
no, 't is the sound of a chaise, not a coach.” She resumed her lilting
of the air; but once again it was interrupted. Just outside the door
of the room there was the sound of an altercation. The voice of the
landlord was heard, apparently remonstrating with a very self-assertive
person.

“I know my rights, sir, let me tell you,” this person shouted. “Lady me
no ladies, sir; I have a right to enter the room--'t is a public room.
Zounds, sir, cannot you perceive that I am a gentleman, if I am an
actor?”

“I'll dare swear he could n't,” muttered Mrs. Clive.

“Nay, sir, you shall not intrude on the privacy of a lady,” came the
voice of the landlord.

“Out of the way, sirrah,” the other cried, and at the same moment the
door was flung open, and a tall young man wearing a travelling cloak and
boots strode into the room followed by the landlord, at whom he turned
scowling at every step.

“Madam, I give you my word that I am not to blame; the gentleman would
come in,” cried the landlord.

“That will do, sir,” said the stranger. “I myself will make whatever
apology may be needed. I flatter myself that I have had to make many
apologies before now.”

“Madam,” continued the landlord, “I told him that you--”

“That will do, Boniface!” cried the other, standing between the landlord
and Mrs. Clive, who had risen. Then giving a smirk and a flourishing
bow, he said: “Madam, you look to be a sensible woman.”

“I vow, sir,” said Kitty, “I have never been accused of being sensible
before. If you cannot pay a woman a better compliment than to call her
sensible, you would be wise to refrain from the attempt to flatter her.”

The pause that followed was broken by the self-satisfied chuckle of
the landlord. He seemed to take credit to himself for Kitty's sally.
He looked at the stranger, then at the lady; his face puckered with
a smile. Then he walked to the door, and gave another chuckle as he
glanced round with his hand on the door.

“Mistress Kitty has taken the measure of my fine gentleman,” he
muttered, with a shrewd wink; “there's no need for me here.”

His chuckle broadened into a guffaw as he went down the passage, having
closed the door.

“Pray, madam, be not offended,” the man who was facing Kitty managed
to say, after an interval. “If I called you sensible, I most humbly
apologise. No offence was meant, madam.”

“I believe that, sir; but no woman likes to be called sensible. You may
call one a silly piece, a romp, or a heartless coquette without offence;
but never a sensible woman.”

“I forgot myself for the moment, madam, owing to the treatment I
received at the hands of that bumpkin Boniface. I am, in what is
doubtless your condition--awaiting the coach, and I objected to be
relegated to the kitchen.”

“Faith, sir,” said Kitty, with a laugh, as she returned to the settle,
“I have passed some pleasant enough hours in a kitchen.”

“And so have I, madam, when the wenches were well favoured,” said the
man, assuming the sly look of a man who had seen life. [Men who fancied
they knew the world were as plentiful in the last century as they are in
the present.] “Yes, madam; but then I went into the kitchen by choice,
not on compulsion.”

“Maybe you left on compulsion; kitchen wenches have strong arms, sir,”
 remarked Kitty.

“Nay, nay, madam, Jack Bates--my name, madam--has always been a
favourite with the wenches.”

“The kitchen wenches?”

“Zounds, madam, a wench is a wench, whether in the kitchen or the
parlour, Oh, I know woman thoroughly: I have studied her. Woman is a
delightful branch of education.”

“Oh, sir!” cried Kitty, sinking in a curtesy with the look of mock
demureness with which she was accustomed to fascinate her audiences at
Drury Lane.

Mr. Bates was fascinated by that look. He smiled good-naturedly, waving
his hat as if to deprecate the suggestion that he meant to be a gay dog.

“Nay, be not fluttered, fair one,” he cried with a smirk. “I protest
that I am a gentleman.”

“Oh, I breathe again,” said Kitty, rising to the surface, so to speak,
after her curtesy, “A gentleman? I should never have guessed it. I
fancied I heard you assert that you were an actor--just the opposite,
you know.”

“So I am, madam. I am an actor,” said Mr. Bates. Sharp though Kitty's
sarcasm was, it glanced off him.

Kitty assumed a puzzled look. Then she pretended that his meaning had
dawned on her.

“Oh, I see; you mean, sir, that you are the actor of the part of a
gentleman. Faith, sir, the part might have been better cast.”

“I hope that I am a gentleman first, and an actor afterwards, madam,”
 said Mr. Bates, with some measure of dignity.

“In that case, I presume you were appearing in the former _rôle_ before
you arrived at the inn,” said Kitty, whose sarcasm was at no time
deficient in breadth.

Even Mr. Bates was beginning to appreciate her last sally, when she
added, “I do not remember having seen your name in a bill of any of the
London playhouses, Mr. Bates.”

“I have never appeared in London, madam,” said Mr. Bates, “and, so far as
I can gather, I have not lost much by remaining in the country.”

“Nay, but think what the playgoers of London have lost, Mr. Bates,” said
Kitty solemnly.

“I do think of it,” cried the man. “Yes, I swear to you that I do. When
I hear of the upstarts now in vogue I feel tempted sometimes to put my
pride in my pocket and appear in London.”

“Before starting in London, a person needs to have his pockets full of
something besides pride,” said Kitty. “There are other ways of making
a fortune besides appearing on the London stage. Why should men come
to London to act when they may become highwaymen in the country--ay, or
inn-keepers--another branch of the same profession?”

“It is clear, madam, that you have no high opinion of the stage. To let
you into a secret--neither have I.” Mr. Bates' voice sank to a whisper,
and he gave a confidential wink or two while making this confession.

Kitty was now truly surprised. Most actors of the stamp of Mr. Bates,
whom she had met, had a profound belief in the art of acting, and
particularly in themselves as exponents of that art.

“What, sir!” she cried, “are you not an actor on your own confession,
whatever the critics may say?”

“I admit it, my dear lady; but at the same time, I repeat that I have
no faith in the stage. Acting is the most unconvincing of the arts. Is
there ever a human being outside Bedlam who fancies that the stage hero
is in earnest?”

“I should say that the force of the illusion is largely dependent upon
the actor,” said Kitty.

“Nothing of the sort, I assure you,” said Bates, with a pitying
smile--the smile of the professor for the amateur. “The greatest of
actors--nay, even I myself, madam, fail to carry an audience along with
me so as to make my hearers lose sight of the sham. What child would be
imposed on by the sufferings of the stage hero or heroine? What school
miss would fail to detect the ring of falsehood in the romance of what
authors call their plots?”

“You fancy that everyone should be capable of detecting the difference
between a woman's account of her real woes and an actress's simulation
of such woes?”

“That is my contention, madam. The truth has a ring about it that cannot
be simulated by even the best actress.”

“Dear, dear!” cried Kitty, lifting up her hands. “What a wonder it is
that any persons can be prevailed upon to go evening after evening to
the playhouses! Why, I myself go--yes, frequently. Indeed--perhaps I
should blush to confess it--I am a constant attender at Drury Lane. I do
not believe I should be able to live without going to the playhouse!”

“Tell the truth, madam,” cried Mr. Bates, stretching out an eloquent
forefinger at her as she sat on the settle looking at her hands on her
lap, “have you ever sat out an entire play?”

Kitty looked up and laughed loud and long, so that Mr. Bates felt
greatly flattered. He began to believe that he had just said a very
clever thing.

“Well, there I allow that you have me,” said Kitty. “Sir, I admit that
as a rule I do not remain seated during even an entire act of a play.”

“Ah,” cried Mr. Bates triumphantly, “I knew that you were a sensible
woman, asking your pardon again for my presumption. Your confession
bears out my contention; and let me tell you that, on the stage,
matters, so far from improving, are steadily degenerating. I hear that
that young man Garrick is now more in vogue than that fine old actor,
Mr. Quin. Think of it, madam! A wine merchant they say this Garrick was.
Have you ever seen him?”

“Oh, yes,” said Kitty; “I have seen him.”

“And what may he be like?”

“Mr. Garrick is like no one, and no one is like Mr. Garrick,” said Kitty
warmly.

“Ah!” Mr. Bates' lips were curled with a sneer that caused Kitty's feet
to tap the floor nervously. “Ah! A little fellow, I understand--not up
to my shoulder.”

“Physically, perhaps not,” Kitty replied. “But the stature of Mr.
Garrick varies. I have seen him tower over every one on the stage--over
every one in the playhouse; and again I have seen him dwindle until he
was no higher than a child.”

Mr. Bates looked surprised.

“How does he manage that? A stage trick, I expect.”

“I dare say 't is so--merely that stage trick--genius.”

“He could not deceive me: I would take his measure,” said Mr. Bates,
with a shrewd smirk.

“Still, I have heard that even the players beside him on the stage are
sometimes carried away with the force of his acting,” said Kitty.

“A paltry excuse for forgetting their lines!” sneered Mr. Bates. “Ah! no
actor could make a fool of me!”

“Would anyone think it necessary to improve on Nature's handiwork in
this respect?” asked Kitty demurely.

“How?” For a moment Mr. Bates had his doubts as to whether or not the
lady meant to pass a compliment upon him. The demure look upon her face
reassured him. “You are right, madam; they could easily see what I am,”
 he said, tapping his chest.

“They could, indeed, sir,” said Kitty, more demurely than ever.

“I do not doubt, mind you, that there is a certain superficial ability
about this Mr. Garrick,” resumed Mr. Bates in a condescending way.

“I am sure that Mr. Garrick would feel flattered could he but know that
he had the good opinion of Mr. Bates,” remarked Kitty.

“Yes, I know that I am generous,” said Mr. Bates. “But this Garrick--I
wonder what his Hamlet is like.”

“It is _like_ nothing, sir: it is Hamlet,” cried Kitty.

“You have seen it? What is he like when the ghost enters? I have made
that scene my own.”

Kitty sprang from the settle.

“Like?” she said. “What is he like? He is like a man in the presence of
a ghost at first, and then--then the ghost becomes more substantial than
he. You hear a sudden cry--he stands transfixed with horror--you see
that he is not breathing, and he makes you one with himself. You cannot
breathe. You feel that his hand is on your heart. You are in the power
of his grasp. He can do what he pleases with you. If he tightens his
grasp you will never breathe again in this world. There is a terrible
pause--he draws his breath--he allows you to draw yours; but you feel in
that long silence you have been carried away to another world--you
are in a place of ghosts--there is nothing real of all that is about
you--you have passed into a land of shadows, and you are aware of a
shadow voice that can thrill a thousand men and women as though they
were but one person:--

“'Angels and ministers of grace defend us!'

“Bah! what a fool I am!” cried Kitty, flinging herself excitedly upon
the settle. “Imitate Mr. Garrick? Sir, he is inimitable! One may imitate
an actor of Hamlet. David Garrick is not that; he is, I repeat, Hamlet
himself.”

Mr. Bates was breathing hard. There was a considerable pause before
he found words to say,--“Madam, for one who has no stage training, I
protest that you display some power. You have almost persuaded me to
admire another actor's Hamlet--a thing unheard of on the stage. I,
myself, play the part of the Prince of Denmark. It would gratify me to
be permitted to rehearse a scene in your presence. You would then see on
what points Mr. Garrick resembles me.”

“Oh, lord!” muttered Kitty, making a face behind Mr. Bates' back.

“There is the scene at the grave. I am reckoned amazing in that scene.”

“Amazing? I do not doubt it.”

“I wonder how Mr. Garrick acts the grave scene.”

“Oh, sir,'t is his humour to treat it paradoxically.” Kitty was now
herself again. “He does not treat the grave scene gravely but merrily.”

“Merrily?”

“Why not? Novelty is everything in these days. Does not Mr. Macklin make
Shylock a serious and not a comic character? An innovation on the stage
draws the town.”

“Faith, madam, to act the grave scene in a burst of merriment is past an
innovation.”

“Not at all, sir. With Mr. Garrick it seems quite natural. He is one
of those actors who are superior to nature. I am sure you have met some
such.”

“I never met one who was otherwise.”

“Ah, then you will see how Mr. Garrick could enter upon the scene,
beginning to play bowls with Horatio, using skulls for the game; this
goes on for some time, while they quarrel on the score of the score.
They fling their skulls at one another, and then they take to fencing
with two thigh bones which they pick up. Hamlet runs Horatio through
with his bone, and he falls atop of the first grave-digger, who has
been watching the fight, and in pantomime--much is done by pantomime
nowadays--laying odds on Hamlet. Both topple over into the grave, and
Hamlet stands on the brink, convulsed with laughter. This, you observe,
gives extra point to Hamlet's enquiry, 'Whose grave is that, sirrah?'
and certainly extraordinary point to the man's reply, 'Mine, sir.' Has
it ever occurred to you to act the scene after that fashion?”

“Never, madam--never, I swear,” cried Mr. Bates heartily.

“Ah, there you see is the difference between Mr. Garrick and you,” said
Kitty. “Do you bring on Hamlet's Irish servant, Mr. Bates?”

“Hamlet's Irish servant?”

“Is it possible that you have not yet followed the new reading in the
scene where Hamlet comes upon the king praying?”

“I know the scene,” cried Mr. Bates, throwing himself into an attitude
as he began: “Oh, my offense is rank; it smells to heaven!”

“That is it,” cried Kitty, interrupting him. “Well, then Hamlet appears
with his Irish servant.”

“'Tis the first I've heard of him.”

“Let it not be the last.'T is a new reading. Hamlet enters, sees the
king, and then turns to his Irish servant saying, 'Now might I do it,
Pat'--the man's name is Patrick, you perceive?”

“Madam, a more ridiculous innovation I protest I never heard of,” said
Mr. Bates.

“By my faith, sir,'t is not more ridiculous than some stage innovations
that I could name,” said Kitty.

“I could understand Kitty Clive introducing such a point into one of the
farces in which I hear she is a merry baggage, but--”

“You have never seen Kitty Clive then?”

“Never, but I hear she is a romp. Are you an admirer of hers, madam?”

“Sir, she has no more devoted admirer than myself,” said Kitty, looking
at the man straight in the face.

“Is she not a romp?”

“Oh, surely, a sad, sad romp. She has by her romping, saved many a play
from being damned.”

“She is so great a favorite with playgoers, I doubt her ability,” said
Mr. Bates. “I doubt if she could move me. What is the nature of her
merriment?”

“Extravagance, sir, extravagance. She bounces on as a hoyden, and
pulls a long face like this”--even Mr. Bates roared at Kitty's long
face--“behind the back of the very proper gentleman who has come to woo
her. She catches the point of his sword sheath so that when he tries to
turn he almost falls. She pretends that he has struck her with his sword
and she howls with pain. He hastens to comfort her--down goes a chair,
and he topples over it. 'Murder, murder!' she cries, and snatches up the
shovel as if to defend herself. My gentleman recovers, and hastens to
assure her of his honourable intentions. She keeps him off with her
shovel. He drops his hat, and she shovels it up and runs around the room
to throw it on the fire. He follows her over tables, chairs, and a sofa
or two. 'Tally ho!' she cries and gives a view-halloo. Round the room
they go, and just as he is at the point of catching her she uses the
shovel as a racket, and sends the hat flying, and at the same stroke,
sends her lover sprawling.”

“Madam, she is a vulgar jade, I swear,” cried Mr. Bates. He was more out
of breath than Kitty, for she had acted the part so vividly that she
had forced him involuntarily to take the part of the hoyden's lover, and
both he and his hat had suffered. “That scene which you have described
bears out my argument that the more outrageous a scene is, the better
pleased are the public. Women do not make fools of men in real life.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“No; there you have the absurdity of the stage. Authors set reason and
sense at defiance, daily. Shakespeare is one of the worst offenders.”

“What, Shakespeare?”

“Oh, believe me, madam, Shakespeare is a greatly over-rated writer.
Look, for instance, at his play of 'Romeo and Juliet': Romeo sees the
lady, exchanges a few words with her, and falls at once in love with
her. He has only to rant beneath her window by the light of the moon,
and forthwith she agrees to marry him, and sure enough, they are married
the very next day. Good lord! Would Shakespeare have us believe that
men can be so easily fooled? Our moderns have not greatly improved upon
Shakespeare.”

“I am with you there, sir, heart and soul.”

“No, they still outrage sense by their plots. A man meets a woman quite
by chance. She tells him a cock and bull story that any fool could see
outrages probability; but he is captivated in a moment. He falls on his
knees before her and vows that she has only to speak to make him the
happiest of mortals. All this is, madam, I need scarcely say, quite
monstrous and unnatural. Such a proceeding could not occur outside
Bedlam.”

“This gentleman should be taught a lesson,” said Kitty to herself, as
she watched Mr. Bates swaggering across the room. She became thoughtful
for a moment, and then smiled--only for a second, however; then she
became grave and her voice faltered as she said: “Sir, I protest that I
never before knew--nay, felt--what real eloquence was--eloquence wedded
to reason.”

“Nay, madam,” smirked Mr. Bates.

“'T is the truth, sir. May I hope that you will not think me too
forward, if I venture to express a humble opinion, sir?” Her voice was
low, and it certainly faltered more than before.

“I shall treasure that opinion, madam,” said Mr. Bates. That soft voice
produced its impression upon him. He felt that he was in the presence of
an amazingly fine woman.

“You will not be offended, sir, if I say that I feel it to be a great
pity that one who has such eloquence at his command should spend his
time merely repeating the phrases--the very inferior phrases--of others.
The Senate, sir, should be your stage. You are not angry, sir?”

She had laid a hand upon his arm and was looking pleadingly up to his
face.

“Angry?” cried Mr. Bates, patting her hand, at which she turned her
eyes, modestly from his face to the ground.

“Angry? Nay, dear lady, you have but expressed what I have often
thought.”

“I am so glad that you are not offended by my presumption, sir,” said
Kitty, removing her hand--Mr. Bates did not seem willing to let it go.
“If you were offended, I protest that I should be the most wretched of
women.”

Mr. Bates marked how her voice broke, He took a step after her, as she
went to the settle.

“Dear madam, you deserve to be the happiest rather than the most
wretched of your sex,” he said--his voice was also very soft and low.

Kitty turned to him, crying quickly: “And I should be so if--” here
she sighed--it seemed to Mr. Bates quite involuntarily. “Pardon me:
I--I--that is--sometimes the heart forces the lips to speak when they
should remain silent. A woman is a simple creature, sir.”

“A woman is a very fascinating creature, I vow,” cried Mr. Bates, and he
felt that he was speaking the truth.

“Ah, Mr. Bates, she has a heart: that is woman's weakness--her heart!”
 murmured Kitty.

“I protest that she has not a monopoly of that organ,” said Mr. Bates.
“May not a man have a heart also, sweet one?”

“Alas!” sighed Kitty, “it has not been my lot to meet with any but those
who are heartless. I have often longed--but why should I burden you with
the story of my longings--of my sufferings?”

“Your woman's instinct tells you that you have at last met with a man
who has a heart. I have a heart, dear creature. Was it my fate brought
me into this room to-day? Was it my inscrutable destiny that led me to
meet the most charming--”

“Pray, Mr. Bates, be merciful as you are strong!” cried Kitty, pressing
one hand to her tumultuous bosom. “Do not compel a poor weak woman to
betray her weakness: the conqueror should be merciful. What a voice is
yours, sir! What poor woman could resist its melody? Oh, sir, forgive
the tears of a weak, unhappy creature.”

She had thrown herself on the settle and had laid her head upon one of
its arms.

In an instant he was beside her and had caught her hand.

“Nay, dear one, I cannot forgive the tears that dim those bright eyes,”
 he whispered in her ear. “You have had a past, madam?”

“Ah, sir,” cried Kitty, from the folds of her handkerchief, “all my life
up to the present has been my past--that is why I weep.”

“Is it so sad as that? You have a story?”

“Should I tell it to you?” said Kitty, raising her head suddenly and
looking at the face that was so near hers. “I will, I will--yes, I will
trust you--you may be able to help me.”

“With my latest breath!” cried Mr. Bates.

“Sir, to be brief, I am a great heiress,” said Kitty, quite calmly. Mr.
Bates started, his eyes brightened. “My uncle was trustee of my father's
property--it is in two counties,” continued Kitty. “For some years after
my father's death I had no reason for complaint. But then a change came.
My uncle's son appeared upon the scene, and I soon perceived his true
character--a ruined, dissolute scamp, I knew him to be, and when I
rejected his advances with scorn, his father, who I fancied was my
friend, commenced such a series of persecutions as would have broken a
less ardent spirit than mine. They did not move me. They shut me up in a
cold, dark dungeon and loaded these limbs of mine with fetters.”

“The infernal ruffians!”

“They fed me with bread and water. They tortured me by playing on the
harpsichord outside my prison all the best known airs from the _Beggars'
Opera_.

“Horrible!”

“Oh, I thought I should have gone mad--mad; but I knew that that was
just what they wanted, in order that they might shut me up in Bedlam,
and enjoy my property. I made a resolution not to go mad, and I have
adhered to it ever since.”

“Noble girl!”

“At last the time came when I could stand their treatment no longer.
I flung my iron fetters to the winds--I burst through the doors of my
prison and rushed into the dining-hall where my two persecutors were
carousing in their cups. They sprang up with a cry of horror when I
appeared. My uncle's hand was upon the bell, when I felled him with a
heavy glass decanter. With a yell--I hear it now--his son sprang upon
me--he went down beneath the stroke of the ten-light chandelier which I
hastily plucked down and hurled at him. I called for a horse and chaise.
They were at the door in a moment and I fled all night. But alas! alas!
I feel that my flight shall avail me nothing. They are on my track, and
I shall be forced to marry at least one of them. But no, no, sooner than
submit, with this dagger--”

She had sprung from her place and her hand was grasping something inside
her bodice, when Mr. Bates caught her firmly by the wrist.

“You shall do nothing so impious, madam,” he cried.

“Who shall prevent me?” cried Kitty, struggling with him. “Who shall
save me from my persecutors?”

“I, madam--I will do it!” cried Mr. Bates.

“You--how?” Kitty had now ceased to struggle.

“I will marry you myself!” shouted Mr. Bates, grasping both her hands.

“But only half an hour has passed since we met,” said Kitty, looking
down.

“That is enough, madam, to convince me that my heart is yours. Sweet
one, I throw myself at your feet. Let me be your protector. Let me hold
you from your persecutors. Dearest lady, marry me and you are safe.”

“Thank heaven--thank heaven I have found a friend!” murmured Kitty.

“You agree?” said Mr. Bates, rising to his feet.

“Oh, sir, I am overcome with gratitude,” cried Kitty, throwing herself
into his arms.

“An heiress--and mine,” Mr. Bates whispered.

“Mistress Clive, the gentleman has arrived--oh, lud! what has Kitty been
up to?”

The landlord was standing at the door with his hands raised.

“'T is my brother, Jimmy Raftor,” said Kitty, coolly arranging the
disordered hood of her cloak before the glass. “Jimmy is one of the best
pistol-shots in all Ireland, and that's saying a good deal. Show the
gentleman in, Mr. Landlord.”

Mr. Bates stood aghast. “Mistress Clive--not Kitty Clive of Drury Lane?”
 he faltered.

“I am Kitty Clive of Drury Lane, at your service, sir, if you should
need another lesson to convince you that even the most ridiculous story,
if plausibly told, will carry conviction to the most astute of men.”

Kitty Clive sank in a mock curtesy; the landlord roared with laughter;
Mr. Bates stood amazed in the center of the room.




A QUESTION OF ART


I

If only she had a heart she would be perfect,” said Mr. Garrick to his
friend, Mrs. Woffington.

“Ay, as an actress, not as a woman,” said Mrs. Woffington. “'T is
not the perfect women who have been most liberally supplied with that
organ.”

“Faith, Madam Peggy, I, David Garrick, of Drury Lane Theatre, have good
reason to set much more store upon the perfect actress than the perfect
woman,” said Mr. Garrick. “If I had no rent to pay and no actors to pay,
I might be led to spend a profitable hour or two over the consideration
of so interesting a question as the relative merits of the perfect woman
with no heart worth speaking of and the perfect actress with a dangerous
superfluity of the same organ. Under existing conditions, however, I beg
leave to--”

“Psha! Davy,” said Margaret; “try not your scholarship upon so poor a
thing as myself! It seems to me that you have never quite recovered
from the effects of your early training at the feet of our friend, Mr.
Johnson.”

“Alas! Peggy,” said Garrick, “I have forgot all the better part of Mr.
Johnson's instruction. He has no reason to be proud of me.”

“And yet he is proud of you, and, by my faith, he has some reason to be
so. Was it not he made you an actor?”

“He! Mr. Johnson? oh, Lord, he never ceased to inculcate upon us a just
hatred and contempt of all that appertains to the stage.”

“Ay, and that was the means of making you thoroughly interested in all
that appertains to the stage, my friend. But I hold as I have always
held, that Mr. Johnson gave you first chance.

“What sophistry is this that you have seized upon, my dear? My first
chance?”

“Yes, sir; I hold that your first and, I doubt not, your greatest,
success as an actor, was your imitation for the good of your
schoolfellows, of the mighty love passages between your good preceptor
and that painted piece of crockery who had led him to marry her, that
was old enough--ay, and nearly plain enough--to be his mother. What did
he call her?--his Tiffy?--his Taffy?”

“Nay, only his Tessy, The lady's name was Elizabeth, you must know.”

“Call her Saint Elizabeth, Davy--your patron saint, for, by the Lord
Harry, you would never have thought of coming on the stage if it had not
been for the applause you won when you returned to the schoolroom after
peeping through the door of the room where your schoolmaster chased his
Tessy into a corner for a kiss! Davy, 't is your finest part still. If
you and I were to act it, with a prologue written by Mr. Johnson, it
would draw all the town.”

“I doubt it not; but it would likewise draw down upon me the wrath of
Mr. Johnson; and that is not to be lightly faced. But we have strayed
from our text, Margaret.”

“Our text? I have forgotten that there was some preaching being done.
But all texts are but pretexts for straying, uttered in the hearing of
the strayed. What is your text, Davy?”

“The text is the actress without the heart, Margaret, and the evil that
she doeth to the writer of the tragedy, to the man who hath a lease
of the playhouse, and above all to her sister actress, Mistress
Woffington.”

“The last of the three evils would imperil the soul's safety of as
blameless a lady as Kitty Clive herself. But, if Mistress Woffington
acts her part well in the new tragedy, I scarce see how she can be hurt
by the bad acting of Miss Hoppner.”

“That is because you are a trifle superficial in your views of the
drama, Mistress Woffington. What would you think of the painter who
should declare that, if the lights in his picture were carefully put in,
the shadows might be left to chance?”

“Where is the analogy, David?”

“It is apparent: the tragedy is the picture, Mrs. Woffington represents
the lighting, and Miss Hoppner the shading. Heavens! Mrs. Woffington,
madam, do you flatter yourself that the playgoers will be willing to
accept the author's account of the fascinations of the woman whom
you are representing, if you fail to rouse your rival to any point of
jealousy? Miss Hoppner, for all the strong language the poet puts into
her mouth, will not make the playgoers feel that the Lady Oriana bears
you a grudge for having taken her lover from her; and when she stabs you
with her dagger, she does so in such a halfhearted way that the whole
house will perceive that she is not in earnest.”

“Then they will blame her, and she will deserve the blame. They cannot
blame me.”

“Cannot they, indeed? Lord, my good woman, you little know the
playgoers. You think that they are so nice in their discrimination?
You should have learnt better since the days you hung on to Madame
Violanti's feet on the tight rope. If you had wriggled so that Violanti
had slipped off her rope, would her patrons have blamed aught but her?
Nay, you know that they would only have sneered at her clumsiness, and
thought nothing of the little devil who had upset her.”

“Ay; I begin to perceive your meaning. You apprehend that the playgoers
will damn the play and all associated with it, because Miss Hoppner does
not kill me with sufficient good-will?”

“I feel sure that they will say that if Mrs. Woffington had only acted
with sufficient intensity she would have stirred her rival into so real
a passion of jealousy that she would have stabbed you in a fury.”

“Look you here, friend Davy; if it be in your thoughts that Mairgaret
Woffington is to be held accountable for the mistakes of all the other
members of your company, you would do well to revise your salary list.”

“Nay, Peggy; I only said what the playgoers will, in their error, mind
you, assume.”

“Come, Mr. Garrick, tell me plainly what you want me to do for you in
this business. What, sir, are we not on sufficiently friendly terms for
plain speaking? Tell me all that is on your mind, sir?”

Garrick paused for some moments, and then laughed in a somewhat
constrained way, before walking on by the side of his friend.

“Come, sir,” continued Mrs. Woffington. “Be as plain as you please. I am
not prone to take offence.”

“We'll talk of that anon,” said Garrick. “Perhaps Mr. Macklin will be
able to give us his helpful counsel in this business.”

“Psha!” said Peggy. “Mr. Macklin could never be brought to see with your
eyes.”

“Then he will be all the better able to give us the result of Mr.
Macklin's observation,” said Garrick.

“Ay, but that is not what you want, Davy,” said Mrs. Woffington, with a
pretty loud laugh. “No one ever calls in a counsellor with the hope of
obtaining an unprejudiced opinion; the only counsellor in whom we have
confidence is he who corroborates our own views.”


II

They had reached their house. It was No. 6 Bow Street, and it was
presided over by Macklin--Garrick and Mrs. Woffington doing the
housekeeping on alternate months.

Visitors preferred calling during Peggy's month, as the visitor, who was
now greeted by David Garrick in the parlour, testified in the presence
of his biographer years after; for it was Samuel Johnson who awaited the
return from rehearsal of his Lichfield pupil, David Garrick.

“You shall have a dish of tea, Mr. Johnson, if we have to go thirsty for
the rest of the week,” cried the actress, when her hand had been kissed
by her visitor. Johnson's kissing of her hand was strangely suggestive
of an elephant's picking up a pin.

“Madam,” said he, “your offer is made in the true spirit of hospitality.
Hospitality, let me tell you, consists not, as many suppose, in the
sharing of one's last crust with a friend--for the sacrifice in parting
with a modicum of so unappetising a comestible as a crust is not
great--nay; hospitality, to become a virtue, involves a real sacrifice.”

“So in heaven's name let us have the tea,” said Garrick. “Make it not
too strong,” he whispered to Peggy as he opened the door for her. “I
have seen him drain his tenth cup at a sitting.”

The actress made a mocking gesture by way of reply. She did not share
Garrick's parsimonious longings, and in the matter of tea brewing, she
was especially liberal. When she returned to the room bearing aloft a
large teapot, and had begun to pour out the contents, Garrick complained
bitterly of the strength of the tea, as his guest years afterwards told
Boswell.

“'T is as red as blood,” growled the actor.

“And how else should it be, sir?” cried Mrs. Woffington. “Is 't not the
nature of good tea to be red?”

As Garrick continued growling, Peggy laughed the more heartily, and,
with an air of coquettish defiance which suited her admirably, poured
out a second brimming cup for their visitor--he had made very light of
the first--taking no care to avoid spilling some into the saucer.

“Faith, sir, Mr. Garrick is right: 'tis as red as blood,” laughed Peggy,
looking with mischievous eyes into Johnson's face.

“That were an indefinite statement, madam; its accuracy is wholly
dependent on the disposition of the person from whom the blood is
drawn,” said Johnson. “Now yours, I believe, madam, to be of a rich
and generous hue, but Davy's, I doubt not, is a pale and meagre
fluid--somewhat resembling the wine which he endeavored to sell, with,
let us hope for the sake of the health of his customers, indifferent
success for some years.”

Garrick laughed with some constraint, while Mrs. Woffington roared with
delight.

“Nay, sir; you are too hard upon me,” cried the actor.

“What! would the rascal cry up his blood at the expense of his wine?”
 said Johnson. “That, sir, were to eulogise nature at the expense of
art--an ill proceeding for an actor.”

“And that brings us back to the question which we discussed on our way
hither from the theatre,” said Peggy. “List, good Mr. Johnson, to the
proposition of Mr. Garrick. He says that I should be held accountable
for the tameness in the acting of the part of a jealous woman by Miss
Hoppner, who is to appear in the tragedy on Tuesday week.”

“I do not doubt, madam, that you should be held accountable for the
jealousy of many good women in the town,” said Johnson; “but it passes
my knowledge by what sophistry your responsibility extends to any matter
of art.”

“Mrs. Woffington has not told you all, sir,” said Garrick. “She is, as
you may well suppose, the creature in the tragedy who is supposed to
excite the bitter jealousy of another woman. Now, I submit that the
play-goers will be ready to judge of the powers of Mrs. Woffington as
exercised in the play, by its effect upon the other characters in the
said play.”

“How so, sir?” said Johnson. “Why, sir,” replied Garrick, “I maintain
that, when they perceive that the woman who is meant to be stung to a
point of madness through her jealousy of a rival, is scarce moved at
all, they will insensibly lay the blame upon her rival, saying that the
powers of the actress were not equal to the task assigned to her by the
poet.”

“And I maintain, sir, that a more ridiculous contention than yours could
not be entertained by the most ignorant of men--nay, the most ignorant
of actors, and to say so much, sir, is to say a great deal,” cried
Johnson. “I pray you, friend Davy, let no men know that I was once your
teacher, if you formulate such foolishness as this; otherwise, it would
go hard with me in the world.”

“Ah, sir, that last sentence shows that you are in perfect accord with
the views which I have tried to express to you,” said Garrick. “You are
ready to maintain that the world will hold you accountable for whatever
foolishness I may exhibit. The playgoers will, on the same principle,
pronounce on the force of Mrs. Woffington's fascinations by the effect
they have, not upon the playgoers themselves, but upon Miss Hoppner.”

“Then the playgoers will show themselves to be the fools which I have
always suspected them of being,” said Johnson, recovering somewhat
ungracefully from the effects of swallowing a cup of tea; “Ay, but how
are we to fool them?--that's the question, Mr. Johnson,” said Peggy. “I
have no mind to get the blame which should fall on the shoulders of Miss
Hoppner; I would fain have the luxury of qualifying for blame by my own
act.”

“What! you mean, madam, that before receiving the punishment for
sinning, you would fain enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season? That
is, I fear, but indifferent morality,” said Johnson, shaking his head
and his body as well with even more than his accustomed vehemence.

“Look you here, Mrs. Woffington,” said Garrick. “You are far too kind to
Miss Hoppner. That would not be bad of itself, but when it induces her
to be kindly disposed to you, it cannot be tolerated. She is a poor
fool, and so is unable to stab with proper violence one who has shown
herself her friend.”

“She cannot have lived in the world of fashion,” remarked Johnson.

“Lud! would you have me arouse the real passion in the good woman for
the sake of the play?” cried Peggy.

“He would e'en degrade nature by making her the handmaid of art.
Sir, let me tell you this will not do, and there's an end on't,” said
Johnson.

“Then the play will be damned, sir,” said Garrick.

“Let the play be damned, sir, rather than a woman's soul,” shouted
Johnson.

“Meantime you will have another cup of tea, Mr. Johnson,” said Peggy,
smiling with a witchery of that type which, exercised in later years,
caused her visitor to make a resolution never to frequent the green
room of Drury Lane--a resolution which was possibly strengthened by the
failure of his tragedy.

“Mrs. Woffington,” said he, passing on his empty cup, “let me tell you I
count it a pity so excellent a brewer of tea should waste her time upon
the stage. Any wench may learn to act, but the successful brewing of tea
demands the exercise of such judgment as cannot be easily acquired.
Briefly, the woman is effaced by the act of going on the stage; but the
brewing of tea is a revelation of femininity.”  He took three more
cupfuls.

*****

The tragedy of “Oriana,” from the rehearsal of which Garrick and Mrs.
Woffington had returned to find Johnson at their house on Bow Street,
was by an unknown poet, but Garrick had come to the conclusion, after
reading it, that it possessed sufficient merit to justify his producing
it at Drury Lane. It abounded in that form of sentiment which found
favor with playgoers in an age of artificiality, and its blank verse was
strictly correct and inexpressible. It contained an apostrophe to
the Star of Love, and eulogies of Liberty, Virtue, Hope, and other
abstractions, without which no eighteenth century tragedy was considered
to be complete. Oriana was a Venetian lady of the early republican
period. She was in love with one Orsino, a prince, and they exchanged
sentiments in the first act, bearing generally upon the advantages
of first love, without touching upon its economic aspects. Unhappily,
however, Orsino allowed himself to be attracted by a lady named
Francesca, who made up in worldly possessions for the absence of those
cheerless sentiments which Oriana had at her fingers' ends, and the
result was that Oriana ran her dagger into the heart of her rival, into
the chest of her faithless lover, and into her own stays. The business
was carried on by the sorrowing relations of the three, with the
valuable assistance of the ghosts of the slain, who explained their
relative positions with fluency and lucidity, and urged upon the
survivors, with considerable argumentative skill, the advisability of
foregoing the elaborate scheme of revenge which each side was hoping
to carry out against the other from the date of the obsequies of the
deceased.

The character of Oriana was being rehearsed by Miss Hoppner, an
extremely handsome young woman, whom Garrick had met and engaged in the
country, Mrs. Woffington being the fatally fascinating Francesca, and
Garrick, himself, the Prince Orsino.

The tragedy had been in rehearsal for a fortnight, and it promised well,
if the representative of the jealous woman could only be brought to “put
a little life into the death scene”--the exhortation which the
Irish actress of the part of Francesca offered to her daily, but
ineffectually. Miss Hoppner neither looked the part of a tragically
jealous woman, nor did the stabbing of her rival in anything like that
whirlwind of passion with which Garrick, in spite of the limping of the
blank verse of the poet, almost swept the rest of the company off the
stage when endeavoring to explain to the actress what her representation
lacked, on the day after his chat with Mrs. Woffington on the same
subject.

Poor Miss Hoppner took a long breath, and passed her hand across her
eyes as if to get rid of the effects of that horrible expression of
deadly hate which Garrick's face had worn, as he had craned his head
forward close to hers to show her how she should stab her rival--the
slow movement of his body suggesting the stealth of the leopard
approaching its victim, and his delivery of the lines through his
teeth more than suggesting the hissing of a deadly snake in the act of
springing.

“Ay, do it that way, my dear madam,” said Mrs. Woffington, “and the day
after the tragedy is played, you will be as famous as Mr. Garrick. 'T is
the simplest thing in the world.”

[Illustration: 0130]

“You have so unnerved me, sir, that I vow I have no head for my lines,”
 said Miss Hoppner.

But when, by the aid of the prompter, the lines were recovered and
she had repeated the scene, the result showed very little improvement.
Garrick grumbled, and Miss Hoppner was tearful, as they went to the
wardrobe room to see the dresses which had just been made for the
principal ladies.

Miss Hoppner's tears quickly dried when she was brought face to face
with the gorgeous fabric which she was to wear. It was a pink satin
brocaded with white hawthorne, the stomacher trimmed with pearls. She
saw that it was infinitely superior to the crimson stuff which had been
assigned to Mrs. Woffington. She spoke rapturously of the brocade, and
hurried with it in front of a mirror to see how it suited her style of
beauty.

Mrs. Woffington watched her with a smile. A sudden thought seemed to
strike her, and she gave a little laugh. After a moment's hesitation she
went behind the other actress and said:

“I'm glad to see that you admire my dress, Miss Hoppner.”

“Your dress?” said Miss Hoppner. “Oh, yes, that crimson stuff--'t
is very becoming to you, I'm sure, Mrs. Woffington; though, for that
matter, you look well in everything.”

“'T is you who are to wear the crimson, my dear,” said Peggy. “I have
made up my mind that the one you hold in your hand is the most suitable
for me in the tragedy.”

“Nay, madam, Mr. Garrick assigned this one to me, and I think 't will
suit me very well.”

“That is where Mr. Garrick made a mistake, child,” said Peggy. “And
I mean to repair his error. The choice of dresses lies with me, Miss
Hoppner.”

“I have yet to be made aware of that, madam.” said Miss Hoppner. Her
voice had a note of shrillness in it, and Garrick, who was standing
apart, noticed that her colour had risen with her voice. He became
greatly interested in these manifestations of a spirit beyond that which
she had displayed when rehearsing the tragedy.

“The sooner you are made aware of it, the better it will be for all
concerned,” said Mrs. Woffington, with a deadly smile.

“I make bold to assure you, madam, that I shall be instructed on this
point by Mr. Garrick and Mr. Garrick only,” said the other, raising
her chin an inch or two higher than she was wont, except under great
provocation.

“I care not whom you make your instructor, provided that you receive the
instruction,” sneered Peggy.

“Mr. Garrick,” cried Miss Hoppner, “I beg that you will exercise your
authority. You assigned to me the brocade, did you not, sir?”

“And I affirm that the brocade will be more suitably worn by me, sir,”
 said Peggy. “And I further affirm that I mean to wear it, Mr. Garrick.”

“I would fain hope that the caprice of a vain woman will not be
permitted to have force against every reasonable consideration,” said
Miss Hoppner, elevating her chin by another inch as she glanced out of
the corners of her eyes in the direction of the other actress.

“That is all I ask for, madam; and as we are so agreed, I presume that
you will hand me over the gown without demur.”

“Yours is the caprice, madam, let me tell you. I have right on my side.”

“And I shall have the brocade on mine by way of compensation, my dear
lady.”

“Ladies!” cried Garrick, interposing, “I must beg of you not to
embarrass me. 'T is a small matter--this of dress, and one that should
not make a disagreement between ladies of talent. If one is a good
actress, one can move an audience without so paltry an auxiliary as a
yard or two of silk.”

“I will not pay Miss Hoppner so poor a compliment as would be implied by
the suggestion that she needs the help of a silk brocade to eke out her
resources as an actress,” said Peggy.

“I ask not for compliments from Mrs. Woffington. The brocade was
assigned to me, and--”

“It would be ungenerous to take advantage of Mr. Garrick's error,
madam.”

“It was no error, Mrs. Woffington.”

“What! you would let all the world know that Mr. Garrick's opinion was
that you stood in need of a showy gown to conceal the defects of your
art?”

“You are insolent, Mrs. Woffington!”

“Nay, nay, my dear ladies; let's have no more of this recrimination over
a question of rags. It is unworthy of you,” said Garrick.

“I feel that, sir, and so I mean to wear the brocade,” said Mrs.
Woffington. “Good lud, Mr. Garrick, what were you thinking of when you
assigned to the poor victim of the murderess in the tragedy the crimson
robe which was plainly meant to be in keeping with the gory intentions
of her rival?”

“Surely I did not commit that mistake,” said Garrick. “Heavens! where
can my thoughts have been? Miss Hoppner, madam, I am greatly vexed--”

“Let her take her brocade,” cried Miss Hoppner, looking with indignant
eyes, first at the smiling Peggy, and then at Garrick, who was acting
the part of a distracted man to perfection. “Let her wear it and see
if it will hide the shortcomings of her complexion from the eyes of the
playgoers.”

She walked away with a sniff before Peggy could deliver any reply.


III

Pray what trick have you on your mind now? asked Garrick, when he was
alone with Peggy. “What was that caprice of yours?”

“Caprice? You are a fool, Davy. You even forget your own precepts, which
your friend Mr. Johnson, in his wisdom condemned so heartily yesterday.”

“Good Lord! You mean to--”

“I mean to make Miss Hoppner act the part of a jealous woman to
perfection.” And she did so. The next day at the rehearsal, Garrick, as
well as every member of the company, was amazed at the energy which
Miss Hoppner contrived to impart to the scene in the play where, in the
character of Oriana, she stabbed her successful rival. She acted with a
force that had scarcely been surpassed by Garrick's reading of the scene
for her instruction the previous day.

“Faith, Peggy, you have given her a weapon for your own undoing,” said
Garrick, as he walked home with Mrs. Woffington. “She will eclipse you,
if you do not mind.”

“I 'll e'en run the risk,” said Peggy.

Alas! the next day Miss Hoppner was as feeble as ever--nay, the stabbing
scene had never been so feebly gone through by her; and Garrick grumbled
loudly.

Miss Hoppner did not seem to mind. At the end of the rehearsal she
sought Peggy and offered her her hand.

“Mrs. Woffington,” she said, “I am desirous of asking your pardon for
my curtness in the matter of the dress. I owe so much to your kindness,
madam, I feel that my attempt to fix a quarrel upon you was the more
base. Pray, forgive an unhappy creature, who only seeks to retain the
honour of your friendship.”

“Oh, you goose!” said Peggy. “Why are you so foolish as to desire to
make friends with me? You should have hated me--been ready to kill
me--anything for the sake of becoming an actress.”

“You will not refuse me the forgiveness which I implore?” said Miss
Hoppner.

“Nay, nay; I was in the wrong; it was my caprice, but carried out solely
on your behalf, child,” said Peggy.

“On my behalf? Oh, you are quite right; I was beginning to forget
myself--to forget that I was but a provincial actress.”

“Oh, you good natured creature!” cried Peggy. “I'll have to begin all
over again.”

They had reached the stage door by this time, and were standing together
in the long passage when a tall and good-looking man was admitted,
enquiring for Miss Hoppner. Peggy did not fail to notice the brightening
of the color of her companion as the gentleman advanced and took off
his hat with a low bow. It was with a certain proprietary air that Miss
Hoppner presented him to Peggy, by the name of Captain Joycelyn, of the
Royal Scots.

“Captain Joycelyn is one of your warmest admirers, Mrs. Woffington,”
 said Miss Hoppner.

“Sir, I am overwhelmed,” said Mrs. Woffington, with a deep courtesy.

“Nay, madam, I am your servant, I swear,” said the gentleman. “I have
often longed for this honor, but it ever seemed out of my reach. We of
the Royal Scots consider ourselves no mean judges of your art, and we
agree that the playhouse without Mrs. Woffington would be lusterless.”

“Ah, sir, you would still have Mrs. Clive,” suggested Peggy.

“Mrs. Clive? You can afford to be generous, madam,” laughed Captain
Joycelyn.

“She is the most generous woman alive,” said Miss Hoppner. “She will
prove herself such if she converses with you here for five minutes. I
was going away forgetting that I had to talk to the wardrobe mistress
about my turban. I shall not be more than five minutes away.”

“I protest it makes no demand upon my generosity to remain to listen
to so agreeable a critic, though I admit that I do so with a certain
tremor, sir,” said Peggy, with a charming assumption of the fluttered
miss.

“A certain tremor? Why should you have a tremor, dear madam?” said the
officer.

“Ah,'t is the talk of the town that all hearts go down before the Royal
Scots, as the King's enemies did in the Low Countries.”

“An idle rumour, madam, I do assure you.”

“I might have thought so up till now; but now I think I would do wisely
to retreat in order, Captain, while there is yet time.”

She looked up at his face with a smile of matchless coquetry.

“Nay, madam, you shall not stir,” said he, laughing. “'T is not the
conqueror that should retreat. I am too conscientious a soldier to
permit so gross a violation of the art of war. Seriously, why should you
fly?”

“I am a poor strategist, but I have a sense of danger. Is Miss Hoppner a
special friend of yours, sir?”

“A special friend? Well, we have been acquaintances for nigh half a
year.”

“I thought I had seen her by your side at Ranelagh. She looked very
happy. I dare say I should be ashamed to confess it, but I envied her.”

Peggy's eyes were turned upon the ground with a demureness that
represented the finest art of the coquette.

“You--you envied her?” cried the officer. “How humble must be your
aspirations, sweet creature! If I should not be thought to be over-bold
I would offer--ah! I fear that so brief an acquaintanceship as ours does
not warrant my presumption--”

“And yet you do not look like one who would be likely to give offense by
overpresumption, sir.”

“I should be sorry to do so, madam. Well, if you promise not to flout
me, I will say that if you will accept my escort any night to the
Gardens, you will do me a great honour.”

“Oh, sir, your graceful offer overwhelms me. But, alas! all my evenings
are not my own. I am free but this evening and to-morrow evening.”

“Then why not come this evening, madam?”

“Why not, indeed? only--is 't not too sudden, Captain? Ah, the dash of
Royal Scots cannot be resisted!”

At this moment Miss Hoppner returned, and Peggy cried to her, “My dear
child, your friend is Mercury--the messenger of the Elysian Fields--he
has invited us to accompany him to Ranelagh to-night.”

“Indeed! That is kind of him,” said Miss Hoppner, without any great show
of enthusiasm. “And you have accepted his invitation?”

“Ah! who could refuse?” cried Peggy. She had not failed to notice
Captain Joycelyn's little start at her assumption that Miss Hoppner was
also to be of the party. “You will not mar our enjoyment by refusing to
come, my dear?” she added.

“Nay; if 't is all settled, I will not hold aloof,” said Miss Hoppner,
brightening up somewhat.

They went out together, and before Peggy had parted from the others, the
manner and the hour of their going had been arranged.


IV

They went up to the gardens by boat. Their party numbered four, for
Miss Hoppner had, when alone with Captain Joycelyn, so pouted that he
had promised to bring with him a brother officer to add symmetry to
the party. But if she fancied that this gentleman, who was one Ensign
Cardew, was to be the companion of Mrs. Woffington, she soon became
sensible of her mistake. By some strange error, for which only Peggy
could account the couples got parted in the crowd, Peggy and the Captain
disappearing mysteriously, and only meeting the Ensign and his companion
at supper time.

The merriment of Peggy, at the supper, and the high spirits of Captain
Joycelyn, who allowed himself to be spoon-fed by her with minced
chicken, were powerless to disperse the cloud which hung over Miss
Hoppner. She pouted at the supper, and pouted in the boat, and made only
sarcastic replies to the exclamations of enjoyment addressed to her by
the volatile Peggy.

The next day, before the rehearsal of the tragedy, Miss Hoppner said to
Peggy, who was renewing her protestations of the enjoyment she had had
on the previous evening:

“I think it right that you should know, Mrs. Woffington, that Captain
Joycelyn some time ago made a proposal of marriage to me, which I
accepted.”

“Good creature, what has that to do with me?” asked Peggy. “Captain
Joycelyn certainly said nothing to me on that particular subject last
night, and why should you do so now?”

“I am desirous of playing a fair game, madam,” cried Miss Hoppner.

“And I am not desirous of playing any game, fair or otherwise,” said
Peggy. “Lud, Miss Hoppner, do you fancy that 't is my duty to prevent the
straying of the lovers of the ladies of Mr. Garrick's company? I vow,
I took upon me no such responsibility; I should have no time for my
meals.”

The woman whom she addressed looked at her with flashing eyes, her hands
tightly clenched, and her teeth set, for some moments. Once her lips
parted; she seemed about to speak; but with an evident struggle she
restrained herself. Then the fierce light in her eyes flamed into scorn.

“Words were wasted on such a creature,” she said in a whisper, that had
something of a hiss in its tone, as she walked away.

Peggy laughed somewhat stridently, and cried:

“Excellently spoke, beyond doubt. The woman will be an actress yet.”

Not a word of complaint had Garrick reason for uttering in regard to
the rehearsal of the scene in the tragedy, this day, and on their way
homewards, he remarked to Peggy, smilingly:

“Perhaps in the future, my dear Peggy, you will acknowledge that I know
something of the art and methods of acting, though you did not hesitate
to join with Mr. Johnson in calling my theories fantastic.”

“Perhaps I may,” said Peggy, quietly; “but just now I protest that I
have some qualms.”

“Qualms? Qualms? An actress with qualms!” cried Garrick. “What a comedy
could be written on that basis! 'The Actress with Qualms; or, Letting I
Dare Not wait upon I Would!' Pray, madam, do your qualms arise from
the reflection that you have contributed to the success of a sister
actress?”

“The tragedy has not yet been played,” said Peggy. “It were best not
to talk of the success of an actress in a play until the play has been
acted.”

That night, Mrs. Woffington occupied a box in the theater, and by her
side was Captain Joycelyn. Miss Hoppner was in a box opposite, and by
her side was her mother.

On Monday, Peggy greeted her quite pleasantly as she came upon the stage
to rehearse the tragedy; but she returned the greeting with a glance of
scorn, far more fierce than any which, in the character of Oriana, she
had yet cast at her rival in the scenes of the play. Peggy's mocking
face and the merry laugh in which she indulged did not cause the other
to abate any of her fierceness; but when the great scene was rehearsed
for the last time previous to the performance, Mrs. Woffington became
aware of the fact that, not only was Miss Hoppner's representation of
the passionate jealousy of the one woman real, but her own expression
of fear, on the part of the other woman when she saw the flash of the
dagger, was also real. With an involuntary cry she shrank back before
the wild eyes of the actress, who approached her with the stealthy
movement of a panther measuring its distance for a spring at the throat
of its victim.

Garrick complimented both ladies at the close of the scene, but they
both seemed too overcome to acknowledge his compliments.

“By my soul, Peggy,” said Garrick, when they met at the house in Bow
street, “you have profited as much by your teaching of that woman as
she has. The expression upon your face to-day as she approached you gave
even me a thrill. The climax needed such a cry as you uttered, though
that fool of a poet did not provide for it.”

She did not respond until some moments had passed, and then she merely
said:

“Where are we to end, Davy, if we are to bring real and not simulated
passion to our aid at the theater? Heavens, sir! we shall be in a pretty
muddle presently. Are we to cultivate our hates and our jealousies and
our affections for the sake of exhibiting them in turn?”

“'T would not be convenient to do so,” said Garrick. “Still, you have
seen how much can be done by an exhibition of the real, and not the
simulated passion.”

“Depend upon it, sir, if you introduce the real passions into the acting
of a tragedy you will have a real and not a simulated tragedy on the
stage.”

“Psha! that is the thought of--a woman,” said Garrick. “A woman seeks to
carry an idea to its furthest limits; she will not be content to accept
it within its reasonable limitations.”

“And, being a woman,'tis my misfortune to think as a woman,” said Mrs.
Woffington.

The theatre was crowded on the evening when “Oriana” appeared for the
first time on the bills. Garrick had many friends, and so also had
Margaret Woffington. The appearance of either in a new character
was sufficient to fill the theatre, but in “Oriana” they were both
appearing, and the interest of playgoers had been further stimulated by
the rumors which had been circulated respecting the ability of the new
actress whom Garrick had brought from the country.

When the company assembled in the green-room, Garrick gave all his
attention to Miss Hoppner. He saw how terribly nervous she was. Not for
a moment would she remain seated. She paced the room excitedly,
every now and again casting a furtive glance in the direction of Mrs.
Woffington, who was laughing with Macklin in a corner.

“You have no cause for trepidation, my dear lady,” said Garrick to Miss
Hoppner.

[Illustration: 0155]

“Your charm of person will make you a speedy favorite with the
playgoers, and if you act the stabbing scene as faithfully as you did at
the last two rehearsals your success will be assured.”

“I can but do my best, sir,” said the actress. “I think you will find
that I shall act the stabbing scene with great effect.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Garrick. “Your own friends in the boxes will
be gratified.”

“I have no friends in the boxes, sir,” said the actress.

“Nay, surely I heard of at least one--a certain officer in the Royal
Scots,” whispered Garrick.

“I know of none such, sir,” replied the actress, fixing her eyes, half
closed, upon Peg Woffington, who was making a jest at Macklin's expense
for the members of the company in the neighbourhood.

“Surely I heard--,” continued Garrick, but suddenly checked himself.
“Ah, I recollect now what I heard,” he resumed, in a low tone. “Alas!
Peggy is a sad coquette, but I doubt not that the story of your
conquests will ring through the town after to-night.”

She did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were fixed upon Peggy Woffington,
and in another moment the signal came that the curtain was ready to
rise.

Garrick and Macklin went on the stage together, the former smiling in a
self-satisfied way.

“I think I have made it certain that she will startle the house in at
least one scene,” he whispered to Macklin.

“Ah, that is why Peggy is so boisterous,” said Macklin. “'Tis only when
she is over-nervous that she becomes boisterous. Peggy is beginning to
feel that she may have a rival.”

But if Peggy was nervous she certainly did not suggest it by her acting.
She had not many opportunities for displaying her comedy powers in the
play, but she contrived to impart a few touches of humour to the love
scenes in the first act, which brightened up the gloom of the tragedy,
and raised the spirits of the audience in some measure. Her mature style
contrasted very effectively with the efforts of Miss Hoppner, who showed
herself to be excessively nervous, and thereby secured at once the
sympathies of the house. It was doubtful which of the two obtained the
larger share of applause.

At the end of the act, Captain Joycelyn was waiting at the back of the
stage to compliment Peggy upon her acting. Miss Hoppner brushed past
them on her way to her dressing-room, without deigning to recognise
either.

Curiously enough, in the next act the position of the two actresses
seemed to be reversed. It was Mrs. Woffington who was nervous, whereas
Miss Hoppner was thoroughly self-possessed.

“What in the world has come over you, my dear?” asked Garrick, when
Peggy had made an exit so rapidly as to cause the latter half of one of
her lines to be quite inaudible.

“God knows what it is!” said Peggy. “I have felt all through the act
as if I were going to break down--as if I wanted to run away from an
impending calamity. By heaven, sir, I feel as if the tragedy were real
and not simulated!”

“Psha! You are but a woman, after all,” said Garrick.

“I fear that is the truth,” said she. “Good God! that woman seems to
have changed places with me. She is speaking her lines as if she had
been acting in London for years. She is doing what she pleases with the
house.”

Garrick had to leave her to go through his great scene with the Oriana
of the play, and Mrs. Woffington watched, as if spell-bound, the
marvellous variety of his emotional expression, as, in the character of
the Prince Orsino, he confessed to Oriana that he no longer loved her,
but that he had given his heart to Francesca. She saw the gleam in the
eyes of the actress of the part of the jealous woman as she denounced
the perfidy of her lover, and bade him leave her presence. Then came
Oriana's long soliloquy, in which she swore that the Prince should never
taste the happiness which he had sought at her expense.

          “I have a heart for murder, murder, murder!

          My blood now surges like an angry sea,

          Eager to grapple with its struggling prey,

          And strangle it, as I shall strangle her,

          With these hands hungering for her shapely

                   throat,

          The throat on which his kisses have been flung.

          Give her to me, just God, give her to me,

          But for the time it takes to close my hand

          Thus, and if justice reign supreme above,

          The traitress shall come hither to her doom.”

(_Enter Francesca._)

(_Aside_) “My prayer is answered. It is Jove's decree.” So the passage
ran, and it was delivered by the actress with a fervour that thrilled
the house.

After her aside, Oriana turned, according to the stage directions, to
Francesca with a smile. In Miss Hoppner's eyes there was a light
of triumph--of gratified revenge--and before it Margaret Woffington
quailed. She gave a frightened glance around, as if looking for a way of
escape; there was a little pause, and then upon the silence of the
house there fell the half-hissed words of Oriana as she craned her head
forward facing her rival:

          “Thou think'st to ride in triumph o'er my

                   corse--

          The corse which his indecent feet have spurned

          Into the dust. But there's a God above!

          I tell thee, traitress,'t is not I shall lie

          For vulture-beaks to rend--but thou--thou--

                   thou!

          Traitress abhorred, this knife shall find thy

                   heart!”

“My God! the dagger--it is real!” shrieked Peggy; but before she could
turn to fly, the other had sprung upon her, throwing her partly over a
couch, and holding her down by the throat while she stabbed her twice.

A hoarse cry came from Peg Woffington, and then she rolled off the couch
and fell limply to the stage, the backs of her hands rapping helplessly
on the boards as she fell.

The other actress stood over her for a moment with a smile; then she
looked strangely at the dagger which glistened in her hand. Then, with a
hysterical cry, she flung the weapon from her and fell back.

The curtain went down upon the roar of applause that came from every
part of the theatre. But though the applause was maintained, neither of
the actresses responded to the call. Several minutes had passed before
Garrick himself appeared and made a sign that he wished to speak. When
the house became silent, he explained to his patrons that both actresses
had swooned through the great demands which the scene had made upon
them, and would be unable to appear for the rest of the evening. Under
these melancholy circumstances, he hoped that no objection would be made
to the bringing on of the burletta immediately.

The audience seemed satisfied to forego the enjoyment of the ghost
scenes of the tragedy, and the burletta was proceeded with.

It was not thought advisable to let the audience know that Mrs.
Woffington was lying on a couch in her dressing room, while a surgeon
was binding up a wound made in her side by the dagger used by the
other actress. It was not until Garrick had examined the weapon that he
perceived it was not a stage blade, but a real one, which had been used
by Miss Hoppner. Fortunately, however, the point had been turned aside
by the steel in Peg Woffington's stays, so that it had only inflicted a
flesh wound.

In the course of a couple of hours Peggy had recovered consciousness,
and, though very weak, was still able to make an effort to captivate
the surgeon with her witty allusions to the privileges incidental to his
profession. She was so engaged, when Garrick entered the room and told
her that Miss Hoppner was weeping outside the door, but that he had
given orders that she was not to be admitted.

“Why should the poor girl not be admitted?” cried Peggy. “Should such
an accident as that which happened be treated as though it were murder?
Send her into the room, sir, and leave us alone together.”

Garrick protested, but Peggy insisted on having her own way, and the
moment Miss Hoppner was permitted to enter, she flung herself on her
knees at the side of the couch, weeping upon the hand that Peggy gave to
her.

When Garrick entered with Captain Joycelyn, a short time afterwards,
Peggy would not allow him to remain in the room. The Captain remained,
however, for some minutes, and when he left, Miss Hoppner was on his
arm. They crossed the stage together, and that was the last time she
ever trod that or any other stage, for Captain Joycelyn married her
within a month.

“Ah, friend Davy,” cried Peggy to Garrick, “there was, after all, some
sense in what Mr. Johnson said. We actors are, doubtless, great folk;
but 't were presumptuous to attempt to turn Nature into the handmaid
of Art. I have tried it, sir, and was only saved from disaster by
the excellence of the art of my stays-maker. Nay, the stage is not
Nature--it is but Nature seen on the surface of a mirror; and even then,
I protest, only when David Garrick is the actor, and Shakespeare's the
poet.”




THE MUSE OF TRAGEDY


I

Madam,” said Mr. Daly, the manager, in his politest style, “no one
could regret the occurrence more than myself”--he pronounced the word
“meself”--“especially as you say it has hurt your feelings. Do n't
I know what feelings are?”--he pronounced the word “failings,” which
tended in some measure to alter the effect of the phrase, though his
friends would have been inclined to assert that its accuracy was not
thereby diminished.

“I have been grossly insulted, sir,” said Mrs. Siddons.

“Grossly insulted,” echoed Mr. Siddons. He played the part of echo to
his stately wife very well indeed.

“And it took place under your roof, sir,” said the lady.

“Your roof,” echoed the husband.

“And there's no one in the world sorrier than myself for it,” said Mr.
Daly. “But I do n't think that you should take a joke of the college
gentlemen so seriously.”

“Joke?” cried Mrs. Siddons, with a passion that caused the manager,
in the instinct of self-preservation to jump back. “Joke, sir!--a joke
passed upon Sarah Siddons! My husband, sir, whose honour I have ever
upheld as dearer to me than life itself, will tell you that I am not
accustomed to be made the subject of ribald jests.”

“I do n't know the tragedy that that quotation is made from,” remarked
Mr. Daly, taking out his snuff-box and tapping it, affecting a coolness
which he certainly was far from possessing; “but if it's all written
in that strain I'll bring it out at Smock Alley and give you an extra
benefit. You never spoke anything better than that phrase. Pray let us
have it again, madam--'my husband, sir,' and so forth.”

Mrs. Siddons rose slowly and majestically. Her eyes flashed as she
pointed a shapely forefinger to the door of the greenroom, saying in her
deepest tones:

“Sir! degrade the room no longer by your presence. You have yet to know
Sarah Siddons.”

“Sarah Siddons,” murmured the husband very weakly. He would have liked
to maintain the stand taken up by his wife, but he had his fears that
to do so would jeopardise the success of his appearance at the manager's
treasury, and Mr. Siddons now and again gave people to understand that
he could not love his wife so well loved he not the treasury more.

Mr. Daly laughed.

“Faith, Mrs. Siddons,” said he, “'t is a new thing for a man to be
ordered out of his own house by a guest. I happen to be the owner of
this tenement in Smock Alley, in the city of Dublin, and you are my
guest--my honoured guest, madam. How could I fail to honour a lady who,
in spite of the fact of being the greatest actress in the world, is
still a pattern wife and mother?”

Mrs. Siddons was visibly softening under the balmy brogue of the
Irishman.

“It is because I am sensible of my duties to my husband and my children
that I feel the insult the more, sir,” she said, in a tone that was
still tragic.

“Sure I know that that's what makes the sting of it so bitter,” said Mr.
Daly, shaking his head sadly. “It's only the truly virtuous, madam, that
have feelings”--again he pronounced the word “failings.”

“Enough, madam,” he continued, after he had flourished his handkerchief
and had wiped away an imaginary tear. “Enough! In the name of the
citizens of Dublin I offer you the humblest apology in my power for
the gross misconduct of that scoundrel in the pit who called out, 'Well
done, Sally, my jewel!' after your finest soliloquy; and I promise you
that if we can find the miscreant we shall have him brought to justice.”

“If you believe that the citizens of Dublin are really conscious of the
stigma which they shall bear for ages to come for having insulted one
whose virtue has, I rejoice to say, been ever beyond reproach, I will
accept your apology, sir,” said Mrs. Siddons with dignity.

“I 'll undertake to swear that the citizens feel the matter quite as
deeply as I do, Mrs. Siddons,” cried Mr. Daly, with both his hands
clasped over his waistcoat. “I dare swear that they do not even now know
the enormity of your virtue, madam. It will be my pleasing duty to
make them acquainted with it; and so, madam, I am your grateful, humble
servant.”

With a low bow he made his escape from the green-room, leaving Mrs.
Sid-dons seated on a high chair in precisely the attitude which she
assumed when she sat for the Tragic Muse of Reynolds.

“Thank heavens that 's over!” muttered the manager, as he hurried down
Smock Alley to the tavern at the corner kept by an old actor named
Barney Rafferty, and much frequented by the Trinity College students,
who in the year 1783 were quite as enthusiastic theatre-goers as their
successors are in the present year.

“For the love of heaven, Barney, give us a jorum,” cried Daly, as he
entered the bar parlor. “A jorum of punch, Barney, for I 'm as dry as
a lime kiln, making speeches in King Cambyses' vein to that Queen of
Tragedy.”

“It'll be at your hand in a minute, Mr. Daly, sir,” said Barney,
hurrying off.

In the parlour were assembled a number of the “college boys,” as the
students were always called in Dublin. They greeted the arrival of their
friend Daly with acclamation, only they wanted to know what had occurred
to detain him so long at the theatre.

“Delay and Daly have never been associated before now when there's a
jorum of punch in view,” remarked young Mr. Blenerhassett of Limerick,
who was reported to have a very pretty wit.

“It's lucky you see me among you at all, boys,” said the manager, wiping
his brow. “By the powers, I might have remained in the green-room all
night listening to homilies on the virtue of wives and the honour of
husbands.”

“And 't is yourself that would be nothing the worse for listening to a
homily or two on such topics,” remarked young Blake of Connaught. “And
who was the preacher of the evening, Daly?”

“None else than the great Sarah herself, my boy,” replied the manager.
“Saint Malachi! what did you mean by shouting out what you did, after
that scene?” he added.

“What did I shout?” asked Jimmy Blake. “I only ventured humbly to cry,
'Well done, Sally, my jewel'--what offence is there in that?”

“Ay, by Saint Patrick, but there's much offence in 't,” cried Daly.
“Mrs. Siddons sent for me to my dressing-room after the play, and
there I found her pacing the green-room like a lioness in her cage,
her husband, poor man, standing by as tame as the keeper of the royal
beast.”

A series of interested exclamations passed round the room, and the
circle of heads about the table became narrower. “Mother o' Moses! She
objected to my civil words of encouragement?” said Mr. Blake.

“She declared that not only had she been insulted, but her husband's
honour had been dragged in the mire, and her innocent children's names
had been sullied.”

“Faith, that was a Sally for you, Mr. Daly,” said young Home, the Dublin
painter to whom Mrs. Siddons had refused to sit, assuring him that she
could only pay such a compliment to Sir Joshua Reynolds.

“Boys, may this be my poison if I ever put in a worse half hour,” cried
Daly, as he raised a tumbler of punch and swallowed half the contents.

“I 'd give fifty pounds to have been there,” said Home. “Think what a
picture it would make!--the indignant Sarah, the ever courteous manager
Daly, and the humble husband in the corner. What would not posterity pay
for such a picture!”

“A guinea in hand is worth a purse in the future,” said one of the
college boys. “I wish I could draw a bill on posterity for the payment
of the silversmith who made my buckles.”

“Daly,” said Blake, “you're after playing a joke on us. Sally never took
you to task for what I shouted from the Pit.”

Mr. Daly became dignified--he had finished the tumbler of punch. He drew
himself up, and, with one hand thrust into his waistcoat, he said:
“Sir, I conceive that I understand as well as any gentleman present
what constitutes the elements of a jest. I have just conveyed to you
a statement of facts, sir. If you had seen Sarah Siddons as I left
her--egad, she is a very fine woman--you would n't hint that there was
much jest in the matter. Oh, lord, boys”--another jug of punch had just
been brought in, and the manager was becoming genial once more--“Oh,
lord, you should have heard the way she talked about the honour of her
husband, as if there never had been a virtuous woman on the boards until
Sarah Siddons arose!”

“And was there one, Daly?” asked young Murphy, a gentleman from whom
great things were expected by his college and his creditors.

“There was surely, my boy,” said Daly, “but I've forgot her name. The
name's not to the point. I tell you, then, the Siddons stormed in the
stateliest blank verse and periods, about how she had elevated the
stage--how she had checked Brereton for clasping her as she thought too
ardently--how she had family prayers every day, and looked forward to
the day when she could afford a private chaplain.”

“Stop there,” shouted Blake. “You'll begin to exaggerate if you go
beyond the chaplain, Daly.”

“It's the truth I've told so far, at any rate, barring the chaplain,”
 said Daly.

“And all because I saw she was a bit nervous and did my best to
encourage her and give her confidence by shouting, 'Well done, Sally!'”
 said Blake. “Boys, it's not Sarah Siddons that has been insulted, it's
Trinity College--it's the city of Dublin! by my soul, it's the Irish
nation that she has insulted by supposing them capable of insulting a
woman.”

“Faith, there 's something in that, Jimmy,” said half a dozen voices.

“Who is this Sarah Siddons, will ye tell me, for I 'd like to know?”
 resumed Blake, casting a look of almost painful enquiry round the room.

“Ay, that 's the question,” said Daly, in a tone that he invariably
reserved for the soliloquy which flourished on the stage a century ago.

“We 're all gentlemen here,” resumed Mr. Blake.

“And that 's more than she is,” said young Blenerhassett of Limerick.

“Gentlemen,” said the manager, “I beg that you'll not forget that
Mrs. Siddons and myself belong to the same profession. I cannot suffer
anything derogatory”--the word gave him some trouble, but he mastered
it after a few false starts--“to the stage to be uttered in this
apartment.”

“You adorn the profession, sir,” said Blake. “But can the same be said
of Mrs. Siddons? What could Garrick make of her, gentlemen?”

“Ahem! we know what he failed to make of her,” said Digges, the actor,
who sat in the corner, and was supposed to have more Drury Lane scandal
on his fingers' ends than Daly himself.

“Pooh!” sneered Daly. “Davy Garrick never made love to her, Digges. It
was her vanity that tried to make out that he did.”

“He did not make her a London success--that's certain,” said Blake.
“And though Dublin, with the assistance of the College, can pronounce a
better judgment on an actor or actress than London, still we must admit
that London is improving, and if there had been any merit in Sarah
Siddons she would not have been forced to keep to the provinces as she
does now. Gentlemen, she has insulted us and it's our duty to teach her
a lesson.”

“And we're the boys to do it,” said one Moriarty.

“Gentlemen, I 'll take my leave of you,” said the manager, rising with a
little assistance and bowing to the company. “It's not for me to dictate
any course for you to pursue. I do n't presume to ask to be let into any
of your secrets; I only beg that you will remember that Mrs. Siddons
has three more nights to appear in my theatre, and she grasps so large
a share of the receipts that, unless the house continues to be crowded,
it's a loser I'll be at the end of the engagement. You'll not do
anything that will jeopardise the pit or the gallery--the boxes are
sure--for the rest of the week.”

“Trust to us, sir, trust to us,” said Jimmy Blake, as the manager
withdrew. “Now, boys,” he continued in a low voice, bending over the
table, “I've hit upon a way of convincing this fine lady that has taken
the drama under her wing, so to speak, that she can't play any of her
high tragedy tricks here, whatever she may do at Bath. She does n't
understand us, boys; well, we'll teach her to.”

“Bravo, Jimmy!”

“The Blake's Country and the sky over it!”

“Give us your notions,” came several voices from around the table.

“She bragged of her respectability; of her armour of virtue, Daly told
us. Well, suppose we put a decent coat on Dionysius Hogan and send him
to propose an elopement to her to-morrow; how would that do for a joke
when it gets around the town?”

“By the powers, boys, whether or not Dionysius gets kicked down the
stairs, she'll be the laughing-stock of the town. It's a genius”--he
pronounced it “jan-yus”--“that you are, Jimmy, and no mistake,” cried
young Moriarty.

“We'll talk it over,” said Jimmy. And they did talk it over.


II

Dionysius Hogan was a celebrated character in Dublin during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century. The Irish capital has always
cherished curious characters, for pretty much the same reason that
caused badgers to be preserved; any man, or, for that matter, any woman,
who was only eccentric enough, could depend on the patronage of the
people of Dublin. Dionysius Hogan afforded his fellow-citizens many a
laugh on account of his numerous eccentricities. He was a man of about
fifty years of age, but his great anxiety was to appear thirty years
younger; and he fancied he accomplished this aim by wearing in 1783 the
costume of 1750, only in an exaggerated form. His chief hallucination
was that several of the best known ladies in society were in love with
him, and that it was necessary for him to be very careful lest he
should compromise himself by a correspondence with some of those who had
husbands.

[Illustration: 0186]

It need scarcely be said that this idea of his was not greatly
discouraged by the undergraduates of Trinity College. It was not their
fault if he did not receive every week a letter from some distinguished
lady begging the favor of an interview with him. Upon many occasions the
communications, which purported to come from married ladies, took the
form of verses. These he exhibited with great pride, and only after
extorting promises of profound secrecy, to his student friends.

It was immaterial that Dionysius found almost every week that he had
been the victim of practical jokes; his belief in his own powers of
captivating womankind was superior to every rebuff that he encountered.
He exhibited his dapper little figure, crowned with the wig of a
macaroni, to the promenaders in all the chief thoroughfares daily,
and every evening he had some fresh story to tell of how he had been
exerting himself to avoid an assignation that was being urged on him by
a lady of quality sojourning not a hundred miles from the Castle.

The scheme which Mr. Blake had suggested to his fellow-students in
the Smock Alley tavern found a willing agent for its realisation in
Dionysius Hogan. Mrs. Siddons, her beauty and her powers, were, of
course, the talk of the town during her first visit to Dublin. It only
needed Jimmy Blake to drop a few dark hints in the hearing of Dionysius
on the subject of a rumor that was current, to the effect that a certain
well-known gentleman in Dublin had attracted the attention of the great
actress, to make Dionysius believe that he had made a conquest of the
Siddons.

For the remainder of the evening he took to dropping dark hints to this
effect, and before he had slept that night there was no doubt on his
mind that Sarah Sid-dons was another lady who had succumbed to his
attractive exterior. To be sure, he had heard it said that she was as
hard as marble; but then she had not seen him until she had come to
Dublin. All women, he believed, had their weak moments, and there was no
article of his creed more strongly impressed upon him than that the weak
moment of many women was when they saw him for the first time.

When, on descending from his bedroom to his little sitting-room in his
humble lodgings--for Mr. Hogan's income did not exceed eighty pounds a
year--a letter was put into his hand bearing the signature “S. S.,” and
when he found that above these initials there was a passionate avowal
of affection and a strong appeal to him to be merciful as he was strong,
and to pay the writer a visit at her lodgings before the hour of one,
“when Mr. S. returns from the theatre, where he goes every forenoon,”
 poor Dionysius felt that the time had at last come for him to cast
discretion to the winds. The beauty of Mrs. Siddons had had a powerful
effect upon his susceptible heart when she had first come before his
eyes on the stage of the Smock Alley theatre.

[Illustration: 0192]

On that night he believed that she had kept her eyes fixed upon him
while repeating some of the beautiful soliloquies in “Isabella.” The
artful suggestions of Jimmy Blake had had their effect upon him, and now
he held in his hand a letter that left him no room to doubt--even if he
had been inclined that way--the accuracy of the tale that his poor heart
had originally told him.

He dressed himself with his accustomed care, and, having deluged his
cambric with civet--it had been the favourite scent of thirty years
before--he indulged in the unusual luxury of a chair to convey him to
the lodgings of the great actress; for he felt that it might seriously
jeopardise his prospects to appear in the presence of the lady with
soiled shoes.

The house where Mrs. Siddons lodged was not an imposing one. She had
arrived in Dublin from Holyhead at two o'clock in the morning, and
she was compelled to walk about the streets in a downpour of rain for
several hours before she could prevail upon any one to take her in.
It is scarcely surprising that she conceived a strong and enduring
prejudice against Dublin and its inhabitants.

On enquiring in a whisper and with a confidential smirk for Mrs.
Siddons, he learned from the maid servant that the lady was in her room,
and that Mr. Siddons had not returned from his morning visit to the
theatre. The servant stated, however, that Mrs. Siddons had given the
strictest orders to admit no one into her presence.

“Ah, discreet as one might have expected,” murmured Dionysius. “She does
not mean to run the chance of disappointing me. Which is her parlour,
child?”

“It's the first front, yer honour,” said the girl; “but, Lord save yer
honour, she'd murther me if I let ye go up. Oh, it's joking ye are.”

“Hush,” whispered Dionysius, his finger on his lips. “Not so loud, I
pray. She is waiting for me.”

“Holy Biddy! waiting for yer?” cried the maid. “Now do n't be afther
getting a poor colleen into throuble, sir. I'm telling ye that it's
killed entirely I'd be if I let ye go up.”

“Do n't be a fool, girl,” said Dionysius, still speaking in a whisper.
“I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that Mrs. Siddons is
awaiting me. Zounds! why do I waste time talking to a menial? Out of my
way, girl.”

He pushed past the servant, leaving her somewhat awe-stricken at his
grand manner and his finery, and when she recovered and made a grab for
his coat tails, he was too quick for her. He plucked them out of her
reach, and she perceived that he had got such a start of her that
pursuit would be useless. In a few moments he was standing before the
door of the room on the first floor that faced the street.

His heart was fluttering so that he had scarcely courage to tap upon the
panel. He had tapped a second time before that grand contralto, that
few persons could hear without emotion, bade him enter. He turned the
handle, and stood facing Mrs. Siddons.

[Illustration: 0197]

She was sitting in a gracefully majestic attitude by the side of a small
table on which a desk was placed. Mrs. Siddons never unbent for a moment
in private life.

She assumed majestic attitudes in the presence of the lodging-house
servant, and spoke in a tragic contralto to the linen-draper's
apprentice. She turned her lovely eyes upon Dionysius Hogan as he stood
smirking and bowing at the door. There was a vista of tragedy in the
delivery of the two words--

“Well, sir?”

It took him some moments to recover from the effect the words produced
upon him. He cleared his throat--it was somewhat husky--and with an
artificial smirk he piped out:

“Madam--ah, my charmer, I have rushed to clasp my goddess to my bosom!
Ah, fair creature, who could resist your appeal?”

He advanced in the mincing gait of the Macaronis. She sprang to her
feet. She pointed an eloquent forefinger at a spot on the floor directly
in front of him.

“Wretch,” she cried, “advance a step at your peril!” Her eyes were
flashing, and her lips were apart.

His mincing ceased abruptly; and only the ghost of a smirk remained upon
his patched and painted face. It was in a very fluty falsetto that he
said:

“Ah, I see my charmer wants to be wooed. But why should Amanda reproach
her Strephon for but obeying her behests? Wherefore so coy, dear nymph?
Let these loving arms--”

“Madman--wretch--”

“Nay, chide me not, dear one. 'T is but the ardour of my passion that
bids me clasp thee, the fairest of Hebe's train. We shall fly together
to some retreat--far from the distractions--”

“Oh, the man is mad--mad!” cried the lady, retreating a step or two as
he advanced.

“Only mad with the ardour of my passion,” whispered Dionysius.

“Oh, heaven! that I should live to hear such words spoken in my
presence!” cried Mrs. Siddons, with her hands clasped in passionate
appeal to a smiling portrait of the landlady's husband that hung over
the fireplace. Then she turned upon Dionysius and looked at him.

Her eyes blazed. Their fire consumed the unfortunate man on whom they
rested. He felt himself shrivelled up and become crisp as an autumn
leaf. He certainly trembled like one, as a terrible voice, but no louder
than a whisper, sounded in his ears: “Are you a human being or the
monster of a dream, that you dare to speak such words in my hearing?
What wretch are you that fancies that Sarah Siddons may be addressed
by such as you, and in language that is an insult to a pure wife and
mother. I am Sarah Siddons, sir! I am a wife who holds her husband's
honour dearer than life itself--I am a mother who will never cause a
blush of shame to mantle the brow of one of her children. Wretch,
insulter, why are mine eyes not basilisks, with death in their glance
to such as you?”

Down went Dionysius on his knees before that terrible figure that
stretched out wild quivering hands above his head. Such gestures as hers
would have fitted the stage of Drury Lane.

In the lodging-house parlour they were overwhelming.

“For God's sake, spare me, spare me!” he faltered, with his hands
clasped and his head bent before that fury.

“Why should I spare such a wretch--why should I not trample such a worm
into the dust?”

She took a frantic step toward him. With a short cry of abject terror he
fell along the floor, and gasped. It seemed to him that she had trampled
the life out of his body.

She stood above him with a heaving bosom beneath her folded arms.

There was a long pause before he heard the door open. A weight seemed
lifted off him. He found that he could breathe. In a few moments he
ventured to raise his head. He saw a beautiful figure sitting at the
desk writing. Even in the scratching of her pen along the paper there
was a tone of tragedy.

He crawled backward upon his hands and knees, with his eyes furtively
fixed upon that figure at the desk. If, when he had looked up he had
found her standing with an arm outstretched tin the direction of the
door, he felt that he would have been able to rise to his feet and leave
her presence; but Mrs. Siddons' dramatic instinct caused her to produce
a deeper impression upon him by simply treating him as if he were dead
at her feet--as if she had, indeed, trampled the life out of his body.

He crept away slowly and painfully backward, until he was actually in
the lobby. Then by a great effort he sprang to his feet, rushed headlong
down the stairs, picked himself up in the hall, and fled wildly through
the door, that chanced to be open, into the street. He overthrew a
chairman in his wild flight, and as he turned the corner he went with a
rush into the arms of a young man, who, with a few others by his side,
was sauntering along.

[Illustration: 0205]

“Zounds, sir! what do you mean by this mode of progression?” cried the
young man, holding him fast.

Dionysius grasped him limply, looking at him with wild, staring eyes.

“For God's sake, Mr. Blake, save me from her--do n't let her get hold of
me, for the love of all the saints.”

“What do you mean, you fool?” said Jimmy Blake. “Who is anxious to get
hold of you?”

But no answer was returned by poor Dionysius. He lay with his head over
Blake's shoulder, his arms swaying limply like two pendulums.

“By the powers, he has gone off in a swoon,” said young Blenerhassett.
“Let us carry him to the nearest tavern.”

In less than half an hour Dionysius had recovered consciousness; but
it required a longer space of time, and the administration of a
considerable quantity of whisky, to enable him to tell all his story. He
produced the letter signed “S. S.” which he had received in the morning,
and explained that he had paid the visit to Mrs. Siddons only with a
view of reasoning her out of her infatuation, which, he said with a
shadowy simper, he could not encourage.

“I had hardly obtained access to her when she turned upon me in a fury,”
 said he. “Ah, boys, those eyes of hers!--I feel them still upon me. They
made me feel like a poor wretch that's marched out in front of a platoon
to be shot before breakfast. And her voice! well, it sounded like the
voice of the officer giving the word of command to the platoon to fire.
When I lay ready to expire at her feet, every word that she spoke had
the effect of a bayonet prod upon my poor body. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! I'll
leave it to yourself, Mr. Blake: was it generous of her to stab me with
cold steel after I was riddled with red-hot bullets?”

“I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hogan,” replied Blake, “that I can't take a
lenient view of your conduct. We all know what you are, sir. You seek
to ingraft the gallantries of the reign of his late Majesty upon the
present highly moral age. Mrs. Siddons, sir, is a true wife and mother,
besides being a most estimable actress, and you deserved the rebuff from
the effects of which you are now suffering. Sir, we leave you to the
gnawings of that remorse which I trust you feel acutely.”

Mr. Blake, with his friends, left the tavern room as Dionysius was
beginning to whimper.

In the street a roar of laughter burst from the students.

“Mother o' Moses!” cried Moriarty. “'T is a golden guinea I'd give to
have been present when the Siddons turned upon the poor devil.”

“Then I 'll give you a chance of being present at a better scene than
that,” said Blake.

“What do you mean, Jimmy?” asked Moriarty.

“I mean to bring you with me to pay a visit to Mrs. Siddons this very
minute.”

“'T is joking you are, Jimmy?”

“Oh, the devil a joke, ma bouchai! Man alive, can't you see that the fun
is only beginning? We'll go to her in a body and make it out that she
has insulted a friend of ours by attributing false motives to him, and
that her husband must come out to the Park in the morning.”

“That's carrying a joke a bit too far,” said Mr. Blenerhassett. “I'll
not join in with you there.”

“Nobody axed ye, sir,” said Blake. “There are three of us here without
you, and that's enough for our purpose.”

“If Mr. Siddons kicks you into the street, or if Sally treats you as she
did that poor devil in the tavern,'t is served right that you'll be,”
 said Blenerhassett, walking off.

“We'll have a scene with Sarah Siddons for our trouble, at any rate,”
 laughed Blake.

The three young men who remained when the more scrupulous youth had
departed, went together to Mrs. Siddons' lodgings. They understood more
than Dionysius did about the art of obtaining admittance when only a
portress stood in the way--a squeeze, a kiss, and a crown combined to
make the maid take a lenient view of the consequences of permitting them
to go up the stairs.

When, after politely rapping at the door of the parlour, the three
entered the room, they found the great actress in precisely the same
attitude she had assumed for her last visitor. The dignity of her
posture was not without its effect upon the young men. They were not
quite so self-confident as they had been outside the door. Each of them
looked at the other, so to speak; but somehow none of the three appeared
to be fluent. They stood bowing politely, keeping close to the door.

“Who are these persons?” said Mrs. Siddons, as if uttering her thoughts.
“Am I in a civilised country or not?”

“Madam,” said Blake, finding his voice, at last, when a slur was cast
upon his country. “Madam, Ireland was the home of civilisation when the
inhabitants of England were prowling the woods naked, except for a coat
of paint.”

Mrs. Siddons sprang to her feet.

“Sir,” she cried, “you are indelicate as well as impertinent. You have
no right to intrude upon me without warning.”

“The urgency of our mission is our excuse, madam,” said Blake. “The fact
is, madam, to come to the point, the gentleman who visited you just now
is our friend.”

“Your friend, sir, is a scoundrel. He grossly insulted me,” said Mrs.
Siddons.

“Ah,'t is sorry I am to find you do n't yet understand the impulses of a
warmhearted nation, madam,” said Blake, shaking his head. “The gentleman
came to compliment you on your acting, and yet you drove him from
your door like a hound. That, according to our warmhearted Irish ways,
constitutes an offence that must be washed out in blood--ay, blood,
madam.”

“What can be your meaning, sir?”

“I only mean, madam, that your husband, whom we all honour on account of
the genius--we do n't deny it--the genius and virtue of his wife, will
have to meet the most expert swordsman in Ireland in the Phonix Park
in the morning, and that Sarah Siddons will be a widow before breakfast
time.”

There was a pause before there came a cry of anguish more pitiful than
any expression of emotion that the three youths had ever heard.

“My husband!” were the words that sounded like a sob in their ears.

Mrs. Siddons had averted her head. Her face was buried in her hands.
The wink in which Jimmy Blake indulged as he gave Moriarty a nudge was
anything but natural.

“Why was I ever tempted to come to this country?” cried the lady wildly.

“Madam, we humbly sympathise with you, and with the country,” said
Blake. He would not allow any reflection to be cast on his country.

She took a few steps toward the three young men, and faced them with
clasped hands. She looked into the three faces in turn, with passionate
intreaty in her eyes. “Have you no pity?” she faltered.

“Yes,” said Blake, “that we have; we do pity you heartily, madam.”

“Are you willing to take part in this act of murder--murder?” cried Mrs.
Siddons, in a low voice that caused the flesh of at least two of her
audience to creep. “Are you blind? Can 't you see the world pointing at
you as I point at you, and call you murderers?” She stood before them
with her eyes half closed, her right hand pointing to each of them in
turn as she prolonged the word, suggesting a thousand voices whispering
“murderers!” There was a long pause, during which the spell-bound
youths, their jaws fallen, stared at that terrible figure--the awful
form of the Muse of Tragedy. Drops of perspiration stood on the forehead
of young Moriarty. Blake himself gave a gasp. “Have you no compassion?”
 Mrs. Sid-dons continued, but in another tone--a tone of such pathos as
no human being could hear unmoved. Clasping her hands, she cried: “My
poor husband! What harm has he done? Is he to be dragged from these
arms--these arms that have cherished him with all the devotion that a
too-loving wife can offer? Is he to be dragged away from this true heart
to be butchered? Sirs, we have children--tender little blossoms. Oh,
cannot you hear their cries? Listen, listen--the wailing of the babes
over the mangled body of their father.”

Surely the sound of children's sobbing went around the room.

One of the young men dropped into a chair and burst into tears.

Blake's lips were quivering, as the streaming eyes of the woman were
turned upon him.

“For heaven's sake, madam!” he faltered--“for heaven's sake--oh, my God!
what have we done?--what have we done? Worse than Herod! the innocent
children!--I hear them--I hear them! Oh, God forgive us! God forgive us
for this cruel joke.”

He broke down utterly. The room now was certainly filled with wild
sobbing and the sound of convulsive weeping.

[Illustration: 0217]

For several minutes the three emotional Irishmen sat weeping. They were
in the power of the woman, who, at the confession of Blake, had become
perfectly self-possessed in a moment. She stood watching them, a
scornful smile upon her lips. She knew that the magic which she had at
her command could enchain them so long as she wished. She was merciful,
however.

“If you consider your jest sufficiently successful, gentlemen,” said
she, “perhaps you will oblige me by withdrawing. I have letters to
write.”

The spell that she had cast around them was withdrawn.

Blake sprang to his feet and drew his handkerchief across his eyes.

“Mrs. Siddons--madam,” said he, “we have behaved like fools--nay, worse,
like scoundrels. We are not bold enough to ask your pardon, madam; but
believe me, we feel deeply humiliated. You may forgive us, but we shall
never forgive ourselves. Madam, you are the greatest actress in the
world, and you may expect the finest benefit ever given to an actress in
this city.”

But in spite of the fact that Mrs. Siddons' benefit the following night
was all that Mr. Blake predicted it would be, she wrote some very hard
words about Dublin to her friend, Mr. Whately, of Bath.




THE WAY TO KEEP HIM


I

Nay, sir,” cried Mrs. Abington, with such a smile of infinite witchery
as she wore when Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her as 'Miss Prue;' I would
not have you make any stronger love to me than is absolutely necessary
to keep yourself in training for the love scenes in Dr. Goldsmith's new
comedy.”

“Ah, you talk glibly of measuring out the exact portion of one's love,
as if love were a physic to be doled out to the precise grain,” cried
Lee Lewis, impatiently turning away from the fascinating lady who was
smiling archly at him over the back of her chair.

“By my faith, sir, you have e'en given the best description of love that
I have heard;'t is beyond doubt a physic, given to mankind to cure many
of the ills of life; but, la, sir! there are so many quacks about,'t is
well-nigh impossible to obtain the genuine thing.”

And once more the actress smiled at her latest victim.

“I have often wondered if you ever knew what love means,” said he.

“Indeed the same thought has frequently occurred to me, sir,” said the
actress. “When one has been offered the nostrums of quacks so often, one
begins to lose faith in the true prescription.”

“You think that I am a quack, and therefore have no faith in me,” said
Lewis.

“I know that you are an excellent actor, Mr. Lewis.”

“And therefore you suspect my truth?”

“Nay, I respect your art.”

“Perish my art, so long as I gain the favour of the most adorable woman
who ever flitted like a vision of beauty--”

“Ah, sir, do not take advantage of my lack of memory; give me the title
of the comedy from which you quote, so that I may know my cue, and have
my reply ready.”

Lewis flung himself across the room with an exclamation of impatience.

“You are the most cruel woman that lives,” he cried. “I have often left
this house vowing that I would never come nigh it again because of your
cruelty.”

“What a terrible vengeance!” cried the actress, raising her hands, while
a mock expression of terror came over her face. “You would fain prove
yourself the most cruel of men because you account me the most cruel of
women? Ah, sir, you are ungenerous; I am but a poor weak creature, while
you--”

“I am weak enough to be your slave, but let me tell you, madam, I am
quite strong enough to throw off your bonds should I fail to be treated
with some consideration,” said Lewis.

“Oh, so far as I am concerned you may take your freedom to-morrow,”
 laughed Mrs. Abington. “The fetters that I weave are of silken thread.”

“I would rather wear your fetters, though they be of iron, than those
of the next loveliest woman to you, though hers should be a chain of
roses,” said the actor. “Come, now, my dear lady, listen to reason.”

“Gladly; 't will be a change from your usual discourse, which is of
love--just the opposite, you know.”

“Why will you not consent to come with me to Vauxhall once more?”

“La, sir, think of the scandal? Have not we been seen there together
half a dozen times?”

“Scandal! Do you think that the scandal-mongers can add anything to what
they have already said regarding us?”

“I place no limits on the imagination of the scandal-monger, sir, but
I desire to assign a limit to my own indiscretions, which, I fear, have
set tongues wagging--”

“Pooh! my dear madam, cannot you see that tongues will wag all the
faster if I appear at the Gardens with some one else?”

“Say, with your wife. Surely you are not afraid of the tongue of slander
if you appear by the side of your wife, sir.”

“'T is for you I fear.”

“What! you fancy that people will slander me if you appear at Vauxhall
with your lawful wedded wife?”

“Even so, for they will say that you were not strong enough to keep me
faithful to you.”

Mrs. Abington sprang to her feet.

“The wretches!” she cried. “I will show them that------psha! let them
say their worst. What care I what they say? I'll go or stay away, as the
fancy seizes.”

“You may take your choice, my dear madam,” said Lewis: “Whether you
would rather be slandered for coming with me or for staying at home!”

“The terms are not the same in both cases,” said she; “for if I go with
you I know that I shall have an excellent supper.”

“So you 'll come! Ah, I knew that you would not forsake me!” he cried,
catching her hand and kissing it.

“You foolish man! You take credit to yourself for a decision that is due
to the prospect of a supper!” said Mrs. Abington.

“Ah, I know what I know, my dear,” cried he. “And so I will take my
leave at once, lest you should change your mind.”

“I protest, sir,” said she, as he kissed her hand again. “I protest that
't was the thought of the supper decided me.”

He roared with laughter.

So did she when he had left her house.

“What fools these men are!” she cried, throwing herself back on her
couch with a very capacious yawn. “What fools! The idea of a poor woman
being influenced by the thought of minced chicken in a decision that
involves being by their side seems preposterous to them! Oh, if they but
knew all that such a woman as I am could tell them!”

She laughed softly--subtly--as certain recollections came to her, for
Mrs. Abington was a lady of many recollections.

After a space, she resumed her study of the part of Miss Hardcastle,
for which she had been cast by Colman in Dr. Goldsmith's new comedy, but
which, the following week, to her everlasting regret, she relinquished
in favor of Mrs. Bulkley.

Lee Lewis, who was studying the part of Young Marlow, had accompanied
her home after rehearsal. He had, during the previous month, shown
himself to be extremely polite in regard to her, for he had walked home
with her several times, and more than once he had been seen by her side
at Ranelagh and Vauxhall, as well as at the Pantheon in the Oxford Road.
People about the theater were saying that the beautiful Mrs. Abington
had added to the number of her conquests, and Miss Catley, the most
imprudent of all the imprudent ladies in Colman's company, said some
very spiteful things regarding her. (It was understood that Miss Catley
had angled for Lee Lewis herself, but without success.)

Before Mrs. Abington had been alone for half an hour, her maid entered
to tell her that a lady was inquiring for her at the hall door.

“Another of our stage-struck misses, Lucette?” said the actress,
alluding to the three visits which she had had during the week from
young women who were desirous of obtaining a footing on the stage.

“Nay, madam, this lady seems somewhat different,” replied the maid.

“Then let her be shown in at once, whoever she may be,” said Mrs.
Abington. “There can surely be no scandal in receiving a lady visitor.”

She gave a glance at a mirror, and saw that her hair was in a proper
condition for a visitor who was a lady. She knew that it did not matter
so much when her visitors were of the other sex; and a moment afterwards
there entered a graceful little woman, whom she could not recollect
having ever seen before. She walked quickly to the centre of the room,
and stood there, gazing with soft grey eyes at the actress, who had
risen from her sofa, and was scrutinising her visitor.

There was a pause before Mrs. Abington, with a smile--the smile she
reserved for women--quite different from that with which she was
accustomed to greet men--said:

“Pray seat yourself, madam; and let me know to what I am indebted for
the honour of this visit.”

But the lady made no move; she remained there, gazing at the actress
without a word.

Mrs. Abington gave a laugh, saying, as she returned to her sofa:

“Do not let me hurry you, my dear lady; but I must ask your pardon if I
seat myself.” Then the stranger spoke. “You are Mrs. Abington. I wish
I had not come to you. Now that I find myself face to face with you, I
perceive that I have no chance. You are overwhelmingly beautiful.”

“Did you come here only to tell me that? Faith, you might have saved
yourself the trouble, my dear. I have known just how beautiful I am for
the past twenty years,” laughed the actress.

“I did not come here to tell you that,” said the visitor; “on the
contrary, I meant to call you an ugly harridan--a vile witch, who
glories in seeing the ruin of good men; but now--well, now, I am dumb.
I perceive you are so beautiful, it is only natural that all men--my
husband among the number--should worship you.”

“You are so flattering, my dear madam, I can without difficulty perceive
that you have not lived long in the world of fashion--ay, or in the
world of play-houses,” said the actress.

“I am Mrs. Lewis, madam,” said the lady, and then dropping into a chair
she burst into tears.

Mrs. Abington went beside the unhappy woman, and patted her on the
shoulder.

“Dear child,” she said, “the thought that you are Mr. Lewis's wife
should not cause you to shed a tear. You should be glad rather than
sorry that you are married to a gentleman who is so highly esteemed.
Your husband, Mrs. Lewis, is a great friend of mine, and I hope that his
wife may become even a greater.”

“Ah--ah!” moaned the lady. “A friend? a friend? Oh, give me back my
husband, woman--give me back my husband, whom you stole from me!”

She had sprung to her feet as she spoke her passionate words, and now
stood with quivering, clenched hands in front of the actress.

“My good woman,” said Mrs. Abington, “you have need to calm yourself.
I can assure you that I have not your husband in my keeping. Would you
like to search the room? Look under the sofa--into all the cupboards.”

“I know that he left here half an hour ago--I watched him,” said Mrs.
Lewis. “You watched him? Oh, fie!”

“You may make a mock of me, if you please; I expected that you would;
but he is my husband, and I love him--I believe that he loved me until
your witchery came over him and--oh, I am a most unhappy woman! But you
will give him back to me; you have many admirers, madam; one poor man is
nothing here or there to you.”

“Listen to me, my poor child.” Mrs. Abington had led her to the sofa,
and sat down beside her, still holding her hand. “You have spoken some
very foolish words since you came into this room. From whom have you
heard that your husband was--well, was ensnared by me?”

“From whom? Why, every one knows it!” cried Mrs. Lewis. “And besides, I
got a letter that told me--”

“A letter from whom?”

“From--I suppose she was a lady; at any rate she said that she
sympathised with me, and I'm certain that she did.”

“Ah, the letter was not signed by her real name, and yet you believed
the slanders that you knew came from a jealous woman? Oh, Mrs. Lewis,
I'm ashamed of you.”

“Nay, I did not need to receive any letter; my husband's neglect of
me made me aware of the truth--it is the truth, whether you deny it or
not.”

“You are a silly goose, and I have half a mind to take your husband from
you, as mothers deprive their children of a toy when they injure it.
You do n't know how to treat a husband, madam, and you do n't deserve
to have one. Think how many girls, prettier and cleverer than you, are
obliged to go without husbands all their lives, poor things!”

“It is enough for me to think of those women who are never satisfied
unless they have other women's husbands in their train, madam.”

“Look you, my dear ill-treated creature, I do assure you that I have no
designs upon your husband. I do not care if I never see him again except
on the stage.”

“Is that the truth? Ah, no, everybody says that Mrs. Abington is only
happy when--”

“Then leave Mrs. Abington's room if you believe the statements of that
vague everybody.”

The actress had risen, and was pointing in fine tragic style to the
door.

Mrs. Lewis rose also, but slowly; her eyes fell beneath the flashing
eyes of Mrs. Abington. Suddenly she raised her head, and put out a
trembling hand.

“I will not believe what I have heard,” she said. “And yet--yet--you are
so very beautiful.”

“That you think it impossible I should have any good in me?” laughed
the actress. “Well, I do believe that I have some good in me--not much,
perhaps, but enough to make me wish to do you a friendly turn in spite
of your impudence. Listen to me, you little goose. Why have you allowed
your husband to neglect you, and to come here asking me to sup with him
at Vauxhall?”

“Ah, then,'t is true!” cried the wife. “You have gone with him--you are
going with him?”

“'Tis true that I went with him, and that he left me just now believing
that I would accompany him to the Gardens on Monday next. Well, what
I want you to explain is how you have neglected your duty toward your
husband so that he should stray into such evil ways as supping with
actresses at Vauxhall.”

“What! would you make out that his neglect of his duty is my fault?”

“Great heavens, child, whose fault is it, if it is not yours? That is
what I say, you do n't deserve to have a toy if you let some strange
child snatch it away from you.”

“I protest, Mrs. Abington, that I scarce take your meaning. I have
nothing to reproach myself with. I have ever been the best of wives.
I have never gone gadding about to balls and routs as some wives do; I
have remained at home with my baby.”

“Exactly, and so your poor husband has been forced to ask certain
actresses to bear him company at those innocent pleasures, which he, in
common with most gentlemen of distinction, enjoy. Ah,'t is you domestic
wives that will have to answer for your husbands' backslidings.”

“Is it possible that--why, madam, you bewilder me. You think that I
should--I do n't know what you think--oh, I'm quite bewildered!”

“Why, child, have you not seen enough of the world to learn that a woman
is most attractive to a man when he perceives that she is admired by
other men? Have you not seen that a man seeks to marry a particular
woman, not because he cares so greatly for her himself, but because he
believes that other men care greatly for her? Your good husband is, I
doubt not, fond enough of you; but when he perceives that you think much
more of your baby than you do of him--when he perceives that the men
whom he considered his rivals before he carried you _off_ from them, no
longer follow in your train, is he to be blamed if he finds you a trifle
insipid? Ah, let me tell you, my sweet young wife, a husband is a horse
that requires the touch of a spur now and again. A jog-trot is not what
suits a spirited creature.”

“Heavens, madam! You mean that he--my husband--would be true to me if I
only I--I--”

“If only you were not too anxious that he should keep pace with the
jog-trot into which you have fallen, my dear. Do you not fancy that I
know he wishes me to sup with him only because he is well aware that
a dozen men will be longing to mince him when they see him mincing my
chicken for me?”

“But I would go with him to the Gardens if he would ask me, only--ah, no
one would want to mince him on my account.”

“You silly one! Cannot you see that you must place him in the position
of wanting to mince the other man?”

“How? I protest that I am bewildered.”

“Dear child, go to the Gardens, not with your husband, but with another
man, and you will soon see him return to you with all the ardour of a
lover with a rival in view. Jealousy is the spur which a husband needs
to recall him to a sense of his duty, now and again.”

“I will never consent to adopt such a course, madam. In the first place,
I cannot force myself upon any gentleman of my acquaintance.”

“Then the sooner you find one on whom you can force yourself, the better
chance you will have of bringing your husband to your side.”

“In the second place, I respect my husband too highly--”

“Too highly to win him back to you, though not too highly to come to me
with a story of the wrongs he has done to you? Oh, go away now; you do
n't deserve your toy.”

Mrs. Lewis did not respond to the laughter of the actress. She remained
standing in the centre of the room with her head down. Fresh tears were
welling up to her eyes.

“I have given you my advice--and it is the advice of one who knows a
good deal of men and their manners,” resumed Mrs. Abington. “If you
cannot see your way to follow it there is nothing more to be said.”

“I may be foolish; but I cannot bring myself to go alone with any man to
the Gardens,” said her visitor in a low tone.

“Then good-bye to you!” cried the actress, with a wave of her hand.

The little lady went slowly to the door; when there she cast an
appealing glance at Mrs. Abington; but the latter had picked up her copy
of the new comedy, and was apparently studying the contents. With a sigh
Mrs. Lewis opened the door and went out.

“Foolish child! She will have to buy her experience of men, as her
sisters buy theirs,” cried Mrs. Abington, throwing away the book.

She rose from her seat and yawned, stretching out her arms. As she
recovered herself, her eyes rested on a charcoal sketch of herself in
the character Sir Harry Wildair, in “The Constant Couple,” done by Sir
Joshua Reynolds' pupil, Northcote. She gave a little start, then ran to
the door, and called out to Mrs. Lewis, who had not had time to get to
the foot of the stairs.

“Come back for one moment, madam,” cried Mrs. Abington over the
banisters, and when Mrs. Lewis returned, she said: “I called you back to
tell you to be ready dressed for the Gardens on Monday night. I will
accompany you thither in my coach.”

“You mean that you will--”

“Go away now, like a good child. Ask no more questions till Monday
night.”

She went away, and on the Monday night she was dressed to go to
Vauxhall, when the room in which she was waiting was entered by an
extremely handsome and splendidly dressed young gentleman, who had all
the swagger of one of the beaux of the period, as he advanced to her
smirking.

“I protest, sir,” cried Mrs. Lewis, starting up; “you have made a
mistake. I have not the honour of your acquaintance.”

“'Fore Gad, my charmer, you assume the airs of an innocent miss with
amazing ability,” smirked her visitor. “My name, madam, is Wildair, at
your service, and I would fain hope that you will accept my poor escort
to the Gardens.”

A puzzled look was on Mrs. Lewis's face as the gallant began to speak,
but gradually this expression disappeared. She clapped her hands
together girlishly, and then threw herself back on a chair, roaring with
laughter.


II.

The next day at the playhouse Mrs. Abington met Lee Lewis with a
reproachful look. She had written to him on the Saturday, expressing her
regret that she could not go with him to the Gardens, but assuring him
that she would be there, and charging him to look for her.

“I thought you would believe it worth your while to keep an eye open for
me last night, sir,” she now said. “But I dare say you found some metal
more attractive elsewhere.”

“By heavens! I waited for you for an hour on the lantern walk, but you
did not appear,” cried Lewis.

“An hour? only an hour?” said the lady. “And pray how did you pass the
rest of the time?”

“A strange thing happened,” said Lewis, after a pause. “I was amazed to
see my wife there--or one whom I took to be my wife.”

“Ah, sir, these mistakes are of common occurrence,” laughed Mrs.
Abington. “Was she, like her husband, alone?”

“No, that's the worst of it; she was by the side of a handsome young
fellow in a pink coat embroidered with silver.”

“Oh, Mrs. Lewis would seem to have borrowed a leaf from her husband's
book; that is, if it was Mrs. Lewis. Have you asked her if she was at
the Gardens?”

“How could I ask her that when I had told her that I was going to the
playhouse? I was struck with amazement when I saw her in the distance
with that man--did I mention that he was a particularly good-looking
rascal?”

“You did; but why you should have been amazed I am at a loss to know.
Mrs. Lewis is a very charming lady, I know.”

“You have seen her?”

“She was pointed out to me last night.”

“Heavens! then it was she whom I saw in the Gardens? I would not have
believed it.”

“What, are you so unreasonable as to think that 't is a wife's duty to
remain at home while her husband amuses himself at Vauxhall?”

“Nay, but my wife--”

“Is a vastly pretty young creature, sir, whom a hundred men as exacting
as her husband, would think it a pleasure to attend at the Gardens or
the Pantheon.”

“She is, beyond doubt a sweet young creature; but Lord, madam, she is so
bound up in her baby that she can give no thought to her husband; and as
for other men--did you see the youth who was beside her?”

“To be sure I did. He was devoted to her--and so good looking! I give
you my word, sir, I never saw anyone with whose looks I was better
pleased.”

“Zounds, madam, if I had got near him I would have spoilt his good
looks, I promise you. Good Lord! to think that my wife--I tried to get
close to her, but the pair seemed to vanish mysteriously.” “You would
have been better employed looking for me. But we will arrange for
another evening, you and I, Mr. Lewis.”

“Yes, we will--we will.”

There was not much heartiness in the way Mr. Lewis assented; and when
the lady tried to get him to fix upon an evening, he excused himself in
a feeble way.

The day following he walked with her to her house after rehearsal, but
he did not think it necessary to make use of any of those phrases of
gallantry in which he had previously indulged. He talked a good deal
of his wife and her attractions. He had bought her a new gown, he said,
and, beyond a doubt, it would be difficult to find a match for her in
grace and sweetness. He declined Mrs. Abington's invitation to enter the
house. He had to hurry home, he said, having promised to take his wife
by water to Greenwich Park.

The actress burst into a merry laugh as she stood before the drawing of
Sir Harry Wildair.

“All men are alike,” she cried. “And all women, too, for that matter.
Psha, there are only two people in the world; the name of one is Adam,
the name of the other is Eve.”

In the course of the afternoon a letter was brought to her. It was from
Mrs. Lewis, and it stated that the writer was so much overcome with the
recent kindness and attention which her husband had been showing her,
she had resolved to confess that she had played a trick upon him, and
begged Mrs. Abington's leave to do so.

Mrs. Abington immediately sat down and wrote a line to her.

“Do n't be a little fool,” she wrote. “Are you so anxious to undo all
that we have done between us? If you pursue that course, I swear to you
that he will be at my feet the next day. No, dear child, leave me to
tell him all that there is to be told.”

Two days afterwards Lee Lewis said to her:

“I wonder if 't is true that my wife has an admirer.”

“Why should it not be true, sir? Everything that is admirable has an
admirer,” said Mrs. Abington.

“She is not quite the same as she used to be,” said he. “I half suspect
that she has something on her mind. Can it be possible that--”

“Psha, sir, why not put her to the test?” cried Mrs. Abington.

“The test? How?”

“Why, sir, give her a chance of going again to the Gardens. Tell her
that you are going to the playhouse on Thursday night, and then do as
you did before, only keep a better look-out for her, and--well you must
promise me that if you find her with that handsome young spark you will
not run him through the body.”

“You seem to take a great interest in this same young spark,” said
Lewis.

“And so I do, sir! Lord, sir, are you jealous of me as well as your
wife?”

“Jealous? By my soul, madam, I desire nothing more heartily than to hear
of your taking him from my wife.”

“Then carry out my plan, and perhaps I shall be able to oblige you. Put
her to the test on Thursday.”

“You will be there?”

“I will be there, I promise you.”

“Then I agree.”

“You promise further not to run him through the body?”

“I promise. Yes, you will have more than a corpse to console you.”

He walked off looking somewhat glum, and in another half hour she had
sent a letter to his wife asking her to be dressed for Vauxhall on
Thursday night.

The Gardens were flooded with light--except in certain occasional
nooks--and with music everywhere. (It is scarcely necessary to say that
the few dimly-lighted nooks were the most popular in the Gardens.)

As Mrs. Lewis, accompanied by her dashing escort, descended from the
coach and walked up the long avenue toward the tea-house, many eyes were
focussed upon her, for all the town seemed to be at Vauxhall that night.
But only the quick eyes of Mrs. Abington perceived the face of Lee Lewis
at the outskirts of the crowd. Mrs. Abington smiled; she knew perfectly
well that her disguise was so complete as to remain impenetrable, even
to her most familiar friends, and she had a voice to suit the costume of
the beau, so that, upon previous occasions, she had, when in a similar
dress, escaped all recognition, even at one of the balls at the little
playhouse in the Haymarket.

She now swaggered through the crowds, rallying, after the most approved
style of the modish young spark, her somewhat timid companion, and
pointing out to her the various celebrities who were strolling about
under the coloured lamps. She pointed out the lively little lady, who
was clearly delighted at being the centre of a circle of admirers,
as Mrs. Thrale, the wife of the great brewer. Around her were General
Paoli, the Corsican refugee; the great Dr. Samuel Johnson; Dr. Burney,
the musician; and Richard Burke, just home from Grenada.

Some distance further on stood Oliver Goldsmith, the author of the new
comedy, in which Lee Lewis was cast for the part of Young Marlow, and
Mrs. Abington for the part of Miss Hardcastle. Dr. Goldsmith wore a
peach-bloom velvet coat and a waistcoat covered with silver. He was
making the beautiful Miss Horneck and her sister, Mrs. Bunbury, laugh
heartily at some of his witty sayings, which were too subtle to be
understood by such people as James Boswell and Miss Reynolds, but which
were thoroughly relished by the two girls who loved him so well. In
another part of the grounds, Sir Joshua Reynolds walked with his friend
David Garrick; and when she caught sight of the latter, Mrs. Abington
hurried her companion down a side walk, saying:

“David Garrick is the only one in the Gardens whom I fear; he would see
through my disguise in a moment.”

“My husband is not here, after all, for I have been looking for him,”
 said Mrs. Lewis. “You see he does not always speak an untruth when he
tells me he is going to the playhouse on the nights he is not acting.”

“Nothing could be clearer, my dear,” said her companion. “Oh, yes, men
do speak the truth--yes, sometimes.”

Mrs. Lewis was anxious to return to her home as soon as she had walked
once through the Gardens, but Mrs. Abington declared that to go away
without having supper would make her so ashamed of her impersonation
of the reckless young gallant, she would never again be able to face
an audience in the playhouse; so supper they had together in one of the
raised boxes, Mrs. Abington swearing at the waiters in the truest style
of the man of fashion.

And all the time they were at supper she could see Lee Lewis furtively
watching them.

Another hour the actress and her companion remained in the Gardens, and
when at last they returned to the hackney coach, the former did not fail
to see that Lewis was still watching them and following them, though his
wife, all the time the coach was being driven homeward, chattered about
her husband's fidelity. “He will most likely be at home when I arrive,”
 she said; “and in that case I will tell him all.”

“For fear of any mistake I will enter the house with you,” said Mrs.
Abington. “I have heard before now of husbands casting doubt upon even
the most plausible stories their wives invented to account for their
absence.”

“My husband will believe me,” said Mrs. Lewis coldly.

“I shall take very good care that he does,” said her companion.

When they reached the house, they learnt that Mr. Lewis had not yet come
back, and so Mrs. Abington went upstairs and seated herself by the side
of her friend in her parlour.

Not many minutes had passed before her quick ears became aware of the
opening of the hall-door, and of the stealthy steps of a man upon the
stairs. The steps paused outside the room door, and then putting on her
masculine voice, the actress suddenly cried:

“Ah, my beloved creature! why will you remain with a husband who cannot
love you as I swear I do? Why not fly with me to happiness?”

Mrs. Lewis gave a laugh, while her cheek was being kissed--very audibly
kissed--by her companion.

The next moment the door was flung open so suddenly that Mrs. Lewis was
startled, and gave a cry; but before her husband had time to take a step
into the room, Mrs. Abington had blown out the lamp, leaving the room in
complete darkness.

“Stand where you are,” cried the actress, in her assumed voice; “Stand,
or by the Lord Harry, I'll run you through the vitals!”

The sound of the whisking of her sword from its sheath followed.

“Who are you, fellow, and what do you want here?” she continued.

“The rascal's impudence confounds me,” said Lewis. “Infamous scoundrel!
I have had my eye on you all night; I am the husband of the lady whom
you lured from her home to be your companion.”

“Oh, then you are Mr. Lee Lewis, the actor,” said Mrs. Abington. “Pray,
how does it come, sir, that you were at Vauxhall when you assured your
poor wife that you were going to the playhouse?”

“What! the rascal has the audacity--”

“Husband--husband--a moment will explain all!” cried Mrs. Lewis, across
the table.

“Silence, woman!” shouted the man.

“She had better remain silent,” said the actress. “Look you, sir, how
often have you not deceived that poor young thing, whose only fault is
loving you too well? What, sir, have you the effrontery to accuse her?
Does your own conscience acquit you of every attempt to deceive her,
that you can throw a stone at her? You blame her for going with me to
the Gardens--can you say that you have never made an appointment with a
lady to meet you at the same Gardens? What truth is there in the
report which is in everyone's mouth, that you are in the train of Mrs.
Abington's admirers?”

“'Tis false, sir! I love my wife--alas, I should say that I love her
better than a score of Mrs. Abingtons,” cried Lewis.

“Ah, husband, dear husband,” began his wife, when Mrs. Abington
interrupted her.

“Hush, child,” she cried. “Let me ask him if he never implored that
woman, Abington, to accompany him to Vauxhall while he told you he was
going to the playhouse? Let me ask him how often he has whiled away the
hours in Mrs. Abington's house, assuring his wife that he was detained
at the play-house. He is silent, you perceive. That means that he has
still a remnant of what once was a conscience. Mr. Lewis, were it light
enough to see you, I am sure that we should find that you were hanging
your head. What! are you surprised that any one should admire the wife
whom you neglected? You are enraged because you saw me by her side at
the Gardens. You have played the spy on us, sir, and in doing so you
have played the fool, and you will acknowledge it and ask your wife's
pardon and mine before five minutes have passed. Call for a light, sir;
we do not expect you to apologise in the dark.”

“The fellow's impudence astounds me,” muttered Lewis. He then threw open
the door and shouted down the stairs for a light.

Mrs. Lewis, while the light was being brought, made another attempt to
explain matters, but Mrs. Abington commanded her to be silent.

“Everything will be explained when the light comes,” said she.

“Yes,” said the man, grimly, “for men cannot cross swords in the dark.”

“There will be no crossing swords here,” said Mrs. Abington.

“Coward--Scoundrel! Now we shall see what you are made of,” said the
man, as a servant appeared on the landing with a lighted lamp.

“Yes; that's just what you will see,” said Mrs. Abington in her natural
voice, as the light flooded the room.

“Great powers!” whispered Lewis, as he found himself confronted by the
fascinating face that he knew so well.

Mrs. Abington had thrown off her wig in the darkness, and now her own
hair was flowing over her shoulders.

“Great powers! Mrs. Abington!”

“Yes, Mr. Lewis, Mrs. Abington, who only waits to hear a very foolish
fellow confess that he has been a fool in letting a thought of any other
woman come into his mind, when he is the husband of so charming a lady
as took supper with me to-night.”

Lee Lewis bowed his head, and, kneeling before his wife, pressed her
hand to his lips.




THE CAPTURE OF THE DUKE


I

As all hearts are captivated by the most charming Mistress Barry, so it
is my hope that all souls will be captivated by her picture,” cried Sir
Godfrey, bowing low between his palette which he held in one hand and
his sheaf of brushes which he held in the other. His pronunciation of
the word charming--he said “sharmink”--had a suggestion of his native
Lübeck about it; but his courtliness was beyond suspicion. None of his
distinguished sitters could complain of his having failed to represent
them on his canvases with dignity and refinement, whatever their candid
friends might think of the accuracy of the portraitures.

“I only ask to be painted as I am, Sir Godfrey,” said Mrs. Barry, when
she had risen after her courtesy in acknowledgment of Sir Godfrey's
gallant compliment.

“As you are, madam? Ah, your ladyship is the most exacting of my
sitters. As you are? Ah, my dear lady, you must modify your conditions;
my art has its limitations.”

“Your art, but not your arts, sir. I protest that I am overwhelmed by
the latter, as I am lost in admiration of the former,” said the actress,
adopting a pose which she knew the painter would appreciate. “Alas,
Sir Godfrey,” she added, “you do not well to talk to an actress of the
limitations of art. What a paltry aim has our art compared with yours! I
have had cravings after immortality--that is why I am here to-day.”

“'T is surely, then, the future of the painter that you have had at
heart, my dear madam; you come with immortality shining in your face.”

“Nay, sir; Sir Godfrey Kneller will live forevermore in his long line of
legitimate monarchs--ay, and others, perhaps not quite--”

“For God's sake, Mistress Barry! These are dangerous days; pray remember
that I am the queen's limner.”

Sir Godfrey Kneller spoke in a whisper, touching her arm with the
handles of his brushes as he glanced apprehensively around the
painting-room of his house in Great Queen Street.

Mrs. Barry looked at him with a reckless gaiety in her eyes.

“What, have I said anything treasonable, anything to compromise the
Court painter?” she cried.

“Walls have ears, my dear,” whispered the painter.

“And what matters that, so long as they have not tongues?” laughed the
lady. “Ah, my dear Sir Godfrey, you do your art an injustice to fancy
that any one could utter a word of treason in this room surrounded by so
many living faces.” She pointed to the easels on which were hung several
portraits approaching completion. “They are all living, my friend. I vow
that when I entered here just now I felt inclined to sink in a courtesy
before Her Grace of Marlborough.” She indicated the portrait of the
duchess which Sir Godfrey had all but finished--one of the finest of all
his works.

Sir Godfrey smiled.

“Ah, who, indeed, could talk treason in the presence of Her Grace?” he
said.

“None, save His Grace, I suppose,” said the actress. “And now I am ready
to sit to you--unless you have any further courtly compliments to pass
on me. Only, by my faith, I do not choose to place myself nigh to Her
Grace. Those eyes of hers make me feel uneasy. Prithee, Sir Godfrey,
permit me to turn my back upon the duchess; the act will, I protest,
give me a feeling of pride which will speedily betray itself on my
face. People will say, 'Only an actress, yet she turned her back upon
a duchess'--ay, and such a duchess! They say their Graces have lost
nothing by their adherence to the Queen.”

Mrs. Barry had now posed herself, flinging back her hair from her
forehead, so that her broad, massive brow was fully shown, and the
painter had begun to work upon her picture.

“Ah, people say that? And what reason have they for saying it, I
wonder?” remarked Sir Godfrey.

“The best of reasons, my good friend. They say that their Graces have
lost nothing by standing by the Queen, because if they ran a chance of
losing anything they would quickly stand by the King--His Majesty over
the water.”

Sir Godfrey laughed. “I vow, Mistress Barry, that your gossips have
failed to interpret as I would the expression upon the face of Her Grace
of Marlborough,” said he. “Great heaven, madam, cannot one perceive a
pensiveness upon that face of hers?--nay, prithee, do not turn your head
to look for the expression. I want not to lose your expression while you
are endeavoring to catch that of Her Grace.”

“The Sad Sarah! And you mean to reproduce the sadness, Sir Godfrey?”

“Not sadness--only pensiveness.”

“The one is the same as t' other. Then you will cause posterity to
affirm that Sarah was sad to find that she had not become so rich in
adhering to the Queen as she might have if she had sent her pensive
glances across to France?”

“Then posterity will do her wrong. Her Grace is truly attached to the
Queen--so truly attached that she becomes melancholic at the thought of
not being completely trusted by Her Majesty.”

Sir Godfrey's voice had sunk to a whisper as he made this revelation;
and when he had spoken he glanced once more round the room as if to
assure himself that he had no listeners beside Mrs. Barry.

“And the Queen does not trust her?” cried the actress. “Ah, well, I
suppose 't is impossible even for a Queen to be for so many years in her
company without understanding her. Ah, the poor Duke! Prithee continue
your story, Sir Godfrey. I perceive that you would fain lead one up to
the scandalous part.”

“Scandalous part, madam? Nay, if you discern not a deep pathos in the
sad look of Her Grace, the Duchess, after the key which I have given you
to her expression, no rehearsal of scandal would awake your interest in
the subject of yonder portrait.”

“Nay, sir, if you refuse to tell me further, you will have to bear with
the mockery of posterity for depicting me with a melancholic visage, as
well as your Duchess. Pray tell me the scandal, or I vow I shall have a
fit of the vapours all the time you are painting my portrait.”

“My dear lady, there is no scandal to rehearse, I pledge you my word,”
 said the painter. “'T is only said that Her Majesty--”

“Is blest by heaven with excellent eyesight? Well, yes; I dare swear
that your Duchess is strongly of that opinion--that is what adds to her
melancholy. But I vow 't is most scandalous that there's no scandal. We
must try and repair this, you and I, Sir Godfrey.”

“What, does the woman fancy that all lives should be regulated on the
lines set down by the poets who write for your playhouses?”

“And why not? If our poets will not be true to nature, is it not our
duty to try to make nature true to the poets?”

“Faith, madam, that were to put an outrage upon nature, if I grasp your
meaning aright.”

“Nay, sir, 'tis no great outrage. If our writers treat of the humours
of an intrigue in high places, and if we find, on climbing to these high
places, that no scandal is to be found there but only humdrum existence,
is it not our duty to foster a scandal for the justification of our
writers?”

“_Mille tonnerres!_ Have I been cherishing a fiery flying serpent all
this time? Have I been playing with a firebrand? Why, 't is in the
aspect of Medusa I should be painting you, Mistress Barry; you should
have ringletted snakes entwined among your hair. I' faith, madam, that
is a pretty theory to propound in an honest man's house. We must become
scandalous in order to save a playhouse poet from being accounted untrue
to life?”

“And why not? Ah, Sir Godfrey, I greatly fear that you have no true
feeling for art.”

The actress spoke sadly and shook her head with such exquisite
simulation of melancholy as caused the painter to lay down his palette
and roar with laughter.

“You have a true feeling for art, beyond doubt, my Barry,” he cried.
“You have no room to reproach yourself, I dare swear. You have all the
men in town at your feet, and all their wives ready to scratch out your
eyes--and all for the advancement of art, you say. You are ready to
jeopardise your own reputation in order to save that of your poets! Ah,
what a kind heart hath the Barry!”

“Faith, Sir Godfrey, if I did not make a wife or two jealous, how could
I know what a jealous woman looks like, and if I did not know what a
jealous woman looks like, how could I act the part of a jealous woman in
the playhouse?”

“Ah, how indeed? The play-goers worship you if their wives long for
those ringlets that ensnare their husbands in their meshes. What is a
wedding-ring against a wanton ringlet?”

“'T is my duty as an actress that compels me to seek for examples of the
strongest emotions, Sir Godfrey--you perceive that that is so?”

“Ah, beyond doubt--beyond doubt, madam.”

“That rejoices me. And now touching this Duchess of Marlborough--”

“You will have to seek your examples of strong emotion outside my house,
my friend. Do you fancy that Her Grace--”

“Is a woman? Nay, she is a very woman, so far as my poor observation,
supplemented by a small trifle of experience, is permitted to judge.
Think you that her sadness of visage is due to mortification that her
spouse is still faithful to her?”

“Surely such a reflection should call for an expression of satisfaction,
my fair observer.”

“Nay, Sir Godfrey; that were to take a view of the matter in no
wise deep. Would you not have Her Grace to think as other women less
formidable think, in this wise: 'what fate is mine to be wed to a man
whom no woman thinks worth the tempting'?”

“Zounds, my Barry, that were the strangest way recorded to account for a
wife's sadness. How know you that His Grace has not been tempted?”

“I make no such charge against him, Sir Godfrey; I think not such evil
of him as that he hath not been tempted. I make but a humble attempt to
think as Her Grace may think when she has her moods.”

“That were a presumption for such as you, madam. What! you an actress,
and she a duchess, and yet you would venture--”

The laugh which illuminated the face of Sir Godfrey had scarcely passed
away before his servant entered the painting room in haste, announcing
that the coach of the Duchess of Marlborough was at the door, and that
Her Grace was in the act of dismounting.

“That means that my sitting is at an end,” said Mrs. Barry.

“And I must e'en hustle you out of the room, my dear,” said the painter.
“Her Grace is not the most patient of dames when it comes to waiting on
a painter.”

“Or on a painter's sitter, particularly when that sitter is only an
actress. Ah, Sir Godfrey, you might permit me to remain in secret that I
may know how a Duchess conducts herself upon occasions.”

“Tut--tut! Would you play a comedy in my house, you baggage?” cried the
painter, pushing her playfully to the door. “Fly--fly--before it is too
late.”

“Ah, Sir Godfrey, you are indeed unkind. Prithee how may I hope to enact
the part of a duchess in the playhouse if I am not permitted to witness
one in the life?”

“Off--off--I say! You will have to trust to your own instinct, which I
take to be a faithful enough guide in your case, my dear Barry. And
so farewell to you.” Still protesting, and very prettily pouting, the
actress suffered herself to be gently forced from the room into the
square, inner hall, which was lighted by a dome of coloured glass. Sir
Godfrey, kissing the tip of one of his fingers, bowed her an adieu, but
without speaking, as he held up the tapestry _portière_.

[Illustration: 0278]

Mrs. Barry replied with a modified courtesy, and turned as if to make
her way to the outer hall; but the moment Sir Godfrey let fall the
tapestry, she returned on tiptoe, and moving it an inch to one side,
peered through into the studio. She saw the painter hurrying from the
large apartment into the small retiring-room at the farther end, and the
moment that he disappeared she was back like a flash into the studio and
in hiding behind a full-length canvas that leant against an easel in a
dark corner.

Five seconds were sufficient to carry out the plan which she had
conceived on the impulse of the moment. Had it occupied seven she would
have been discovered, for Sir Godfrey had merely entered his wardrobe
to throw off one coat and put on another. He returned to the studio, and
immediately rang his bell. When the servant entered, he said:

“When Her Grace is ready, lead her hither.”

The servant bowed and left the studio, while Sir Godfrey arranged the
chair on the dais for his new sitter, and placed the half-finished
portrait of the Duchess on his easel. He had scarcely done so before the
rings of the _portière_ were rattling, and the Duchess of Marlborough
entered, attired for the sitting. How she looked on that day, the
painter has by his art enabled all succeeding generations to learn.
Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait of the Duchess is, perhaps, his most
characteristic work. If the distinction which it possesses in every
feature was scarcely shared by the original in the same degree, there
was still sufficient character in the face of the great lady to make
it profoundly interesting, especially to so close an observer as Sir
Godfrey Kneller.

“Ah, my dear Kneller,” cried Her Grace, as the painter advanced to greet
her with bowed head, “I am even before my appointed hour to-day. That
glance of sad reproach which you cast at your timepiece when I last came
hither--though only half an hour late, I swear--had its effect upon me.”

“Her Grace of Marlborough is one of those rare ones for whom it might
reasonably be expected that the sun would stand still,” said the
painter.

“As it did once at the command of the Hebrew general? Ah, my Kneller,
what a pity it is that a certain great General of the moderns cannot
make his commands respected in the same direction.”

“His Grace has no need to supplement his own generalship by--by--”

“By the aid of heaven, you would say? By the Lord, Sir Godfrey,'t is
rather the aid of the opposite power our generalissimo would invoke, if
taken at a disadvantage.”

“It would be impossible to conceive an incident so remarkable as His
Grace taken at a disadvantage.”

“I would fain believe you to be right, friend Kneller. Yes, I have not
once caught him tripping. But that, you may say, is not so much because
His Grace does not trip, as because his generalship is too subtle for
such an one as I.”

“Nay, nay, madam; so ungenteel a thought could never be entertained
by one who has the privilege of knowing the Duke and of seeing the
Duchess.”

“Vastly prettily spoken, Sir Godfrey; and with the air of a courtier,
too; but, unlike t' other things of the Court, there is truth in your
words. Look you, Kneller, there's the slut who calls herself Mistress
Barry--she carries half the town away captive at her chariot-wheels--”
 she pointed to the portrait of Mrs. Barry. “But think you that her
fascinations would have power to prevail against my lord the Duke? Nay,
adamant is as snow compared to his demeanour when the wretch is moving
all hearts within the playhouse. Have not I found him sitting with
closed eyes while the woman was flaunting it about the stage, and men's
swords were ready to fly from their scabbards at the throats of them
that had got a soft look from her?”

“Is 't possible?”

“Ay, sir; 't is more than possible. The insolent hussy has oft cast up
her eyes at our box in the playhouse, ogling His Grace, if you please.
The fool little knew that she was ogling a slumbering man. Nay, Sir
Godfrey, if I were as sure of my ground in other directions as I am of
His Grace, I were a happy woman.”

She took her place on the dais, and the expression of pensiveness which
appears on the face of the portrait became intensified. This fact,
however, did not prevent a dainty little fist from quivering in her
direction from the side of the full-length picture in the corner. The
Duchess had her back turned to that particular corner.

“Your Grace deserves to be the happiest of women,” said the painter.

“If only to give so admirable a limner an opportunity of depicting a
smiling face,” said the Duchess.

“Nay, madam, a smile doth not make a picture,” replied Sir Godfrey. “On
the contrary, it oft destroys one. Your painter of smirking goddesses
finds his vocation at the Fair of St. Bartolemy. I would fain hope that
I am not such.” There was a silence, during which Sir Godfrey painted
the hair upon his canvas with his usual dexterity. Then Her Grace
sighed.

“Know you the best means of bringing back an errant confidence, Sir
Godfrey?” she asked after another long pause.

“An errant confidence, madam?”

“The confidence of one whom I love, and who I think would fain love me
still, were it not for the tongue of slander.”

“Nay, your Grace, I am but a painter; no Rubens am I in the skill that
pertains to an envoy. Still, it occurs to me that the rendering of some
signal service to the one whose mood your Grace describes should bring
you to her heart again.”

The Duchess sprang from her chair and began pacing the narrow limits of
the dais, her hands clenched, and the expression on her face becoming
one of passion solely.

“Some signal service--some signal service!” she cried. “Man, have I not
grown aged in her service? Who among those around her hath shown her and
hers such service as ours has been--my husband's and mine? And yet when
she hears the rumour of a plot she taunts me that I was not the first
to warn her. Heavens! Does it rest with me to see the word 'conspirator'
branded on the flesh of one who may hap to wear a cuirass? Is there
any skill that will enable mine eyes to perceive in a man's bearing
an adherent to the family at St. Germains? By the Lord, Sir Godfrey
Kneller, I may be tried too much. Think you that if we were to turn our
eyes in the direction of St. Germains there would not be a goodly number
of persons in this realm who would turn their eyes and their coats with
us?”

“For God's sake, madam--”

“Nay, 't is but an abstract proposition, friend Kneller. I have wit
enough to perceive that the atmosphere of France suiteth best the
health of some folk. For mine own part, I like best our English air; but
if--ah, continue your painting, Sir Godfrey, and see that you make mine
eyes the eyes of one who looks not overseas for succour.”

Her Grace threw herself once more into the chair, and the painter
resumed his work in silence. He could not but reproduce the pensive
expression that once more was worn by the face of the Duchess.

At the end of half an hour she rose, complaining that she was tired. She
smiled, giving her hand to Sir Godfrey, as she said.

“I know, my good friend, that it is safe to rage in your presence; you
are discretion itself.”

“Your Grace hath never put my discretion to the test,” said the Court
painter, with a low bow.

“The Duke will mayhap visit you to inspect the portrait, Sir Godfrey,”
 said the Duchess when at the door. “Pray let him know that I await him
at St. James's.”

“I shall not fail, madam,” said the painter. “And I will not ask your
Grace to sit to me until Friday. I have to be in Richmond on Thursday.”

He held back the _portière_ for her exit, and then followed her through
the domed hall to the apartment where her maid awaited her.

On his return to the studio he found himself face to face with Mrs.
Barry. For an instant he stood speechless. Then, with a glance behind
him, he whispered:

“How did you come hither, in the name of heaven?”

“In a name which you are bound to respect--the name of art,” she
replied.

“I sought but a lesson, and I have not sought in vain. A duchess! Good
Lord! These be your duchesses! The manners of a kitchen wench allied to
the language of a waterman. A duchess!”

“Madam--Mistress Barry--”

“Oh, the poor Duke! How oft have not I heard that His Grace looks
forward to the hottest campaign with joy? Oh, I can well believe it. And
the look of pensiveness on Her Grace's face--observe it, most faithful
of limners.”

She stood pointing to the portrait of the Duchess in a stage attitude
of scorn. Sir Godfrey, as he looked at her, felt that he should like to
paint her in that attitude for the benefit of posterity. Then she burst
into a scornful laugh, at which he became more serious than ever. In
another moment, however, she had introduced a note of merriment into her
laughter, and in spite of the fact that he had been extremely angry on
finding that she had been in hiding he could not help joining in her
laughter.

“The pensive Duchess!” she cried. “Nay, rather, the pensive Duke, my
friend. Paint him as 'Il Penseroso'--the Duke who had eyes only for
the graces of Her Grace--who had ears only for her dulcet phrases--who
snored in the face of the actress who was ogling him from the stage.
Grant me patience, heaven! If I fail to bring him to my feet in the
sight of that woman, may I never tread the stage more! I have a scheme,
Sir Godfrey, which only needs your help to--”

“My help! _Gott in Himmel!_ You shall not have my help! What! do you
fancy that you may turn my painting-room into a playhouse stage, and act
your farces--”

“His Grace the Duke of Marlborough.”

The servant had thrown open the door as he made the announcement.

“Ah! Heaven is on my side! I need not your help,” cried the actress, in
an aside, as she turned to a mirror to still further dishevel her hair.

The Duke of Marlborough, entering the studio, found himself confronted
by a lovely woman visibly fluttered, and apparently anxious to prevent
the lace upon her shoulders from revealing even so much of her bosom as
the painter had thought necessary for artistic purposes.

“Ha! Kneller!” cried the Duke, “I find that I am an intruder. How is
this, sir? Your fellow said that you were alone.”

“It is only my friend, Mistress Barry, your Grace, whose portrait has
become my pastime,” said Sir Godfrey.

“And Mistress Barry is of no account,” said the actress, sinking in a
courtesy. “Ah, your Grace, Sir Godfrey forces me to excuse both his own
imprudence and my impudence. When I learned that the Duke of Marlborough
was to come hither I implored him to permit me to remain in order that
the dream of my poor life might be realised.”

“The dream of your life, madam?” said the Duke.

“I dare say 't is the dream of many lives,” said the lady in a low
voice, somewhat broken by an emotion she could not repress, even though
she took one hand away from her lace to still the beating of her heart.
“And now that I find myself face to face with the one who has saved our
country's honour in an hundred fights, I protest that I am overcome with
the result of my boldness. Oh, your Grace, forgive the weakness of a
poor weak woman.”

“Madam,” said the Duke, “this moment repays me for whatever trifling
hardship I have undergone in my campaigns. To find that all the charms
of Mistress Barry on the stage are but feeble compared with those gifts
of nature with which she had been endowed, were sure an astonishment to
one who had seen her only when she was the centre of a thousand eyes.”

“Oh, your Grace is determined to overwhelm your friends with your
compliments as you do your enemies with your culverins. But I vow I am
too forward. I am presuming to include my poor self among your Grace's
friends.”

“Then think of a sweeter name, my dear lady, and I shall agree to it
without demur.”

The Duke was beyond doubt not insensible to the charms of the beautiful
actress. She had apparently quite forgotten that the drapery about her
shoulders had fallen away more freely even than was permissible in
the exigencies of the classical art affected by the eighteenth century
painters.

“Ah, Your Grace leaves me without a voice even of protest,” murmured the
actress, glancing modestly at the floor.

“Nay, Mistress Barry has need only to protest against the limitations
of speech,” said the Duke, facing her and offering her his hand, which,
after a moment's hesitation, she took with the homage that she would
have given to the hand of a monarch. Then she dropped it with a half
stifled sigh, and turned to the door without a word.

“Wherefore fly?” said the Duke, raising the side of the _portière_ while
she made a courtesy.

“'T were better so, though I know your Grace cannot understand how
flight should ever be linked with discretion.”

“At least, let me conduct you to your chair, madam. Nay, I insist.”

They had scarcely got beneath the glass dome before she had laid her
hand upon his arm.

“I was determined to see you face to face,” she said in a rapid whisper.
“I have something of the greatest gravity that is for your ear alone.
You would step between the Queen and disaster?”

“I have done so before now,” said the Duke. “Heaven may be equally kind
to me again. Come with me in my coach now; it is already dusk.”

“No--no--that would be fatal to both of us,” she whispered. “We are
surrounded by enemies--spies--purveyors of treason--the very life of the
Queen is in danger.”

“You speak sincerely,” said the Duke. “Come to my house after the play.”

“Impossible! Your Grace little knows in what quarter the danger lies. I
lit upon it by accident myself. Let me see. Ah, I have it: Sir Godfrey's
painting room at a quarter after four on Thursday--this is Tuesday--yes,
in secret--and in the mean time, not a word to living man or woman--not
even Her Grace.”

“Why not take your seat in my coach; it has curtains.”

“Impossible! Ah, trust me to know wherein lieth safety and prudence.
Hasten back. Good Sir Godfrey must not suspect.”

“Heavens! You do not say that he is--”

“He is true; but he talks. We need those who are dumb. Not a word in
human ear.”

He looked into her face--eagerly--searchingly. She never winced. He
pressed her hand and returned to the studio.

She was halfway down the street in her chair before she burst into a
merry laugh.

“Her Grace shall have enough of plots to last her for awhile at
any rate. Our painter goes to Richmond on Thursday; he said so. Oh,
Lud--Lud! how quick the notion came to me when His Grace appeared. Ah,
Mistress Barry, thou hast not read in vain all that the poets have
writ for the playhouse. I can see that they are both wild to show their
devotion to Her Majesty. They would fain discover plots growing along
the hedgerows of St. James's Park. They will be as easily trapped as
tame pigeons.”

“What,” cried Mistress Barry on Thursday afternoon, to the servant who
opened the door for her at Sir Godfrey Kneller's house, “what! gone to
Richmond? Nay,'t is not possible. I sit to him at four.”

“My master said it would be five ere he returned from her ladyship's,
madam.”

“Oh, Lud, surely he made a mistake; or you have misheard him, sirrah. He
will be back at four, and I'll e'n wait for him in the painting-room. If
he have not returned by the half hour I will tarry no longer.”

She walked past the servant--he made no demur--and entered the studio.
Sauntering about for a few moments, she then went to the door and locked
it. She hastened to a shelf on which lay some broken chalks. In a few
moments, standing before the tall mirror, she had completely altered her
face; she had “made up” her features and complexion as those of an old
woman.

Then from apparently capacious pockets in the cloak which she wore
she brought forth a grey wig of many curls, which she put over her own
chestnut hair; and a servant's apron which completely hid her gown.
A few adroit touches transformed her into a venerable person of much
respectability--one whose appearance suggested that of an aged retainer
in a family where her services were properly valued. She surveyed
herself in the glass, saying, “Her Grace will, I can swear, recognise
the good woman whose sense of duty compelled her to address so mighty
a lady touching the vile conspiracy to which Her Grace is to be made
privy.”

While she was standing back from the glass, laughing as she kissed
the tips of her fingers to the figure who responded in like fashion,
a gentle knock sounded on the small side door that led into the arched
passage to the garden--the door by which the painter's models were
admitted to the studio without passing through the house. The actress,
giving a final smooth to her apron, hastened to open the door, but only
to the extent of an inch or two.

“What's your business, madam?” she inquired, in the quavering accents of
age, through the opening.

“I have come hither for Mrs. Freeman's frock,” was the reply in a low
voice.

“It will be ready for you in half an hour, my good woman,” said the
actress. “Meantime, enter and wait.”

She admitted a muffled and closely-veiled figure, and, when she had
closed the door, made an old-fashioned curtesy.

“You are Mrs. Smollett?” said the figure, in a low voice, after glancing
round the studio.

“Elizabeth Smollett, your Grace, is my name,” quavered Mrs. Barry. “Ah,
madam, you have had the courage to come hither.”

“Courage?” said the Duchess. “It needed none. If what your letter told
me be true, it is time that some true friend of the Queen's came hither.
Is it possible that your master, Sir Godfrey, knoweth naught of the
plot?”

“He knoweth naught, madam. The head and front of the wicked business
came to him as his _valet de chambre_ with the best recommendations. It
was only by accident that I discovered the fellow's motives. He was for
three years at St. Germains.”

“At St. Germains! The wretch! Mrs. Smollett, your devotion to Her
Majesty in this matter shall not go unrewarded. I can promise you that.
They hope to seize the Queen! Merciful heaven! Are they fools enough to
fancy that that act would further their ends? Ah, shall I now be avenged
upon mine enemies who whisper to Her Majesty! And you, Smollett--you
will bless the day you wrote to me.”

“Not so loud, your Grace,” whispered the actress. “There may be those at
hand that we know not of. This is where your grace must be in hiding.”
 She led the Duchess up the studio to the curtain that hung across the
retiring room. “Your Grace will be entirely hid in the recess of the
door, and unless I am far mistaken you shall hear more than you ever
expected. Now, madam, for God's sake remain fast hid behind the curtain.
I shall return to my household duties lest I should be suspected.”

“You will bless this day,” whispered Her Grace from behind the
_portière_.

Mrs. Barry put her finger to her lips as she noiselessly unlocked the
door leading to the domed hall and then passed through.

She hastily removed all traces of her disguise, placing the wig and
apron behind a marble pedestal that bore a reproduction of the flying
Mercury. She paused at the door for some time before returning to the
studio, and when at last she opened it she did so very cautiously,
putting her head just beyond the _portière_ at first. Then she closed
the door behind her and advanced. She did not fail to notice the little
movement of the curtain at the farther end of the studio. Then she gave
a fine sigh and threw herself into a chair.

“Heigh ho!” she said, in a tone that she meant to be audible in every
part of the room. “Heigh ho! 't is weary waiting for one's love. But my
love--my hero--is worthy to be waited for by empresses. Yet, if I had
not his picture to look upon now I vow I should feel melancholic. Ah,
Sir Godfrey. He has dealt as harshly with the face of my Duke as he
hath dealt gently with that ancient harridan, the Duchess.” (She saw the
distant _portière_ quiver.) “Great heavens!” she continued, rising and
standing in front of the portrait of the Duchess. “Great heavens! is it
a matter of wonder that His Grace should be sick unto death of that face
of hers? All the flattery of the painter cannot hide the malevolence of
her countenance. The Queen perceived it long ago, and yet they say that
she hopes to regain the favour of her royal mistress!

“Poor creature! But indeed she is to be pitied. She hath lost the favour
of her Queen and the heart of her spouse. Ah, my hero--my beloved--your
heart is mine--all mine. How oft have I not heard your sweet words
telling me that--how oft? But why are you not here to tell it to me now?
Why--ah, at last--at last!”

A knock had sounded at the side door in the midst of her passionate
inquiries, and she almost flew to the door, “Ah, at last--at last you
have come!” she said in a fervent whisper as the Duke entered.

“I have come,” he replied, still holding her hand. He had no choice left
in the matter. She did not withdraw her hand after she had given it to
him. It would scarcely have done for him to cast it from him. “You are
sure that Sir Godfrey has not yet returned?”

“I am sure of it,” said she. “Would I be here with you alone if he had
returned?”

“No, no; of course not,” said the Duke. “But would I not come far if
only to press this little hand?”

His experience of women had taught him that a little flattery is never
out of place with them. He supposed it was out of sheer nervousness that
Mrs. Barry had failed to withdraw her hand.

She did not withdraw it even now, however. It was only when they had
walked side by side half way across the room that she withdrew her
hand. She saw that a large picture on an easel was between them and the
distant _portiere_.

“You have come--you have trusted me,” she murmured, with her eyes cast
down.

He looked at her. He began to fear that she was faltering. She needed
encouragement to make her revelation to him.

“I have trusted you, dear one; ah, you know not to what extent I would
trust you. I would go to the ends of the earth to hear what you have to
tell me.”

“That is what I wish,” she cried. “Could we not meet at some distant
spot where all that my heart contains might be yours? Ah, let us fly
thither without delay! Delay may make havoc of our future.”

“Pray, calm yourself,” said the Duke. He perceived that his companion
was of an hysterical type. She would need to be treated with great tact
before she could be brought to communicate anything that she knew.

“Ah, 't is easy for a soldier to be calm,” she cried. “'T is not so
easy for a poor woman who is by nature trustful and yet by experience
distrustful.”

“You may trust me, my sweet creature,” he said.

“May I? May I?” she whispered, looking into his face. “Ah, no, no; leave
me--leave me alone to die here! Mine was the fault--mine alone.”

She had put her hands before her face and gone excitedly halfway down
the apartment.

“You shall not die!” he cried, following her. “Just heaven, child, am I
nobody? Is my protection worth nothing, that you should be afraid?”

“Your protection?” She had removed her hands from her face. “What! you
will let me be under your protection?”

“I swear to you.”

“Ah, then I will trust you--forever--for ever,” cried the actress,
flinging herself into the arms of the astonished Duke and laying her
head on his shoulder.

He was much more astonished when a voice rang through the studio:

“Wretch! Infamous wretches both!”

“Oh, Lud!” cried Mrs. Barry, forsaking her resting place and standing a
yard or two apart. “Oh, Lud, who is the plain little woman that has been
eavesdropping? I vow, Duke, she was not invited to our meeting.”

“Infamous creature! I am the Duchess of Marlborough!”

“Nay, that were impossible. I happen to know that the Duchess has a
limitless faith in the Duke, especially in regard to so plain a creature
as Mistress Barry, and you have the face and bearing of a jealous woman.
Her Grace of Marlborough would not be jealous, my good creature.”

“Madam,” said the Duke, turning to his wife, “madam, you have played an
unworthy part--spying--”

“Silence, libertine!” thundered the Duchess, looking like a fury.

[Illustration: 0309]

“Faith, 't is the Duchess, after all,” said the actress. “Ah, Sir
Godfrey has returned in good time.” Sir Godfrey was standing at the
door. “Dear Sir Godfrey, Her Grace is anxious for you to paint her in
her true character--that of the jealous wife; and so I leave her in
your good hands. Adieu, your Grace. Oh, fie, to be jealous of so poor a
creature as an actress!”

She stood for a moment by the side of the painter, turning half round as
she raised the tapestry hanging. Her laughter when she had passed into
the hall, rang through the studio.

Sir Godfrey began to speak.

“I fear greatly that in my absence--”

“Sir, in your absence your house has been turned into a lover's
rendezvous!” cried the Duchess. “Your aged domestic, Mrs. Smollett,
wrote to me a confidential letter--”

“Madam, I have no aged domestic, and I know no one of the name of
Smollett,” said Sir Godfrey.

“What! Oh, the man is in the plot also! It were beneath my dignity to
converse further with him. Shame, sir--shame on both of you!”

She flung herself through the _portière_ and disappeared in a billow of
tapestry.

The Duke and Sir Godfrey stood side by side in silence in the studio. At
last the former spoke.

“Faith, Kneller, I think I begin to see how we have all been tricked.
That play-actress hath made fools of us all for her own sport.”

“I begin to fear that that is so,” said Sir Godfrey.

“Ay, sir; she hath fooled us,” said the Duke. “Methinks it will be some
space of time before the wrath of Her Grace will be appeased.”

And so it was.










End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Impudent Comedian & Others, by
Frank Frankfort Moore

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51923 ***