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diff --git a/3670.txt b/3670.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..527730f --- /dev/null +++ b/3670.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7113 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peg Woffington, by Charles Reade + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Peg Woffington + +Author: Charles Reade + +Release Date: January, 2003 [Etext #3670] +Posting Date: January 14, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEG WOFFINGTON *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +PEG WOFFINGTON + +By Charles Reade + + +To T. Taylor, Esq., my friend, and coadjutor in the comedy of "Masks and +Faces," to whom the reader owes much of the best matter in this tale: +and to the memory of Margaret Woffington, falsely _summed up_ until +to-day, this "Dramatic Story" is inscribed by CHARLES READE.-- + +LONDON. Dec. 15, 1852. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ABOUT the middle of the last century, at eight o'clock in the evening, +in a large but poor apartment, a man was slumbering on a rough couch. +His rusty and worn suit of black was of a piece with his uncarpeted +room, the deal table of home manufacture, and its slim unsnuffed candle. + +The man was Triplet, scene painter, actor and writer of sanguinary +plays, in which what ought to be, viz., truth, plot, situation and +dialogue, were not; and what ought not to be, were--_scilicet,_ small +talk, big talk, fops, ruffians, and ghosts. + +His three mediocrities fell so short of one talent that he was sometimes +_impransus._ + +He slumbered, but uneasily; the dramatic author was uppermost, and his +"Demon of the Hayloft" hung upon the thread of popular favor. + +On his uneasy slumber entered from the theater Mrs. Triplet. + +She was a lady who in one respect fell behind her husband; she lacked +his variety in ill-doing, but she recovered herself by doing her one +thing a shade worse than he did any of his three. She was what is called +in grim sport an actress; she had just cast her mite of discredit on +royalty by playing the Queen, and had trundled home the moment the +breath was out of her royal body. She came in rotatory with fatigue, +and fell, gristle, into a chair; she wrenched from her brow a diadem and +eyed it with contempt, took from her pocket a sausage, and contemplated +it with respect and affection, placed it in a frying-pan on the fire, +and entered her bedroom, meaning to don a loose wrapper, and dethrone +herself into comfort. + +But the poor woman was shot walking by Morpheus, and subsided +altogether; for dramatic performances, amusing and exciting to youth +seated in the pit, convey a certain weariness to those bright beings who +sparkle on the stage for bread and cheese. + +Royalty, disposed of, still left its trail of events. The sausage began +to "spit." The sound was hardly out of its body, when poor Triplet +writhed like a worm on a hook. "Spitter, spittest," went the sausage. +Triplet groaned, and at last his inarticulate murmurs became words: +"That's right, pit now, that is so reasonable to condemn a poor fellow's +play before you have heard it out." Then, with a change of tone, "Tom," +muttered he, "they are losing their respect for specters; if they do, +hunger will make a ghost of me." Next he fancied the clown or somebody +had got into his ghost's costume. + +"Dear," said the poor dreamer, "the clown makes a very pretty specter, +with his ghastly white face, and his blood-boltered cheeks and nose. I +never saw the fun of a clown before, no! no! no! it is not the clown, it +is worse, much worse; oh, dear, ugh!" and Triplet rolled off the couch +like Richard the Third. He sat a moment on the floor, with a finger +in each eye; and then, finding he was neither daubing, ranting, nor +deluging earth with "acts," he accused himself of indolence, and sat +down to write a small tale of blood and bombast; he took his seat at the +deal table with some alacrity, for he had recently made a discovery. + +How to write well, _rien que cela._ + +"First, think in as homely a way as you can; next, shove your pen under +the thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction," +(when done, find a publisher--if you can). "This," said Triplet, +"insures common sense to your ideas, which does pretty well for a +basis," said Triplet, apologetically, "and elegance to the dress they +wear." Triplet, then casting his eyes round in search of such actual +circumstances as could be incorporated on this plan with fiction, began +to work thus: + + + TRIPLET'S FACTS. TRIPLET'S FICTION. + + A farthing dip is on the table. A solitary candle cast its pale + gleams around. + + It wants snuffing. Its elongated wick betrayed an owner + steeped in oblivion. + + + He jumped up, and snuffed it. He rose languidly, and trimmed it with + his fingers. Burned his with an + instrument that he had by his fingers, + and swore a little. side for that + purpose, and muttered a silent + ejaculation + + +Before, however, the mole Triplet could undermine literature and level +it with the dust, various interruptions and divisions broke in upon his +design, and _sic nos servavit_ Apollo. As he wrote the last sentence, a +loud rap came to his door. A servant in livery brought him a note from +Mr. Vane, dated Covent Garden. Triplet's eyes sparkled, he bustled, +wormed himself into a less rusty coat, and started off to the Theater +Royal, Covent Garden. + +In those days, the artists of the pen and the brush ferreted patrons, +instead of aiming to be indispensable to the public, the only patron +worth a single gesture of the quill. + +Mr. Vane had conversed with Triplet, that is, let Triplet talk to him in +a coffee-house, and Triplet, the most sanguine of unfortunate men, had +already built a series of expectations upon that interview, when this +note arrived. Leaving him on his road from Lambeth to Covent Garden, we +must introduce more important personages. + +Mr. Vane was a wealthy gentleman from Shropshire, whom business had +called to London four months ago, and now pleasure detained. Business +still occupied the letters he sent now and then to his native county; +but it had ceased to occupy the writer. He was a man of learning and +taste, as times went; and his love of the Arts had taken him some time +before our tale to the theaters, then the resort of all who pretended +to taste; and it was thus he had become fascinated by Mrs. Woffington, a +lady of great beauty, and a comedian high in favor with the town. + +The first night he saw her was an epoch in the history of this +gentleman's mind. He had learning and refinement, and he had not great +practical experience, and such men are most open to impression from the +stage. He saw a being, all grace and bright nature, move like a goddess +among the stiff puppets of the scene; her glee and her pathos were +equally catching, she held a golden key at which all the doors of +the heart flew open. Her face, too, was as full of goodness as +intelligence--it was like no other farce; the heart bounded to meet it. + +He rented a box at her theater. He was there every night before the +curtain drew up; and I'm sorry to say, he at last took half a dislike +to Sunday--Sunday "which knits up the raveled sleave of care," Sunday +"tired nature's sweet restorer," because on Sunday there was no Peg +Woffington. At first he regarded her as a being of another sphere, an +incarnation of poetry and art; but by degrees his secret aspirations +became bolder. She was a woman; there were men who knew her; some of +them inferior to him in position, and, he flattered himself, in mind. +He had even heard a tale against her character. To him her face was its +confutation, and he knew how loose-tongued is calumny; but still--! + +At last, one day he sent her a letter, unsigned. This letter expressed +his admiration of her talent in warm but respectful terms; the writer +told her it had become necessary to his heart to return her in some way +his thanks for the land of enchantment to which she had introduced him. +Soon after this, choice flowers found their way to her dressing-room +every night, and now and then verses and precious stones mingled with +her roses and eglantine. And oh, how he watched the great actress's +eye all the night; how he tried to discover whether she looked oftener +toward his box than the corresponding box on the other side of the +house. Did she notice him, or did she not? What a point gained, if she +was conscious of his nightly attendance. She would feel he was a friend, +not a mere auditor. He was jealous of the pit, on whom Mrs. Woffington +lavished her smiles without measure. + +At last, one day he sent her a wreath of flowers, and implored her, if +any word he had said to her had pleased or interested her, to wear this +wreath that night. After he had done this he trembled; he had courted a +decision, when, perhaps, his safety lay in patience and time. She +made her _entree;_ he turned cold as she glided into sight from the +prompter's side; he raised his eyes slowly and fearfully from her feet +to her head; her head was bare, wreathed only by its own rich glossy +honors. "Fool!" thought he, "to think she would hang frivolities upon +that glorious head for me." Yet his disappointment told him he had +really hoped it; he would not have sat out the play but for a leaden +incapacity of motion that seized him. + +The curtain drew up for the fifth act, and!--could he believe his +eyes?--Mrs. Woffington stood upon the stage with his wreath upon her +graceful head. She took away his breath. She spoke the epilogue, and, as +the curtain fell, she lifted her eyes, he thought, to his box, and made +him a distinct, queen-like courtesy; his heart fluttered to his mouth, +and he walked home on wings and tiptoe. In short-- + +Mrs. Woffington, as an actress, justified a portion of this enthusiasm; +she was one of the truest artists of her day; a fine lady in her +hands was a lady, with the genteel affectation of a gentlewoman, not a +harlot's affectation, which is simply and without exaggeration what the +stage commonly gives us for a fine lady; an old woman in her hands was +a thorough woman, thoroughly old, not a cackling young person of epicene +gender. She played Sir Harry Wildair like a man, which is how he ought +to be played (or, which is better still, not at all), so that Garrick +acknowledged her as a male rival, and abandoned the part he no longer +monopolized. + +Now it very, very rarely happens that a woman of her age is high enough +in art and knowledge to do these things. In players, vanity cripples art +at every step. The young actress who is not a Woffington aims to display +herself by means of her part, which is vanity; not to raise her part by +sinking herself in it, which is art. It has been my misfortune to see +----, and----, and ----, et ceteras, play the man; Nature, forgive them, +if you can, for art never will; they never reached any idea more manly +than a steady resolve to exhibit the points of a woman with greater +ferocity than they could in a gown. But consider, ladies, a man is not +the meanest of the brute creation, so how can he be an unwomanly female? +This sort of actress aims not to give her author's creation to the +public, but to trot out the person instead of the creation, and shows +sots what a calf it has--and is. + +Vanity, vanity! all is vanity! Mesdames les Charlatanes. + +Margaret Woffington was of another mold; she played the ladies of high +comedy with grace, distinction, and delicacy. But in Sir Harry Wildair +she parted with a woman's mincing foot and tongue, and played the man +in a style large, spirited and _elance._ As Mrs. Day (committee) she +painted wrinkles on her lovely face so honestly that she was taken for +threescore, and she carried out the design with voice and person, and +did a vulgar old woman to the life. She disfigured her own beauties to +show the beauty of her art; in a word, she was an artist! It does not +follow she was the greatest artist that ever breathed; far from it. Mr. +Vane was carried to this notion by passion and ignorance. + +On the evening of our tale he was at his post patiently sitting out one +of those sanguinary discourses our rude forefathers thought were +tragic plays. _Sedet aeternumque Sedebit Infelix Theseus,_ because Mrs. +Woffington is to speak the epilogue. + +These epilogues were curiosities of the human mind; they whom, just to +ourselves and _them,_ we call our _forbears,_ had an idea their blood +and bombast were not ridiculous enough in themselves, so when the +curtain had fallen on the _debris_ of the _dramatis personae,_ and +of common sense, they sent on an actress to turn all the sentiment so +laboriously acquired into a jest. + +To insist that nothing good or beautiful shall be carried safe from a +play out into the street was the bigotry of English horseplay. Was a +Lucretia the heroine of the tragedy, she was careful in the epilogue +to speak like Messalina. Did a king's mistress come to hunger and +repentance, she disinfected all the _petites maitresses_ in the house +of the moral, by assuring them that sin is a joke, repentance a greater, +and that she individually was ready for either if they would but cry, +laugh and pay. Then the audience used to laugh, and if they did not, +lo! the manager, actor and author of heroic tragedy were exceeding +sorrowful. + +While sitting attendance on the epilogue Mr. Vane had nothing to +distract him from the congregation but a sanguinary sermon in five +heads, so his eyes roved over the pews, and presently he became aware of +a familiar face watching him closely. The gentleman to whom it belonged +finding himself recognized left his seat, and a minute later Sir Charles +Pomander entered Mr. Vane's box. + +This Sir Charles Pomander was a gentleman of vice; pleasure he called +it. Mr. Vane had made his acquaintance two years ago in Shropshire. Sir +Charles, who husbanded everything except his soul, had turned himself +out to grass for a month. His object was, by roast mutton, bread with +some little flour in it, air, water, temperance, chastity and peace, to +be enabled to take a deeper plunge into impurities of food and morals. + +A few nights ago, unseen by Mr. Vane, he had observed him in the +theater; an ordinary man would have gone at once and shaken hands with +him, but this was not an ordinary man, this was a diplomatist. First +of all, he said to himself: "What is this man doing here?" Then he soon +discovered this man must be in love with some actress; then it became +his business to know who she was; this, too, soon betrayed itself. Then +it became more than ever Sir Charles's business to know whether Mrs. +Woffington returned the sentiment; and here his penetration was at +fault, for the moment; he determined, however, to discover. + +Mr. Vane then received his friend, all unsuspicious how that friend +had been skinning him with his eyes for some time past. After the usual +compliments had passed between two gentlemen who had been hand and glove +for a month and forgotten each other's existence for two years, Sir +Charles, still keeping in view his design, said: + +"Let us go upon the stage." The fourth act had just concluded. + +"Go upon the stage!" said Mr. Vane; "what, where she--I mean among the +actors?" + +"Yes; come into the green-room. There are one or two people of +reputation there; I will introduce you to them, if you please." + +"Go upon the stage!" why, if it had been proposed to him to go to heaven +he would not have been more astonished. He was too astonished at first +to realize the full beauty of the arrangement, by means of which he +might be within a yard of Mrs. Woffington, might feel her dress rustle +past him, might speak to her, might drink her voice fresh from her lips +almost before it mingled with meaner air. Silence gives consent, and Mr. +Vane, though he thought a great deal, said nothing; so Pomander rose, +and they left the boxes together. He led the way to the stage door, +which was opened obsequiously to him; they then passed through a dismal +passage, and suddenly emerged upon that scene of enchantment, the +stage--a dirty platform encumbered on all sides with piles of scenery in +flats. They threaded their way through rusty velvet actors and fustian +carpenters, and entered the green-room. At the door of this magic +chamber Vane trembled and half wished he could retire. They entered; his +apprehension gave way to disappointment, she was not there. Collecting +himself, he was presently introduced to a smart, jaunty, and, to do +him justice, _distingue_ old beau. This was Colley Cibber, Esq., poet +laureate, and retired actor and dramatist, a gentleman who is entitled +to a word or two. + +This Cibber was the only actor since Shakespeare's time who had both +acted and written well. Pope's personal resentment misleads the reader +of English poetry as to Cibber's real place among the wits of the day. + +The man's talent was dramatic, not didactic, or epic, or pastoral. Pope +was not so deep in the drama as in other matters, and Cibber was one of +its luminaries; he wrote some of the best comedies of his day. He also +succeeded where Dryden, for lack of true dramatic taste, failed. He +tampered successfully with Shakespeare. Colley Cibber's version of +"Richard the Third" is impudent and slightly larcenic, but it is +marvelously effective. It has stood a century, and probably will stand +forever; and the most admired passages in what literary humbugs who +pretend they know Shakespeare by the closet, not the stage, accept as +Shakespeare's "Richard," are Cibber's. + +Mr. Cibber was now in private life, a mild edition of his own +Lord Foppington; he had none of the snob-fop as represented on our +conventional stage; nobody ever had, and lived. He was in tolerably +good taste; but he went ever gold-laced, highly powdered, scented, and +diamonded, dispensing graceful bows, praises of whoever had the good +luck to be dead, and satire of all who were here to enjoy it. + +Mr. Vane, to whom the drama had now become the golden branch of letters, +looked with some awe on this veteran, for he had seen many Woffingtons. +He fell soon upon the subject nearest his heart. He asked Mr. Cibber +what he thought of Mrs. Woffington. The old gentleman thought well of +the young lady's talent, especially her comedy; in tragedy, said he, she +imitates Mademoiselle Dumenil, of the Theatre Francais, and confounds +the stage rhetorician with the actress. The next question was not so +fortunate. "Did you ever see so great and true an actress upon the +whole?" + +Mr. Cibber opened his eyes, a slight flush came into his wash-leather +face, and he replied: "I have not only seen many equal, many superior +to her, but I have seen some half dozen who would have eaten her up +and spit her out again, and not known they had done anything out of the +way." + +Here Pomander soothed the veteran's dudgeon by explaining in dulcet +tones that his friend was not long from Shropshire, and--The critic +interrupted him, and bade him not dilute the excuse. + +Now Mr. Vane had as much to say as either of them, but he had not the +habit, which dramatic folks have, of carrying his whole bank in his +cheek-pocket, so they quenched him for two minutes. + +But lovers are not silenced, he soon returned to the attack; he dwelt +on the grace, the ease, the freshness, the intelligence, the universal +beauty of Mrs. Woffington. Pomander sneered, to draw him out. Cibber +smiled, with good-natured superiority. This nettled the young gentleman, +he fired up, his handsome countenance glowed, he turned Demosthenes for +her he loved. One advantage he had over both Cibber and Pomander, a fair +stock of classical learning; on this he now drew. + +"Other actors and actresses," said he, "are monotonous in voice, +monotonous in action, but Mrs. Woffington's delivery has the compass and +variety of nature, and her movements are free from the stale uniformity +that distinguishes artifice from art. The others seem to me to have but +two dreams of grace, a sort of crawling on stilts is their motion, +and an angular stiffness their repose." He then cited the most famous +statues of antiquity, and quoted situations in plays where, by her +fine dramatic instinct, Mrs. Woffington, he said, threw her person into +postures similar to these, and of equal beauty; not that she strikes +attitudes like the rest, but she melts from one beautiful statue into +another; and, if sculptors could gather from her immortal graces, +painters, too, might take from her face the beauties that belong of +right to passion and thought, and orators might revive their withered +art, and learn from those golden lips the music of old Athens, that +quelled tempestuous mobs, and princes drunk with victory. + +Much as this was, he was going to say more, ever so much more, but he +became conscious of a singular sort of grin upon every face; this grin +made him turn rapidly round to look for its cause. It explained itself +at once; at his very elbow was a lady, whom his heart recognized, though +her back was turned to him. She was dressed in a rich silk gown, pearl +white, with flowers and sprigs embroidered; her beautiful white neck and +arms were bare. She was sweeping up the room with the epilogue in her +hand, learning it off by heart; at the other end of the room she turned, +and now she shone full upon him. + +It certainly was a dazzling creature. She had a head of beautiful form, +perched like a bird upon a throat massive yet shapely and smooth as a +column of alabaster, a symmetrical brow, black eyes full of fire and +tenderness, a delicious mouth, with a hundred varying expressions, and +that marvelous faculty of giving beauty alike to love or scorn, a +sneer or a smile. But she had one feature more remarkable than all, her +eyebrows--the actor's feature; they were jet black, strongly marked, +and in repose were arched like a rainbow; but it was their extraordinary +flexibility which made other faces upon the stage look sleepy beside +Margaret Woffington's. In person she was considerably above the middle +height, and so finely formed that one could not determine the exact +character of her figure. At one time it seemed all stateliness, at +another time elegance personified, and flowing voluptuousness at +another. She was Juno, Psyche, Hebe, by turns, and for aught we know at +will. + +It must be confessed that a sort of halo of personal grandeur surrounds +a great actress. A scene is set; half a dozen nobodies are there lost in +it, because they are and seem lumps of nothing. The great artist steps +upon that scene, and how she fills it in a moment! Mind and majesty wait +upon her in the air; her person is lost in the greatness of her personal +presence; she dilates with _thought,_ and a stupid giantess looks a +dwarf beside her. + +No wonder then that Mr. Vane felt overpowered by this torch in a closet. +To vary the metaphor, it seemed to him, as she swept up and down, as if +the green-room was a shell, and this glorious creature must burst it +and be free. Meantime, the others saw a pretty actress studying her +business; and Cibber saw a dramatic school-girl learning what he +presumed to be a very silly set of words. Sir C. Pomander's eye had +been on her the moment she entered, and he watched keenly the effect of +Vane's eloquent eulogy; but apparently the actress was too deep in her +epilogue for anything else. She came in, saying, "Mum, mum, mum," over +her task, and she went on doing so. The experienced Mr. Cibber, who had +divined Vane in an instant, drew him into a corner, and complimented him +on his well-timed eulogy. + +"You acted that mighty well, sir," said he. "Stop my vitals! if I did +not think you were in earnest, till I saw the jade had slipped in among +us. It told, sir--it told." + +Up fired Vane. "What do you mean, sir?" said he. "Do you suppose my +admiration of that lady is feigned?" + +"No need to speak so loud, sir," replied the old gentleman; "she hears +you. These hussies have ears like hawks." + +He then dispensed a private wink and a public bow; with which he +strolled away from Mr. Vane, and walked feebly and jauntily up the +room, whistling "Fair Hebe;" fixing his eye upon the past, and somewhat +ostentatiously overlooking the existence of the present company. + +There is no great harm in an old gentleman whistling, but there are two +ways of doing it; and as this old beau did it, it seemed not unlike a +small cock-a-doodle-doo of general defiance; and the denizens of the +green-room, swelled now to a considerable number by the addition of all +the ladies and gentlemen who had been killed in the fourth act, or whom +the buttery-fingered author could not keep in hand until the fall of +the curtain, felt it as such; and so they were not sorry when Mrs. +Woffington, looking up from her epilogue, cast a glance upon the old +beau, waited for him, and walked parallel with him on the other side +of the room, giving an absurdly exact imitation of his carriage and +deportment. To make this more striking, she pulled out of her pocket, +after a mock search, a huge paste ring, gazed on it with a ludicrous +affectation of simple wonder, stuck it, like Cibber's diamond, on her +little finger, and, pursing up her mouth, proceeded to whistle a quick +movement, + + "Which, by some devilish cantrip sleight," + +played round the old beau's slow movement, without being at variance +with it. As for the character of this ladylike performance, it was +clear, brilliant, and loud as blacksmith. + +The folk laughed; Vane was shocked. "She profanes herself by whistling," +thought he. Mr. Cibber was confounded. He appeared to have no idea +whence came this sparkling adagio. He looked round, placed his hands to +his ears, and left off whistling. So did his musical accomplice. + +"Gentlemen," said Cibber, with pathetic gravity, "the wind howls most +dismally this evening! I took it for a drunken shoemaker!" + +At this there was a roar of laughter, except from Mr. Vane. Peg +Woffington laughed as merrily as the others, and showed a set of +teeth that were really dazzling; but all in one moment, without the +preliminaries an ordinary countenance requires, this laughing Venus +pulled a face gloomy beyond conception. Down came her black brows +straight as a line, and she cast a look of bitter reproach on all +present; resuming her study, as who should say, "Are ye not ashamed to +divert a poor girl from her epilogue?" And then she went on, "Mum! mum! +mum!" casting off ever and anon resentful glances; and this made the +fools laugh again. + +The Laureate was now respectfully addressed by one of his admirers, +James Quin, the Falstaff of the day, and the rival at this time of +Garrick in tragic characters, though the general opinion was, that he +could not long maintain a standing against the younger genius and his +rising school of art. + +Off the stage, James Quin was a character; his eccentricities were +three--a humorist, a glutton and an honest man; traits that often caused +astonishment and ridicule, especially the last. + +"May we not hope for something from Mr. Cibber's pen after so long a +silence?" + +"No," was the considerate reply. "Who have ye got to play it?" + +"Plenty," said Quin; "there's your humble servant, there's--" + +"Humility at the head of the list," cried she of the epilogue. "Mum! +mum! mum!" + +Vane thought this so sharp. + +"Garrick, Barry, Macklin, Kitty Clive here at my side, Mrs. Cibber, +the best tragic actress I ever saw; and Woffington, who is as good a +comedian as you ever saw, sir;" and Quin turned as red as fire. + +"Keep your temper, Jemmy," said Mrs. Woffington with a severe accent. +"Mum! mum! mum!" + +"You misunderstand my question," replied Cibber, calmly; "I know your +_dramatis personae_ but where the devil are your actors?" + +Here was a blow. + +"The public," said Quin, in some agitation, "would snore if we acted as +they did in your time." + +"How do you know that, sir?" was the supercilious rejoinder; _"you never +tried!"_ + +Mr. Quin was silenced. Peg Woffington looked off her epilogue. + +"Bad as we are," said she coolly, "we might be worse." + +Mr. Cibber turned round, slightly raised his eyebrows. + +"Indeed!" said he. "Madam!" added he, with a courteous smile, "will you +be kind enough to explain to me how you could be worse!" + +"If, like a crab, we could go backward!" + +At this the auditors tittered; and Mr. Cibber had recourse to his +spy-glass. + +This gentleman was satirical or insolent, as the case might demand, +in three degrees, of which the snuff-box was the comparative, and +the spy-glass the superlative. He had learned this on the stage; in +annihilating Quin he had just used the snuff weapon, and now he drew his +spy-glass upon poor Peggy. + +"Whom have we here?" said he. Then he looked with his spy-glass to see. +"Oh, the little Irish orange-girl!" + +"Whose basket outweighed Colley Cibber's salary for the first twenty +years of his dramatic career," was the delicate reply to the above +delicate remark. It staggered him for a moment; however, he affected +a most puzzled air, then gradually allowed a light to steal into his +features. + +"Eh! ah! oh! how stupid I am; I understand; you sold something besides +oranges!" + +"Oh!" said Mr. Vane, and colored up to the temples, and cast a look on +Cibber, as much as to say, "If you were not seventy-three!" + +His ejaculation was something so different from any tone any other +person there present could have uttered that the actress's eye dwelt +on him for a single moment, and in that moment he felt himself looked +through and through. + +"I sold the young fops a bargain, you mean," was her calm reply; "and +now I am come down to the old ones. A truce, Mr. Cibber, what do you +understand by an actor? Tell me; for I am foolish enough to respect your +opinion on these matters!" + +"An actor, young lady," said he, gravely, "is an artist who has gone +deep enough in his art to make dunces, critics and greenhorns take it +for nature; moreover, he really personates; which your mere _man of the +stage_ never does. He has learned the true art of self-multiplication. +He drops Betterton, Booth, Wilkes, or, ahem--" + +"Cibber," inserted Sir Charles Pomander. Cibber bowed. + +"In his dressing-room, and comes out young or old, a fop, a valet, a +lover, or a hero, with voice, mien, and every gesture to match. A grain +less than this may be good speaking, fine preaching, deep grunting, high +ranting, eloquent reciting; but I'll be hanged if it is acting!" + +"Then Colley Cibber never acted," whispered Quin to Mrs. Clive. + +"Then Margaret Woffington is an actress," said M. W.; "the fine ladies +take my Lady Betty for their sister. In Mrs. Day, I pass for a woman of +seventy; and in Sir Harry Wildair I have been taken for a man. I would +have told you that before, but I didn't know it was to my credit," said +she, slyly, "till Mr. Cibber laid down the law." + +"Proof!" said Cibber. + +"A warm letter from one lady, diamond buckles from another, and an offer +of her hand and fortune from a third; _rien que cela."_ + +Mr. Cibber conveyed behind her back a look of absolute incredulity; she +divined it. + +"I will not show you the letters," continued she, "because Sir Harry, +though a rake, was a gentleman; but here are the buckles;" and she +fished them out of her pocket, capacious of such things. The buckles +were gravely inspected, they made more than one eye water, they were +undeniable. + +"Well, let us see what we can do for her," said the Laureate. He tapped +his box and without a moment's hesitation produced the most execrable +distich in the language: + + "Now who is like Peggy, with talent at will, + A maid loved her Harry, for want of a Bill? + +"Well, child," continued he, after the applause which follows +extemporary verses had subsided, "take _me_ in. Play something to make +me lose sight of saucy Peg Woffington, and I'll give the world five acts +more before the curtain falls on Colley Cibber." + +"If you could be deceived," put in Mr. Vane, somewhat timidly; "I +think there is no disguise through which grace and beauty such as Mrs. +Woffington's would not shine, to my eyes." + +"That is to praise my person at the expense of my wit, sir, is it not?" +was her reply. + +This was the first word she had ever addressed to him. The tones +appeared so sweet to him that he could not find anything to reply for +listening to them; and Cibber resumed: + +"Meantime, I will show you a real actress; she is coming here to-night +to meet me. Did ever you children hear of Ann Bracegirdle?" + +"Bracegirdle!" said Mrs. Clive; "why, she has been dead this thirty +years; at least I thought so." + +"Dead to the stage. There is more heat in her ashes than in your fire, +Kate Clive! Ah! here comes her messenger," continued he, as an ancient +man appeared with a letter in his hand. This letter Mrs. Woffington +snatched and read, and at the same instant in bounced the call-boy. +"Epilogue called," said this urchin, in the tone of command which these +small fry of Parnassus adopt; and, obedient to his high behest, Mrs. +Woffington moved to the door, with the Bracegirdle missive in her +hand, but not before she had delivered its general contents: "The great +actress will be here in a few minutes," said she, and she glided swiftly +out of the room. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +PEOPLE whose mind or manners possess any feature, and are not as devoid +of all eccentricity as half pounds of butter bought of metropolitan +grocers, are recommended not to leave a roomful of their acquaintances +until the last but one. Yes, they should always be penultimate. Perhaps +Mrs. Woffington knew this; but epilogues are stubborn things, and +call-boys undeniable. + +"Did you ever hear a woman whistle before?" + +"Never; but I saw one sit astride on an ass in Germany!" + +"The saddle was not on her husband, I hope, madam?" + +"No, sir; the husband walked by his kinsfolk's side, and made the best +of a bad bargain, as Peggy's husband will have to." + +"Wait till some one ventures on the gay Lotharia--_illi aes triplex;_ +that means he must have triple brass, Kitty." + +"I deny that, sir; since his wife will always have enough for both." + +"I have not observed the lady's brass," said Vane, trembling with +passion; "but I observed her talent, and I noticed that whoever attacks +her to her face comes badly off." + +"Well said, sir," answered Quin; "and I wish Kitty here would tell us +why she hates Mrs. Woffington, the best-natured woman in the theater?" + +"I don't hate her, I don't trouble my head about her." + +"Yes, you hate her; for you never miss a cut at her!" + +"Do you hate a haunch of venison, Quin?" said the lady. + +"No, you little unnatural monster," replied Quin. + +"For all that, you never miss a cut at one, so hold your tongue!" + +"Le beau raisonnement!" said Mr. Cibber. "James Quin, don't interfere +with nature's laws; let our ladies hate one another, it eases their +minds; try to make them Christians, and you will not convert their +tempers, but spoil your own. Peggy there hates George Anne Bellamy, +because she has gaudy silk dresses from Paris, by paying for them, as +_she_ could, if not too stingy. Kitty here hates Peggy because Rich has +breeched her, whereas Kitty, who now sets up for a prude, wanted to put +delicacy off and small-clothes on in Peg's stead, that is where the Kate +and Peg shoe pinches, near the femoral artery, James. + +"Shrimps have the souls of shrimps," resumed this _censor castigatorque +minorum._ "Listen to me, and learn that really great actors are great in +soul, and do not blubber like a great school-girl because Anne Bellamy +has two yellow silk dresses from Paris, as I saw Woffington blubber +in this room, and would not be comforted; nor fume like Kitty Clive, +because Woffington has a pair of breeches and a little boy's rapier to +go a playing at acting with. When I was young, two giantesses fought +for empire upon this very stage, where now dwarfs crack and bounce like +parched peas. They played Roxana and Statira in the 'Rival Queens.' +Rival queens of art themselves, they put out all their strength. In the +middle of the last act the town gave judgment in favor of Statira. What +did Roxana? Did she spill grease on Statira's robe, as Peg Woffington +would? or stab her, as I believe Kitty here capable of doing? No! +Statira was never so tenderly killed as that night; she owned this to +me. Roxana bade the theater farewell that night, and wrote to Statira +thus: I give you word for word: 'Madam, the best judge we have has +decided in your favor. I shall never play second on a stage where I have +been first so long, but I shall often be a spectator, and methinks none +will appreciate your talent more than I, who have felt its weight. My +wardrobe, one of the best in Europe, is of no use to me; if you will +honor me by selecting a few of my dresses, you will gratify me, and +I shall fancy I see myself upon the stage to greater advantage than +before.'" + +"And what did Statira answer, sir?" said Mr. Vane, eagerly. + +"She answered thus: 'Madam, the town has often been wrong, and may have +been so last night, in supposing that I vied successfully with your +merit; but this much is certain--and here, madam, I am the best +judge--that off the stage you have just conquered me. I shall wear +with pride any dress you have honored, and shall feel inspired to great +exertions by your presence among our spectators, unless, indeed, the +sense of your magnanimity and the recollection of your talent should +damp me by the dread of losing any portion of your good opinion.'" + +"What a couple of stiff old things," said Mrs. Clive. + +"Nay, madam, say not so," cried Vane, warmly; "surely, this was the +lofty courtesy of two great minds not to be overbalanced by strife, +defeat, or victory." + +"What were their names, sir?" + +"Statira was the great Mrs. Oldfield. Roxana you will see here +to-night." + +This caused a sensation. + +Colley's reminiscences were interrupted by loud applause from the +theater; the present seldom gives the past a long hearing. + +The old war-horse cocked his ears. + +"It is Woffington speaking the epilogue," said Quin. + +"Oh, she has got the length of their foot, somehow," said a small +actress. + +"And the breadth of their hands, too," said Pomander, waking from a nap. + +"It is the depth of their hearts she has sounded," said Vane. + +In those days, if a metaphor started up, the poor thing was coursed up +hill and down dale, and torn limb from jacket; even in Parliament, a +trope was sometimes hunted from one session into another. + +"You were asking me about Mrs. Oldfield, sir," resumed Cibber, rather +peevishly. "I will own to you, I lack words to convey a just idea of +her double and complete supremacy. But the comedians of this day are +weak-strained _farceurs_ compared with her, and her tragic tone was +thunder set to music. + +"I saw a brigadier-general cry like a child at her Indiana; I have seen +her crying with pain herself at the wing (for she was always a great +sufferer), I have seen her then spring upon the stage as Lady Townley, +and in a moment sorrow brightened into joy: the air seemed to fill with +singing-birds, that chirped the pleasures of fashion, love and youth +in notes sparkling like diamonds and stars and prisms. She was above +criticism, out of its scope, as is the blue sky; men went not to judge +her, they drank her, and gazed at her, and were warmed at her, and +refreshed by her. The fops were awed into silence, and with their +humbler betters thanked Heaven for her, if they thanked it for anything. + +"In all the crowded theater, care and pain and poverty were banished +from the memory, while Oldfield's face spoke, and her tongue flashed +melodies; the lawyer forgot his quillets; the polemic, the mote in his +brother's eye; the old maid, her grudge against the two sexes; the old +man, his gray hairs and his lost hours. And can it be, that all this +which should have been immortal, is quite--quite lost, is as though it +had never been?" he sighed. "Can it be that its fame is now sustained by +me; who twang with my poor lute, cracked and old, these feeble praises +of a broken lyre: + + + 'Whose wires were golden and its heavenly air + More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear, + When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.'" + +He paused, and his eye looked back over many years. Then, with a very +different tone, he added: + +"And that Jack Falstaff there must have seen her, now I think on't." + +"Only once, sir," said Quin, "and I was but ten years old." + +"He saw her once, and he was ten years old; yet he calls Woffington +a great comedian, and my son The's wife, with her hatchet face, the +greatest tragedian he ever saw! Jemmy, what an ass you must be!" + +"Mrs. Cibber always makes me cry, and t'other always makes me laugh," +said Quin, stoutly, "that's why." + +_Ce beau raisonnement_ met no answer, but a look of sovereign contempt. + +A very trifling incident saved the ladies of the British stage from +further criticism. There were two candles in this room, one on each +side; the call-boy had entered, and, poking about for something, knocked +down and broke one of these. + +"Awkward imp!" cried a velvet page. + +"I'll go _to the Treasury_ for another, ma'am," said the boy pertly, and +vanished with the fractured wax. + +I take advantage of the interruption to open Mr. Vane's mind to the +reader. First he had been astonished at the freedom of sarcasm these +people indulged in without quarreling; next at the non-respect of sex. + +"So sex is not recognized in this community," thought he. Then the +glibness and merit of some of their answers surprised and amused him. +He, like me, had seldom met an imaginative repartee, except in a play or +a book. "Society's" repartees were then, as they are now, the good +old tree in various dresses and veils: _Tu quoque, tu mentiris, vos +damnemini;_ but he was sick and dispirited on the whole; such very +bright illusions had been dimmed in these few minutes. + +She was brilliant; but her manners, if not masculine, were very daring; +and yet when she spoke to him, a stranger, how sweet and gentle her +voice was! Then it was clear nothing but his ignorance could have placed +her at the summit of her art. + +Still he clung to his enthusiasm for her. He drew Pomander aside. "What +a simplicity there is in Mrs. Woffington!" said he; "the rest, male and +female, are all so affected; she is so fresh and natural. They are all +hot-house plants; she is a cowslip with the May dew on it." + +"What you take for simplicity is her refined art," replied Sir Charles. + +"No!" said Vane, "I never saw a more innocent creature!" + +Pomander laughed in his face; this laugh disconcerted him more than +words; he spoke no more--he sat pensive. He was sorry he had come to +this place, where everybody knew his goddess; yet nobody admired, nobody +loved, and, alas! nobody respected her. + +He was roused from his reverie by a noise; the noise was caused by +Cibber falling on Garrick, whom Pomander had maliciously quoted against +all the tragedians of Colley Cibber's day. + +"I tell you," cried the veteran, "that this Garrick has banished dignity +from the stage and given us in exchange what you and he take for fire; +but it is smoke and vapor. His manner is little, like his person, it is +all fuss and bustle. This is his idea of a tragic scene: A little fellow +comes bustling in, goes bustling about, and runs bustling out." Here +Mr. Cibber left the room, to give greater effect to his description, but +presently returned in a mighty pother, saying: "'Give me another horse!' +Well, where's the horse? don't you see I'm waiting for him? 'Bind up my +wounds!' Look sharp now with these wounds. 'Have mercy, Heaven!' but +be quick about it, for the pit can't wait for Heaven. Bustle! bustle! +bustle!" + +The old dog was so irresistibly funny that the whole company were +obliged to laugh; but in the midst of their merriment Mrs. Woffington's +voice was heard at the door. + +"This way, madam." + +A clear and somewhat shrill voice replied: "I know the way better than +you, child;" and a stately old lady appeared on the threshold. + +"Bracegirdle," said Mr. Cibber. + +It may well be supposed that every eye was turned on this newcomer--that +Roxana for whom Mr. Cibber's story had prepared a peculiar interest. +She was dressed in a rich green velvet gown with gold fringe. Cibber +remembered it; she had played the "Eastern Queen" in it. Heaven forgive +all concerned! It was fearfully pinched in at the waist and ribs, so as +to give the idea of wood inside, not woman. + +Her hair and eyebrows were iron-gray, and she had lost a front tooth, or +she would still have been eminently handsome. She was tall and straight +as a dart, and her noble port betrayed none of the weakness of age, only +it was to be seen that her hands were a little weak, and the gold-headed +crutch struck the ground rather sharply, as if it did a little +limbs'-duty. + +Such was the lady who marched into the middle of the room, with a "How +do, Colley?" and, looking over the company's heads as if she did not see +them, regarded the four walls with some interest. Like a cat, she seemed +to think more of places than of folk. The page obsequiously offered her +a chair. + +"Not so clean as it used to be," said Mrs. Bracegirdle. + +Unfortunately, in making this remark, the old lady graciously patted the +page's head for offering her the chair; and this action gave, with some +of the ill-constituted minds that are ever on the titter, a ridiculous +direction to a remark intended, I believe, for the paint and wanscots, +etc. + +"Nothing is as it used to be," remarked Mr. Cibber. + +"All the better for everything," said Mrs. Clive. + +"We were laughing at this mighty little David, first actor of this +mighty little age." + +Now if Mr. Cibber thought to find in the newcomer an ally of the past +in its indiscriminate attack upon the present, he was much mistaken; for +the old actress made onslaught on this nonsense at once. + +"Ay, ay," said she, "and not the first time by many hundreds. 'Tis +a disease you have. Cure yourself, Colley. Davy Garrick pleases the +public; and in trifles like acting, that take nobody to heaven, to +please all the world, is to be great. Some pretend to higher aims, but +none have 'em. You may hide this from young fools, mayhap, but not from +an old 'oman like me. He! he! he! No, no, no--not from an old 'oman like +me." + +She then turned round in her chair, and with that sudden, unaccountable +snappishness of tone to which the brisk old are subject, she snarled: +"Gie me a pinch of snuff, some of ye, do!" + +Tobacco dust was instantly at her disposal. She took it with the +points of her fingers delicately, and divested the crime of half its +uncleanness and vulgarity--more an angel couldn't. + +"Monstrous sensible woman, though!" whispered Quin to Clive. + +"Hey, sir! what do you say, sir? for I'm a little deaf." (Not very to +praise, it seems.) + +"That your judgment, madam, is equal to the reputation of your talent." + +The words were hardly spoken before the old lady rose upright as a +tower. She then made an oblique preliminary sweep, and came down with +such a courtesy as the young had never seen. + +James Quin, not to disgrace his generation, attempted a corresponding +bow, for which his figure and apoplectic tendency rendered him unfit; +and while he was transacting it, the graceful Cibber stepped gravely +up, and looked down and up the process with his glass, like a naturalist +inspecting some strange capriccio of an orang-outang. The gymnastics of +courtesy ended without back-falls--Cibber lowered his tone. + +"You are right, Bracy. It is nonsense denying the young fellow's talent; +but his Othello, now, Bracy! be just--his Othello!" + +"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" cried she; "I thought it was Desdemona's little +black boy come in without the tea-kettle." + +Quin laughed uproariously. + +"It made me laugh a deal more than Mr. Quin's Falstaff. Oh, dear! oh, +dear!" + +"Falstaff, indeed! Snuff!" In the tone of a trumpet. + +Quin secretly revoked his good opinion of this woman's sense. + +"Madam," said the page, timidly, "if you would but favor us with a +specimen of the old style--" + +"Well, child, why not? Only what makes you mumble like that? but they +all do it now, I see. Bless my soul! our words used to come out like +brandy-cherries; but now a sentence is like raspberry-jam, on the stage +and off." + +Cibber chuckled. + +"And why don't you men carry yourself like Cibber here?" + +"Don't press that question," said Colley dryly. + +"A monstrous poor actor, though," said the merciless old woman, in a +mock aside to the others; "only twenty shillings a week for half his +life;" and her shoulders went up to her ears--then she fell into a half +reverie. "Yes, we were distinct," said she; "but I must own, children, +we were slow. Once, in the midst of a beautiful tirade, my lover went to +sleep, and fell against me. A mighty pretty epigram, twenty lines, was +writ on't by one of my gallants. Have ye as many of them as we used?" + +"In that respect," said the page, "we are not behind our +great-grandmothers." + +"I call that pert," said Mrs. Bracegirdle, with the air of one drawing +scientific distinctions. "Now, is that a boy or a lady that spoke to me +last?" + +"By its dress, I should say a boy," said Cibber, with his glass; "by its +assurance, a lady!" + +"There's one clever woman among ye; Peg something, plays Lothario, Lady +Betty Modish, and what not?" + +"What! admire Woffington?" screamed Mrs. Clive; "why, she is the +greatest gabbler on the stage." + +"I don't care," was the reply, "there's nature about the jade. Don't +contradict me," added she, with sudden fury; "a parcel of children." + +"No, madam," said Clive humbly. "Mr. Cibber, will you try and prevail on +Mrs. Bracegirdle to favor us with a recitation?" + +Cibber handed his cane with pomp to a small actor. Bracegirdle did the +same; and, striking the attitudes that had passed for heroic in their +day, they declaimed out of the "Rival Queens" two or three tirades, +which I graciously spare the reader of this tale. Their elocution was +neat and silvery; but not one bit like the way people speak in streets, +palaces, fields, roads and rooms. They had not made the grand discovery, +which Mr. A. Wigan on the stage, and every man of sense off it, has made +in our day and nation; namely, that the stage is a representation, +not of stage, but of life; and that an actor ought to speak and act in +imitation of human beings, not of speaking machines that have run and +creaked in a stage groove, with their eyes shut upon the world at large, +upon nature, upon truth, upon man, upon woman and upon child. + +"This is slow," cried Cibber; "let us show these young people how ladies +and gentlemen moved fifty years ago, _dansons."_ + +A fiddler was caught, a beautiful slow minuet played, and a bit of +"solemn dancing" done. Certainly it was not gay, but it must be owned +it was beautiful; it was the dance of kings, the poetry of the courtly +saloon. + +The retired actress, however, had frisker notions left in her. "This is +slow," cried she, and bade the fiddler play, "The wind that shakes the +barley," an ancient jig tune; this she danced to in a style that utterly +astounded the spectators. + +She showed them what fun was; her feet and her stick were all echoes to +the mad strain; out went her heel behind, and, returning, drove her four +yards forward. She made unaccountable slants, and cut them all over in +turn if they did not jump for it. Roars of inextinguishable laughter +arose, it would have made an oyster merry. Suddenly she stopped, and put +her hands to her sides, and soon after she gave a vehement cry of pain. + +The laughter ceased. + +She gave another cry of such agony that they were all round her in a +moment. + +"Oh, help me, ladies," screamed the poor woman, in tones as feminine as +they were heart-rending and piteous. "Oh, my back! my loins! I suffer, +gentlemen," said the poor thing, faintly. + +What was to be done? Mr. Vane offered his penknife to cut her laces. + +"You shall cut my head off sooner," cried she, with sudden energy. +"Don't pity me," said she, sadly, "I don't deserve it;" then, lifting +her eyes, she exclaimed, with a sad air of self-reproach: "O vanity! do +you never leave a woman?" + +"Nay, madam!" whimpered the page, who was a good-hearted girl; "'twas +your great complaisance for us, not vanity. Oh! oh! oh!" and she began +to blubber, to make matters better. + +"No, my children," said the old lady, "'twas vanity. I wanted to show +you what an old 'oman could do; and I have humiliated myself, trying +to outshine younger folk. I am justly humiliated, as you see;" and she +began to cry a little. + +"This is very painful," said Cibber. + +Mrs. Bracegirdle now raised her eyes (they had set her in a chair), and +looking sweetly, tenderly and earnestly on her old companion, she said +to him, slowly, gently, but impressively "Colley, at threescore years +and ten this was ill done of us! You and I are here now--for what? to +cheer the young up the hill we mounted years ago. And, old friend, if we +detract from them we discourage them. A great sin in the old!" + +"Every dog his day." + +"We have had ours." Here she smiled, then, laying her hand tenderly +in the old man's, she added, with calm solemnity: "And now we must go +quietly toward our rest, and strut and fret no more the few last minutes +of life's fleeting hour." + +How tame my cacotype of these words compared with what they were. I +am ashamed of them and myself, and the human craft of writing, which, +though commoner far, is so miserably behind the godlike art of speech: +_"Si ipsam audivisses!"_ + +These ink scratches, which, in the imperfection of language, we have +called words, till the unthinking actually dream they are words, but +which are the shadows of the corpses of words; these word-shadows then +were living powers on her lips, and subdued, as eloquence always does, +every heart within reach of the imperial tongue. + +The young loved her, and the old man, softened and vanquished, and +mindful of his failing life, was silent, and pressed his handkerchief to +his eyes a moment; then he said: + +"No, Bracy, no. Be composed, I pray you. She is right. Young people, +forgive me that I love the dead too well, and the days when I was what +you are now. Drat the woman," continued he, half ashamed of his emotion; +"she makes us laugh, and makes us cry, just as she used." + +"What does he say, young woman?" said the old lady, dryly, to Mrs. +Clive. + +"He says you make us laugh, and make us cry, madam; and so you do me, +I'm sure." + +"And that's Peg Woffington's notion of an actress! Better it, Cibber and +Bracegirdle, if you can," said the other, rising up like lightning. + +She then threw Colley Cibber a note, and walked coolly and rapidly out +of the room, without looking once behind her. + +The rest stood transfixed, looking at one another, and at the empty +chair. Then Cibber opened and read the note aloud. It was from Mrs. +Bracegirdle: "Playing at tric-trac; so can't play the fool in your +green-room to-night. B." + +On this, a musical ringing laugh was heard from outside the door, where +the pseudo Bracegirdle was washing the gray from her hair, and the +wrinkles from her face--ah! I wish I could do it as easily!--and the +little bit of sticking-plaster from her front tooth. + +"Why, it is the Irish jade!" roared Cibber. + +"Divil a less!" rang back a rich brogue; "and it's not the furst time we +put the comether upon ye, England, my jewal!" + +One more mutual glance, and then the mortal cleverness of all this began +to dawn on their minds; and they broke forth into clapping of hands, and +gave this accomplished _mime_ three rounds of applause; Mr. Vane and Sir +Charles Pomander leading with, "Bravo, Woffington!" + +Its effect on Mr. Vane may be imagined. Who but she could have done +this? This was as if a painter should so paint a man as to deceive his +species. This was acting, but not like the acting of the stage. He +was in transports, and self-satisfaction at his own judgment mingled +pleasantly with his admiration. + +In this cheerful exhibition, one joined not--Mr. Cibber. His theories +had received a shock (and we all love our theories). He himself had +received a rap--and we don't hate ourselves. + +Great is the syllogism! But there is a class of arguments less +vulnerable. + +If A says to B, "You can't hit me, as I prove by this syllogism" (here +followeth the syllogism), "and B, _pour toute reponse,_ knocks A down +such a whack that he rebounds into a sitting posture; and to him the +man, the tree, the lamp-post and the fire-escape become not clearly +distinguishable; this barbarous logic prevails against the logic in +Barbara, and the syllogism is in the predicament of Humpty Dumpty. In +this predicament was the Poet Laureate. The miscreant Proteus (could +not) escape these chains!" So the miscreant Proteus--no bad name for an +old actor--took his little cocked hat and marched, a smaller, if not a +wiser man. Some disjointed words fell from him: "Mimicry is not +acting," etc.; and with one bitter, mowing glance at the applauders, +_circumferens acriter oculos,_ he vanished in the largest pinch of snuff +on record. The rest dispersed more slowly. + +Mr. Vane waited eagerly, and watched the door for Mrs. Woffington; but +she did not come. He then made acquaintance with good-natured Mr. Quin, +who took him upon the stage and showed him by what vulgar appliances +that majestic rise of the curtain he so admired was effected. Returning +to the green-room for his friend, he found him in animated conversation +with Mrs. Woffington. This made Vane uneasy. + +Sir Charles, up to the present moment of the evening, had been +unwontedly silent, and now he was talking nineteen to the dozen, and +Mrs. Woffington was listening with an appearance of interest that sent a +pang to poor Vane's heart; he begged Mr. Quin to introduce him. + +Mr. Quin introduced him. + +The lady received his advances with polite composure. Mr. Vane stammered +his admiration of her Bracegirdle; but all he could find words to say +was mere general praise, and somewhat coldly received. Sir Charles, +on the contrary, spoke more like a critic. "Had you given us the stage +cackle, or any of those traditionary symptoms of old age, we should have +instantly detected you," said he; "but this was art copying nature, +and it may be years before such a triumph of illusion is again effected +under so many adverse circumstances." + +"You are very good, Sir Charles," was the reply. "You flatter me. It was +one of those things which look greater than they are. Nobody here knew +Bracegirdle but Mr. Cibber; Mr. Cibber cannot see well without his +glasses, and I got rid of one of the candles; I sent one of the imps of +the theater to knock it down. I know Mrs. Bracegirdle by heart. I drink +tea with her every Sunday. I had her dress on, and I gave the old boy +her words and her way of thinking; it was mere mimicry; it was nothing +compared with what I once did; but, a-hem!" + +"Pray tell us!" + +"I am afraid I shall shock your friend. I see he is not a wicked man +like you, and perhaps does not know what good-for-nothing creatures +actresses are." + +"He is not so ignorant as he looks," replied Sir Charles. + +"That is not quite the answer I expected, Sir Charles," replied this +lively lady; "but it serves me right for fishing on dry land. Well, +then, you must know a young gentleman courted me. I forget whether I +liked him or not; but you will fancy I hated him, for I promised to +marry him. You must understand, gentlemen, that I was sent into the +world, not to act, which I abominate, but to chronicle small beer and +teach an army of little brats their letters; so this word 'wife,' and +that word 'chimney-corner,' took possession of my mind, and a vision of +darning stockings for a large party, all my own, filled my heart, and +really I felt quite grateful to the little brute that was to give me all +this, and he would have had such a wife as men never do have, still less +deserve. But one fine day that the theater left me time to examine his +manner toward me, I instantly discovered he was deceiving me. So I had +him watched, and the little brute was going to marry another woman, and +break it to me by degrees afterward, etc. You know, Sir Charles? Ah! I +see you do. + +"I found her out; got an introduction to her father; went down to his +house three days before the marriage, with a little coalblack mustache, +regimentals, and what not; made up, in short, with the art of my sex, +gentlemen--and the impudence of yours. + +"The first day I flirted and danced with the bride. The second I +made love to her, and at night I let her know that her intended was a +villain. I showed her letters of his; protestations, oaths of eternal +fidelity to one Peg Woffington, 'who will die,' drawled I,' if he +betrays her.' + +"And here, gentlemen, mark the justice of Heaven. I received a +backhanded slap: 'Peg Woffington! an actress! Oh, the villain!' cried +she; 'let him marry the little vagabond. How dare he insult me with his +hand that had been offered in such a quarter?' + +"So, in a fit of virtuous indignation, the little hypocrite dismissed +the little brute; in other words, she had fallen in love with me. + +"I have not had many happy hours, but I remember it was delicious to +look out of my window, and at the same moment smell the honeysuckles and +see my _perfide_ dismissed under a heap of scorn and a pile of luggage +he had brought down for his wedding tour. + +"I scampered up to London, laughing all the way; and when I got home, if +I remember right, I cried for two hours. How do you account for that?" + +"I hope, madam," said Vane, gravely, "it was remorse for having trifled +with that poor young lady's heart; she had never injured you." + +"But, sir, the husband I robbed her of was a brute and a villain in his +little way, and wicked and good-for-nothing, etc. He would have deceived +that poor little hypocrite, as he had this one," pointing to herself. + +"That is not what I mean; you inspired her with an attachment, never to +be forgotten. Poor lady, how many sleepless nights has she passed since +then, how many times has she strained her eyes to see her angel lover +returning to her! She will not forget in two years the love it cost you +but two days to inspire. The powerful should be merciful. Ah! I fear you +have no heart." + +These words had no sooner burst from Mr. Vane, than he was conscious of +the strange liberty he had taken, and, indeed, the bad taste he had been +guilty of; and this feeling was not lessened when he saw Mrs. Woffington +color up to the temples. Her eyes, too, glittered like basilisks; but +she said nothing, which was remarkable in her, whose tongue was the +sword of a _maitre d'armes._ + +Sir Charles eyed his friend in a sly, satirical manner; he then said, +laughingly: "In two months _she married a third!_ don't waste your +sympathy," and turned the talk into another channel; and soon after, +Mrs. Woffington's maid appearing at the door, she courtesied to both +gentlemen and left the theater. Sir Charles Pomander accompanied Mr. +Vane a little way. + +"What becomes of her innocence?" was his first word. + +"One loses sight of it in her immense talent," said the lover. + +"She certainly is clever in all that bears upon her business," was the +reply; "but I noticed you were a little shocked with her indelicacy in +telling us that story, and still more in having it to tell." + +"Indelicacy? No!" said Vane; "the little brute deserved it. Good +Heavens! to think that 'a little brute' might have married that angel, +and actually broke faith to lose her; it is incredible, the crime is +diluted by the absurdity." + +"Have you heard him tell the story? No? Then take my word for it, you +have not heard the facts of the case." + +"Ah! you are prejudiced against her?" + +"On the contrary, I like her. But I know that with all women the present +lover is an angel and the past a demon, and so on in turn. And I know +that if Satan were to enter the women of the stage, with the wild idea +of impairing their veracity, he would come out of their minds a greater +liar than he went in, and the innocent darlings would never know their +spiritual father had been at them." + +Doubtful whether this sentiment and period could be improved, Sir +Charles parted with his friend, leaving his sting in him like a friend; +the other's reflections as he sauntered home were not strictly those of +a wise, well-balanced mind; they ran in this style: + +"When she said, 'Is not that to praise my person at the expense of my +wit?' I ought to have said, 'Nay, madam; could your wit disguise your +person, it would betray itself, so you would still shine confessed;' and +instead of that I said nothing!" + +He then ran over in his mind all the opportunities he had had +for putting in something smart, and bitterly regretted those lost +opportunities; and made the smart things, and beat the air with them. +Then his cheeks tingled when he remembered that he had almost scolded +her; and he concocted a very different speech, and straightway repeated +it in imagination. + +This is lovers' pastime; I own it funny; but it is open to one +objection, this single practice of sitting upon eggs no longer +chickenable, carried to a habit, is capable of turning a solid intellect +into a liquid one, and ruining a mind's career. + +We leave Mr. Vane, therefore, with a hope that he will not do it every +night; and we follow his friend to the close of our chapter. + +Hey for a definition! + +What is diplomacy? Is it folly in a coat that looks like sagacity? Had +Sir Charles Pomander, instead of watching Mr. Vane and Mrs. Woffington, +asked the former whether he admired the latter, and whether the latter +responded, straightforward Vane would have told him the whole truth in a +minute. Diplomacy therefore was, as it often is, a waste of time. + +But diplomacy did more in this case, it _sapienter descendebat in +fossam;_ it fell on its nose with gymnastic dexterity, as it generally +does, upon my word. + +To watch Mrs. Woffington's face _vis-a-vis_ Mr. Vane, Pomander +introduced Vane to the green-room of the Theater Royal, Covent Garden. +By this Pomander learned nothing, because Mrs. Woffington had, with a +wonderful appearance of openness, the closest face in Europe when she +chose. + +On the other hand, by introducing this country gentleman to this +green-room, he gave a mighty impulse and opportunity to Vane's love; +an opportunity which he forgot the timid, inexperienced Damon might +otherwise never have found. + +Here diplomacy was not policy, for, as my sagacious reader has perhaps +divined, Sir Charles Pomander _was after her himself._ + + + +CHAPTER III. + +YES, Sir Charles was _after_ Mrs. Woffington. I use that phrase because +it is a fine generic one, suitable to different kinds of love-making. + +Mr. Vane's sentiments were an inexplicable compound; but respect, +enthusiasm, and deep admiration were the uppermost. + +The good Sir Charles was no enigma. He had a vacancy in his +establishment--a very high situation, too, for those who like that sort +of thing--the head of his table, his left hand when he drove in the +Park, etc. To this he proposed to promote Mrs. Woffington. She was +handsome and witty, and he liked her. But that was not what caused him +to pursue her; slow, sagacious, inevitable as a beagle. + +She was celebrated, and would confer great _eclat_ on him. The scandal +of possessing her was a burning temptation. Women admire celebrity in a +man; but men adore it in a woman. + +"The world," says Philip, "is a famous man; What will not women love so +taught?" + +I will try to answer this question. + +The women will more readily forgive disgusting physical deformity for +Fame's sake than we. They would embrace with more rapture a famous +orang-outang than we an illustrious chimpanzee; but when it comes to +moral deformity the tables are turned. + +Had the queen pardoned Mr. Greenacre and Mrs. Manning, would the great +rush have been on the hero, or the heroine? Why, on Mrs. Macbeth! To her +would the blackguards have brought honorable proposals, and the gentry +liberal ones. + +Greenacre would have found more female admirers than I ever shall; but +the grand stream of sexual admiration would have set Mariaward. This +fact is as dark as night; but it is as sure as the sun. + +The next day "the friends" (most laughable of human substantives!) met +in the theater, and again visited the green-room; and this time Vane +determined to do himself more justice. He was again disappointed; the +actress's manner was ceremoniously polite. She was almost constantly on +the stage, and in a hurry when off it; and, when there was a word to be +got with her the ready, glib Sir Charles was sure to get it. Vane could +not help thinking it hard that a man who professed no respect for her +should thus keep the light from him; and he could hardly conceal his +satisfaction when Pomander, at night, bade him farewell for a fortnight. +Pressing business took Sir Charles into the country. + +The good Sir Charles, however, could not go without leaving his sting +behind as a companion to his friend. He called on Mr. Vane and after a +short preface, containing the words "our friendship," "old kindness," +"my greater experience," he gravely warned him against Mrs. Woffington. + +"Not that I would say this if you could take her for what she is, and +amuse yourself with her as she will with you, if she thinks it worth her +while. But I see you have a heart, and she will make a football of it, +and torment you beyond all you have ever conceived of human anguish." + +Mr. Vane colored high, and was about to interrupt the speaker; but he +continued: + +"There, I am in a hurry. But ask Quin, or anybody who knows her history, +you will find she has had scores of lovers, and no one remains her +friend after they part." + +"Men are such villains!" + +"Very likely," was the reply; "but twenty men don't ill-use one good +woman; those are not the proportions. Adieu!" + +This last hit frightened Mr. Vane, he began to look into himself; he +could not but feel that he was a mere child in this woman's hands; and, +more than that, his conscience told him that if his heart should be made +a football of it would be only a just and probable punishment. For there +were particular reasons why he, of all men, had no business to look +twice at any woman whose name was Woffington. + +That night he avoided the green-room, though he could not forego the +play; but the next night he determined to stay at home altogether. +Accordingly, at five o'clock, the astounded box-keeper wore a visage of +dismay--there was no shilling for him! and Mr. Vane's nightly shilling +had assumed the sanctity of salary in his mind. + +Mr. Vane strolled disconsolate; he strolled by the Thames, he strolled +up and down the Strand; and, finally, having often admired the wisdom +of moths in their gradual approach to what is not good for them, he +strolled into the green-room, Covent Garden, and sat down. When there +he did not feel happy. Besides, she had always been cold to him, and had +given no sign of desiring his acquaintance, still less of recognition. + +Mr. Vane had often seen a weathercock at work, and he had heard a woman +compared to it; but he had never realized the simplicity, beauty and +justice of the simile. He was therefore surprised, as well as thrilled, +when Mrs. Woffington, so cool, ceremonious and distant hitherto, walked +up to him in the green-room with a face quite wreathed in smiles, and, +without preliminary, thanked him for all the beautiful flowers he had +sent her. + +"What, Mrs. Woffington--what, you recognize me?" + +"Of course, and have been foolish enough to feel quite supported by the +thought I had at least one friend in the house. But," said she, looking +down, "now you must not be angry; here are some stones that have fallen +somehow among the flowers. I am going to give you them back, because I +value flowers, so I cannot have them mixed with anything else; but don't +ask me for a flower back," added she, seeing the color mount on his +face, "for I would not give one of them to you, or anybody." + +Imagine the effect of this on a romantic disposition like Mr. Vane's. + +He told her how glad he was that she could distinguish his features amid +the crowd of her admirers; he confessed he had been mortified when he +found himself, as he thought, entirely a stranger to her. + +She interrupted him. + +"Do you know your friend Sir Charles Pomander? No! I am almost sure you +do; well, he is a man I do not like. He is deceitful, besides he is a +wicked man. There, to be plain with you, he was watching me all that +night, the first time you came here, and, because I saw he was watching +me I would not know who you were, nor anything about you." + +"But you looked as if you had never seen me before." + +"Of course I did, when I had made up my mind to," said the actress, +naively. + +"Sir Charles has left London for a fortnight, so, if he is the only +obstacle, I hope you will know me every night." + +"Why, you sent me no flowers yesterday or to-day." + +"But I will to-morrow." + +"Then I am sure I shall know your face again; good-by. Won't you see me +in the last act, and tell me how ill I do it?" + +"Oh, yes!" and he hurried to his box, and so the actress secured one +pair of hands for her last act. + +He returned to the green-room, but she did not revisit that verdant +bower. The next night, after the usual compliments, she said to him, +looking down with a sweet, engaging air: + +"I sent a messenger into the country to know about that lady." + +"What lady?" said Vane, scarcely believing his senses. + +"That you were so unkind to me about." + +"I, unkind to you? what a brute I must be!" + +"My meaning is, you justly rebuked me, only you should not tell an +actress she has no heart--that is always understood. Well, Sir Charles +Pomander said she married a third in two months!" + +"And did she?" + +"No, it was in six weeks; that man never tells the truth; and since then +she has married a fourth." + +"I am glad of it!" + +"So am I, since you awakened my conscience." + +Delicious flattery! and of all flattery the sweetest, when a sweet +creature does flattery, not merely utters it. + +After this, Vane made no more struggles; he surrendered himself to the +charming seduction, and as his advances were respectful, but ardent and +incessant, he found himself at the end of a fortnight Mrs. Woffington's +professed lover. + +They wrote letters to each other every day. On Sunday they went to +church together in the morning, and spent the afternoon in the suburbs +wherever grass was and dust was not. + +In the next fortnight, poor Vane thought he had pretty well fathomed +this extraordinary woman's character. Plumb the Atlantic with an +eighty-fathom line, sir! + +"She is religious," said he, "she loves a church much better than a +playhouse, and she never laughs nor goes to sleep in church as I do. And +she is breaking me of swearing--by degrees. She says that no fashion can +justify what is profane, and that it must be vulgar as well as wicked. +And she is frankness and simplicity itself." + +Another thing that charmed him was her disinterestedness. She ordered +him to buy her a present every day, but it was never to cost above a +shilling. If an article could be found that cost exactly tenpence (a +favorite sum of hers), she was particularly pleased, and these shilling +presents were received with a flush of pleasure and brightening eyes. +But when one day he appeared with a diamond necklace, it was taken very +coldly, he was not even thanked for it, and he was made to feel, once +for all, that the tenpenny ones were the best investments toward her +favor. + +Then he found out that she was very prudent and rather stingy; of +Spartan simplicity in her diet, and a scorner of dress off the stage. +To redeem this she was charitable, and her charity and her economy +sometimes had a sore fight, during which she was peevish, poor little +soul. + +One day she made him a request. + +"I can't bear you should think me worse than I am, and I don't want you +to think me better than I am." + +Vane trembled. + +"But don't speak to others about me; promise, and I will promise to tell +you my whole story, whenever you are entitled to such a confidence. + +"When shall I be entitled to it?" + +"When I am sure you love me." + +"Do you doubt that now?" + +"Yes! I think you love me, but I am not sure. + +"Margaret, remember I have known you much longer than you have known me. + +"No!" + +"Yes! Two months before we ever spoke I lived upon your face and voice. + +"That is to say you looked from your box at me upon the stage, and did +not I look from the stage at you?" + +"Never! you always looked at the pit, and my heart used to sink." + +"On the 17th of May you first came into that box. I noticed you a +little, the next day I noticed you a little more; I saw you fancied you +liked me, after a while I could not have played without you." + +Here was delicious flattery again, and poor Vane believed every word of +it. + +As for her request and her promise, she showed her wisdom in both these. +As Sir Charles observed, it is a wonderful point gained if you allow a +woman to tell her story her own way. + +How the few facts that are allowed to remain get molded and twisted out +of ugly forms into pretty shapes by those supple, dexterous fingers! + +This present story cannot give the life of Mrs. Woffington, but only one +great passage therein, as do the epic and dramatic writers; but since +there was often great point in any sentences spoken on important +occasions by this lady, I will just quote her defense of herself. The +reader may be sure she did not play her weakest card; let us give her +the benefit. + +One day she and Kitty Clive were at it ding-dong; the green-room was +full of actors, male and female, but there were no strangers, and the +ladies were saying things which the men of this generation only think; +at last Mrs. Woffington finding herself roughly, and, as she thought, +unjustly handled, turned upon the assembly and said: "What man did ever +I ruin in all my life? Speak who can!" + +And there was a dead silence. + +"What woman is there here at as much as three pounds per week even, that +hasn't ruined two at the very least?" + +Report says there was a dead silence again, until Mrs. Clive perked up, +and said she had only ruined one, and that was his own fault! + +Mrs. Woffington declined to attach weight to this example. "Kitty Clive +is the hook without the bait," said she; and the laugh turned, as it +always did, against Peggy's antagonist. + +Thus much was speedily shown to Mr. Vane, that, whatever were Mrs. +Woffington's intentions toward him, interest had at present nothing to +do with them; indeed it was made clear that even were she to surrender +her liberty to him, it would only be as a princess, forging golden +chains for herself with her own royal hand. + +Another fortnight passed to the mutual satisfaction of the lovers. To +Vane it was a dream of rapture to be near this great creature, whom +thousands admired at such a distance; to watch over her, to take her to +the theater in a warm shawl, to stand at the wing and receive her as she +came radiant from her dressing-room, to watch her from her rear as +she stood like some power about to descend on the stage, to see her +falcon-like stoop upon the said stage, and hear the burst of applause +that followed, as the report does the flash; to compare this with the +spiritless crawl with which common artists went on, tame from their +first note to their last; to take her hand when she came off, feel how +her nerves were strung like a greyhound's after a race, and her whole +frame in a high even glow, with the great Pythoness excitement of art. + +And to have the same great creature leaning her head on his shoulder, +and listening with a charming complacency, while he purred to her of +love and calm delights, alternate with still greater triumphs; for he +was to turn dramatic writer, for her sake, was to write plays, a woman +the hero, and love was to inspire him, and passion supply the want of +pencraft. (You make me laugh, Mr. Vane!) + +All this was heavenly. + +And then with all her dash, and fire, and bravado, she was a thorough +woman. + +"Margaret!" + +"Ernest!" + +"I want to ask you a question. Did you really cry because that Miss +Bellamy had dresses from Paris?" + +"It does not seem very likely." + +"No, but tell me; did you?" + +"Who said I did?" + +"Mr. Cibber." + +"Old fool!" + +"Yes, but did you?" + +"Did I what?" + +"Cry!" + +"Ernest, the minx's dresses were beautiful." + +"No doubt. But did you cry?" + +"And mine were dirty; I don't care about gilt rags, but dirty dresses, +ugh!" + +"Tell me, then." + +"Tell you what?" + +"Did you cry or not?" + +"Ah! he wants to find out whether I am a fool, and despise me." + +"No, I think I should love you better. For hitherto I have seen no +weakness in you, and it makes me uncomfortable." + +"Be comforted! Is it not a weakness to like you!" + +"You are free from that weakness, or you would gratify my curiosity." + +"Be pleased to state, in plain, intelligible English, what you require +of me." + +"I want to know, in one word, did you cry or not?" + +"Promise to tease me no more then, and I'll tell you." + +"I promise." + +"You won't despise me?" + +"Despise you! of course not." + +"Well, then--I don't remember!" + +On another occasion they were seated in the dusk, by the side of the +canal in the Park, when a little animal began to potter about on an +adjacent bank. + +Mrs. Woffington contemplated it with curiosity and delight. + +"Oh, you pretty creature!" said she. "Now you are a rabbit; at least, I +think so." + +"No," said Vane, innocently; "that is a rat." + +"Ah! ah! ah!" screamed Mrs. Woffington, and pinched his arm. This +frightened the rat, who disappeared. She burst out laughing: "There's a +fool! The thing did not frighten me, and the name did. Depend upon it, +it's true what they say--that off the stage, I am the greatest fool +there is. I'll never be so absurd again. Ah! ah! ah! here it is again" +(scream and pinch, as before). "Do take me from this horrid place, where +monsters come from the great deep." + +And she flounced away, looking daggers askant at the place the rat had +vacated in equal terror. + +All this was silly, but it pleases us men, and contrast is so charming! +This same fool was brimful of talent--and cunning, too, for that matter. + +She played late that night, and Mr. Vane saw the same creature, who +dared not stay where she was liable to a distant rat, spring upon the +stage as a gay rake, and flash out her rapier, and act valor's king to +the life, and seem ready to eat up everybody, King Fear included; and +then, after her brilliant sally upon the public, Sir Harry Wildair came +and stood beside Mr. Vane. Her bright skin, contrasted with her powdered +periwig, became dazzling. She used little rouge, but that little made +her eyes two balls of black lightning. From her high instep to +her polished forehead, all was symmetry. Her leg would have been a +sculptor's glory; and the curve from her waist to her knee was Hogarth's +line itself. + +She stood like Mercury new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill. She placed +her foot upon the ground, as she might put a hand upon her lover's +shoulder. We indent it with our eleven undisguised stone. + +Such was Sir Harry Wildair, who stood by Mr. Vane, glittering with +diamond buckles, gorgeous with rich satin breeches, velvet coat, +ruffles, _pictcae vestis et auri;_ and as she bent her long eye-fringes +down on him (he was seated), all her fiery charms gradually softened and +quivered down to womanhood. + +"The first time I was here," said Vane, "my admiration of you broke out +to Mr. Cibber; and what do you think he said?" + +"That you praised me, for me to hear you. Did you?" + +"Acquit me of such meanness." + +"Forgive me. It is just what I should have done, had I been courting an +actress." + +"I think you have not met many ingenuous spirits, dear friend." + +"Not one, my child." + +This was a phrase she often applied to him now. + +"The old fellow pretended to hear what I said, too; and I am sure you +did not--did you?" + +"Guess." + +"I guess not." + +"I am afraid I must plead guilty. An actress's ears are so quick to hear +praise, to tell you the truth, I did catch a word or two, and, 'It told, +sir--it told.'" + +"You alarm me! At this rate, I shall never know what you see, hear or +think, by your face." + +"When you want to know anything, ask me, and I will tell you; but nobody +else shall learn anything, nor even you, any other way." + +"Did you hear the feeble tribute of praise I was paying you, when you +came in?" inquired Vane. + +"No. You did not say that my voice had the compass and variety of +nature, and my movements were free and beautiful, while the others when +in motion were stilts, and coffee-pots when in repose, did you?" + +"Something of the sort, I believe," cried Vane, laughing. + +"I melted from one fine statue into another, I restored the Antinous +to his true sex.--Goose!--Painters might learn their art from me (in +my dressing-room, no doubt), and orators revive at my lips the music +of Athens, that quelled mad mobs and princes drunk with victory.--Silly +fellow!--Praise was never so sweet to me," murmured she, inclining like +a goddess of love toward him; and he fastened on two velvet lips, that +did not shun the sweet attack, but gently parted with a heavenly sigh; +while her heaving bosom and yielding frame and swimming eyes confessed +her conqueror. + +That morning Mr. Vane had been dispirited, and apparently +self-discontented; but at night he went home in a state of mental +intoxication. His poetic enthusiasm, his love, his vanity, were all +gratified at once. And all these, singly, have conquered Prudence and +Virtue a million times. + +She had confessed to him that she was disposed to risk her happiness +on him; she had begged him to submit to a short probation; and she had +promised, if her confidence and esteem remained unimpaired at the close +of that period--which was not to be an unhappy one--to take advantage of +the summer holidays, and cross the water with him, and forget everything +in the world with him, but love. + +How was it that the very next morning clouds chased one another across +his face? Was it that men are happy but while the chase is doubtful? +Was it the letter from Pomander announcing his return, and sneeringly +inquiring whether he was still the dupe of Peg Woffington? or was it +that same mysterious disquiet which attacked him periodically, and then +gave way for a while to pleasure and her golden dreams? + +The next day was to be a day of delight. He was to entertain her at his +own house; and, to do her honor, he had asked Mr. Cibber, Mr. Quin and +other actors, critics, etc. + +Our friend, Sir Charles Pomander, had been guilty of two ingenuities: +first, he had written three or four letters, full of respectful +admiration, to Mrs. Woffington, of whom he spoke slightingly to Vane; +second, he had made a disingenuous purchase. + +This purchase was Pompey, Mrs. Woffington's little black slave. It is +a horrid fact, but Pompey did not love his mistress. He was a little +enamored of her, as small boys are apt to be, but, on the whole, a +sentiment of hatred slightly predominated in his little black bosom. + +It was not without excuse. + +This lady was subject to two unpleasant companions--sorrow and +bitterness. About twice a week she would cry for two hours; and after +this class of fit she generally went abroad, and made a round of certain +poor or sick _proteges_ she had, and returned smiling and cheerful. + +But other twice a week she might be seen to sit upon her chair, +contracted into half her size, and looking daggers at the universe in +general, the world in particular; and on these occasions, it must be +owned, she stayed at home, and sometimes whipped Pompey. + +Pompey had not the sense to reflect that he ought to have been whipped +every day, or the _esprit de corps_ to be consoled by observing that +this sort of thing did his mistress good. What he felt was, that his +mistress, who did everything well, whipped him with energy and skill; it +did not take ten seconds, but still, in that brief period, Pompey found +himself dusted and polished off. + +The sacred principle of justice was as strong in Mrs. Woffington as in +the rest of her sex; she had not one grain of it. When she was not +in her tantrums, the mischievous imp was as sacred from check or +remonstrance as a monkey or a lap-dog; and several female servants left +the house on his account. + +But Nemesis overtook him in the way we have hinted, and it put his +little black pipe out. + +The lady had taken him out of great humanity; he was fed like a +game-cock, and dressed like a Barbaric prince; and once when he was ill +his mistress watched him, and nursed him, and tended him with the same +white hand that plied the obnoxious whip; and when he died, she alone +withheld her consent from his burial, and this gave him a chance black +boys never get, and he came to again; but still these tarnation lickings +"stuck in him gizzard." So when Sir Charles's agent proposed to him +certain silver coins, cheap at a little treachery, the ebony ape +grinned till he turned half ivory, and became a spy in the house of his +mistress. + +The reader will have gathered that the good Sir Charles had been +quietly in London some hours before he announced himself as _paulo post +futurum._ + +Diamond cut diamond; a diplomat stole this march upon an actress, and +took her black pawn. One for Pomander! (Gun.) + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +TRIPLET, the Cerberus of art, who had the first bark in this legend, +and has since been out of hearing, ran from Lambeth to Covent Garden, +on receipt of Mr. Vane's note. But ran he never so quick, he had built a +full-sized castle in the air before he reached Bow Street. + +The letter hinted at an order upon his muse for amatory verse; +delightful task, cheering prospect. + +Bid a man whose usual lot it is to break stones for the parish at +tenpence the cubic yard--bid such an one play at marbles with some stone +taws for half an hour per day, and pocket one pound one--bid a poor +horse who has drawn those stones about, and browsed short grass by the +wayside--bid him canter a few times round a grassy ring, and then go +to his corn--in short, bid Rosinante change with Pegasus, and you do no +more than Mr. Vane's letter held out to Triplet. + +The amatory verse of that day was not up-hill work. There was a +beaten track on a dead level, and you followed it. You told the tender +creature, with a world of circumlocution, that, "without joking now," +she was a leper, ditto a tigress, item marble. You next feigned a lucid +interval, and to be on the point of detesting your monster, but in +twenty more verses love became, as usual, stronger than reason, and you +wound up your rotten yarn thus: + +You hugged a golden chain. You drew deeper into your wound a barbed +shaft, like--(any wild animal will do, no one of them is such an ass, +so you had an equal title to all). And on looking back you saw with +horrible complacency that you had inflicted one hundred locusts, five +feet long, upon oppressed humanity. + +Wont to travel over acres of canvas for a few shillings, and roods of +paper on bare speculation, Triplet knew he could make a thousand a year +at the above work without thinking. + +He came therefore to the box-keeper with his eyes glittering. + +"Mr. Vane?" + +"Just gone out with a gentleman." + +"I'll wait then." + +Now Mr. Vane, we know, was in the green-room, and went home by the +stage-door. The last thing he thought of was poor Triplet; the rich do +not dream how they disappoint the poor. Triplet's castle fell as many a +predecessor had. When the lights were put out, he left the theater with +a bitter sigh. + +"If this gentleman knew how many sweet children I have, and what a good, +patient, suffering wife, sure he would not have chosen me to make a fool +of!" said the poor fellow to himself. + +In Bow Street, he turned, and looked back upon the theater. How gloomy +and grand it loomed! + +"Ah!" thought he, "if I could but conquer you; and why not? All history +shows that nothing is unconquerable except perseverance. Hannibal +conquered the Alps, and I'll conquer you," cried Triplet, firmly. "Yes, +this visit is not lost; here I register a vow: I will force my way into +that mountain of masonry, or perish in the attempt." + +Triplet's most unpremeditated thoughts and actions often savored +ridiculously of the sublime. Then and there, gazing with folded arms +on this fortress of Thespis, the polytechnic man organized his first +assault. The next evening he made it. + +Five months previously he had sent the manager three great, large +tragedies. He knew the aversion a theatrical manager has to read a +manuscript play, not recommended by influential folk; an aversion which +always has been carried to superstition. So he hit on the following +scheme: + +He wrote Mr. Rich a letter; in this he told Mr. Rich that he (Triplet) +was aware what a quantity of trash is offered every week to a manager, +how disheartening it must be to read it at all, and how natural, after a +while, to read none. Therefore, he (Triplet) had provided that Mr. +Rich might economize his time, and yet not remain in ignorance of the +dramatic treasure that lay ready to his hand. + +"The soul of a play," continued Triplet, "is the plot or fable. A +gentleman of your experience can decide at once whether a plot or story +is one to take the public!" + +So then he drew out, in full, the three plots. He wrote these plots in +verse! Heaven forgive us all, he really did. There were also two margins +left; on one, which was narrow, he jotted down the _locale_ per page of +the most brilliant passages; on the other margin, which was as wide as +the column of the plot, he made careful drawings of the personages in +the principal dramatic situations; scrolls issued from their mouths, +on which were written the words of fire that were flowing from each in +these eruptions of the dramatic action. All was referred to pages in the +manuscripts. + +"By this means, sir," resumed the latter, "you will gut my fish in +a jiffy; permit me to recall that expression, with apologies for my +freedom. I would say, you will, in a few minutes of your valuable +existence, skim the cream of Triplet." + +This author's respect for the manager's time carried him into further +and unusual details. + +"Breakfast," said he, "is a quiet meal. Let me respectfully suggest, +that by placing one of my plots on the table, with, say, the sugar-basin +upon it (this, again, is a mere suggestion), and the play it appertains +to on your other side, you can readily judge my work without disturbing +the avocations of the day, and master a play in the twinkling of a +teacup; forgive my facetiousness. This day month, at ten of the clock, I +shall expect," said Triplet, with sudden severity, "sir, your decision!" + +Then, gliding back to the courtier, he formally disowned all special +title to the consideration he expected from Mr. Rich's well-known +courtesy; still he begged permission to remind that gentleman that he +had, six years ago, painted for him a large scene, illuminated by two +great poetical incidents: a red sun, of dimensions never seen out of +doors in this or any country; and an ocean of sand, yellower than up to +that time had been attained in art or nature; and that once, when the +audience, late in the evening, had suddenly demanded a popular song from +Mr. Nokes, he (Triplet), seeing the orchestra thinned by desertion, and +nugatory by intoxication, had started from the pit, resuscitated with +the whole contents of his snuff-box the bass fiddle, snatched the +leader's violin, and carried Mr. Nokes triumphantly through; that +thunders of applause had followed, and Mr. Nokes had kindly returned +thanks _for both;_ but that he (Triplet) had hastily retired to evade +the manager's acknowledgments, preferring to wait an opportunity like +the present, when both interests could be conciliated, etc. + +This letter he posted at its destination, to save time, and returned +triumphant home. He had now forgiven and almost forgotten Vane; and had +reflected that, after all, the drama was his proper walk. + +"My dear," said he to Mrs. Triplet, "this family is on the eve of a +great triumph!" Then, inverting that order of the grandiloquent and the +homely which he invented in our first chapter, he proceeded to say: "I +have reared in a single day a new avenue by which histrionic greatness, +hitherto obstructed, may become accessible. Wife, I think I have done +the trick at last. Lysimachus!" added he, "let a libation be poured out +on so smiling an occasion, and a burnt-offering rise to propitiate the +celestial powers. Run to the 'Sun,' you dog. Three pennyworth of ale, +and a hap'orth o' tobacco." + +Ere the month was out, I am sorry to say, the Triplets were reduced to +a state of beggary. Mrs. Triplet's health had long been failing; and, +although her duties at her little theater were light and occasional, the +manager was obliged to discharge her, since she could not be depended +upon. + +The family had not enough to eat! Think of that! They were not warm at +night, and they felt gnawing and faintness often by day. Think of that! + +Fortune was unjust here. The man was laughable, and a goose; and had no +genius either for writing, painting, or acting; but in that he resembled +most writers, painters, and actors of his own day and ours. He was +not beneath the average of what men call art, and it is art's +antipodes--treadmill artifice. + +Other fluent ninnies shared gain, and even fame, and were called +'penmen,' in Triplet's day. Other ranters were quietly getting rich by +noise. Other liars and humbugs were painting out o' doors indoors, and +eating mutton instead of thistles for drenched stinging-nettles, +yclept trees; for block-tin clouds; for butlers' pantry seas, and +garret-conceived lakes; for molten sugar-candy rivers; for airless +atmosphere and sunless air; for carpet nature, and cold, dead fragments +of an earth all soul and living glory to every cultivated eye but a +routine painter's. Yet the man of many such mediocrities could not keep +the pot boiling. We suspect that, to those who would rise in life, +even strong versatility is a very doubtful good, and weak versatility +ruination. + +At last, the bitter, weary month was gone, and Triplet's eye brightened +gloriously. He donned his best suit; and, while tying his cravat, +lectured his family. First, he complimented them upon their deportment +in adversity; hinted that moralists, not experience, had informed him +prosperity was far more trying to the character. Put them all solemnly +on their guard down to Lucy, _aetat_ five, that they were _morituri_ and +_ae,_ and must be pleased to abstain from "insolent gladness" upon his +return. + +"Sweet are the uses of adversity!" continued this cheerful monitor. +"If we had not been hard up this while, we should not come with a full +relish to meat three times a week, which, unless I am an ass (and +I don't see myself in that light)," said Triplet dryly, "will, I +apprehend, be, after this day, the primary condition of our future +existence." + +"James, take the picture with you," said Mrs. Triplet, in one of those +calm, little, desponding voices that fall upon the soul so agreeably +when one is a cock-a-hoop, and desires, with permission, so to remain. + +"What on earth am I to take Mrs. Woffington's portrait for?" + +"We have nothing in the house," said the wife, blushing. + +Triplet's eye glittered like a rattlesnake's. + +"The intimation is eccentric," said he. "Are you mad, Jane? Pray," +continued he, veiling his wrath in scornful words, "is it requisite, +heroic, or judicious on the eve, or more correctly the morn, of +affluence to deposit an unfinished work of art with a mercenary +relation? Hang it, Jane! would you really have me pawn Mrs. Woffington +to-day?" + +"James," said Jane steadily, "the manager may disappoint you, we have +often been disappointed; so take the picture with you. They will give +you ten shillings on it." + +Triplet was one of those who see things roseate, Mrs. Triplet lurid. + +"Madam," said the poet, "for the first time in our conjugal career, your +commands deviate so entirely from reason that I respectfully withdraw +that implicit obedience which has hitherto constituted my principal +reputation. I'm hanged if I do it, Jane!" + +"Dear James, to oblige me!" + +"That alters the case; you confess it is unreasonable?" + +"Oh, yes! it is only to oblige me. + +"Enough!" said Triplet, whose tongue was often a flail that fell on +friend, foe and self indiscriminately. "Allow it to be unreasonable, and +I do it as a matter of course--to please you, Jane." + +Accordingly the good soul wrapped it in green baize; but to relieve his +mind he was obliged to get behind his wife, and shrug his shoulders to +Lysimachus and the eldest girl, as who should say _voila bien une femme +votre mere a vous!_ + +At last he was off, in high spirits. He reached Covent Garden at +half-past ten, and there the poor fellow was sucked into our narrative +whirlpool. + +We must, however, leave him for a few minutes. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SIR CHARLES POMANDER was detained in the country much longer than he +expected. + +He was rewarded by a little adventure. As he cantered up to London with +two servants and a post-boy, all riding on horses ordered in relays +beforehand, he came up with an antediluvian coach, stuck fast by the +road-side. Looking into the window, with the humane design of quizzing +the elders who should be there, he saw a young lady of surpassing +beauty. This altered the case; Sir Charles instantly drew bridle and +offered his services. + +The lady thanked him, and being an innocent country lady, she opened +those sluices, her eyes, and two tears gently trickled down, while she +told him how eager she was to reach London, and how mortified at this +delay. + +The good Sir Charles was touched. He leaped his horse over a hedge, +galloped to a farm-house in sight, and returned with ropes and rustics. +These and Sir Charles's horses soon drew the coach out of some stiffish +clay. + +The lady thanked him, and thanked him, and thanked him, with heightening +color and beaming eyes, and he rode away like a hero. + +Before he had gone five miles he became thoughtful and +self-dissatisfied, finally his remorse came to a head; he called to him +the keenest of his servants, Hunsdon, and ordered him to ride back past +the carriage, then follow and put up at the same inn, to learn who the +lady was, and whither going; and, this knowledge gained, to ride into +town full speed and tell his master all about it. Sir Charles then +resumed his complacency, and cantered into London that same evening. + +Arrived there, he set himself in earnest to cut out his friend with Mrs. +Woffington. He had already caused his correspondence with that lady to +grow warm and more tender, by degrees. Keeping a copy of his last, he +always knew where he was. Cupid's barometer rose by rule; and so he +arrived by just gradations at an artful climax, and made her in terms of +chivalrous affection, an offer of a house, etc., three hundred a year, +etc., not forgetting his heart, etc. He knew that the ladies of the +stage have an ear for flattery and an eye to the main chance. + +The good Sir Charles felt sure that, however she might flirt with +Vane or others, she would not forego a position for any disinterested +_penchant._ Still, as he was a close player, he determined to throw +a little cold water on that flame. His plan, like everything truly +scientific, was simple. + +"I'll run her down to him, and ridicule him to her," resolved this +faithful friend and lover dear. + +He began with Vane. He found him just leaving his own house. After +the usual compliments, some such dialogue as this took place between +Telemachus and pseudo Mentor: + +"I trust you are not really in the power of this actress?" + +"You are the slave of a word," replied Vane. "Would you confound black +and white because both are colors? She is like that sisterhood in +nothing but a name. Even on the stage they have nothing in common. They +are puppets--all attitude and trick; she is all ease, grace and nature." + +"Nature!" cried Pomander. _"Laissez-moi tranquille._ They have +artifice--nature's libel. She has art--nature's counterfeit." + +"Her voice is truth told by music," cried the poetical lover; "theirs +are jingling instruments of falsehood." + +"They are all instruments," said the satirist; "she is rather the best +tuned and played." + +"Her face speaks in every lineament; theirs are rouged and wrinkled +masks." + +"Her mask is the best made, mounted, and moved; that is all." + +"She is a fountain of true feeling." + +"No; a pipe that conveys it without spilling or holding a drop." + +"She is an angel of talent, sir." + +"She's a devil of deception." + +"She is a divinity to worship." + +"She's a woman to fight shy of. There is not a woman in London better +known," continued Sir Charles. "She is a fair actress on the boards, and +a great actress off them; but I can tell you how to add a new charm to +her." + +"Heaven can only do that," said Vane, hastily. + +"Yes, you can. Make her blush. Ask her for the list of your +predecessors." + +Vane winced visibly. He quickened his step, as if to get rid of this +gadfly. + +"I spoke to Mr. Quin," said he, at last; "and he, who has no prejudice, +paid her character the highest compliment." + +"You have paid it the highest it admits," was the reply. "You have let +it deceive you." Sir Charles continued in a more solemn tone: "Pray be +warned. Why is it every man of intellect loves an actress once in his +life, and no man of sense ever did it twice?" + +This last hit, coming after the carte and tierce we have described, +brought an expression of pain to Mr. Vane's face. He said abruptly: +"Excuse me, I desire to be alone for half an hour." + +Machiavel bowed; and, instead of taking offense, said, in a tone full of +feeling: "Ah! I give you pain! But you are right; think it calmly over a +while, and you will see I advise you well." + +He then made for the theater, and the weakish personage he had been +playing upon walked down to the river, almost ran, in fact. He wanted to +be out of sight. + +He got behind some houses, and then his face seemed literally to break +loose from confinement; so anxious, sad, fearful and bitter were the +expressions that coursed each other over that handsome countenance. + +What is the meaning of these hot and cold fits? It is not Sir Charles +who has the power to shake Mr. Vane so without some help from within. +_There is something wrong about this man!_ + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +MACHIAVEL entered the green-room, intending to wait for Mrs. Woffington, +and carry out the second part of his plan. + +He knew that weak minds cannot make head against ridicule, and with this +pickax he proposed to clear the way, before he came to grave, sensible, +business love with the lady. Machiavel was a man of talent. If he has +been a silent personage hitherto, it is merely because it was not his +cue to talk, but listen; otherwise, he was rather a master of the art +of speech. He could be insinuating, eloquent, sensible, or satirical, at +will. This personage sat in the green-room. In one hand was his diamond +snuffbox, in the other a richly laced handkerchief; his clouded cane +reposed by his side. + +There was an air of success about this personage. The gentle reader, +however conceited a dog, could not see how he was to defeat Sir Charles, +who was tall, stout, handsome, rich, witty, self-sufficient, cool, +majestic, courageous, and in whom were united the advantages of a hard +head, a tough stomach, and no heart at all. + +This great creature sat expecting Mrs. Woffington, like Olympian Jove +awaiting Juno. But he was mortal, after all; for suddenly the serenity +of that adamantine countenance was disturbed; his eye dilated; his grace +and dignity were shaken. He huddled his handkerchief into one pocket, +his snuff-box into another, and forgot his cane. He ran to the door in +unaffected terror. + +Where are all his fine airs before a real danger? Love, intrigue, +diplomacy, were all driven from his mind; for he beheld that +approaching, which is the greatest peril and disaster known to social +man. He saw a bore coming into the room! + +In a wild thirst for novelty, Pomander had once penetrated to Goodman's +Fields Theater; there he had unguardedly put a question to a carpenter +behind the scene; a seedy-black poet instantly pushed the carpenter away +(down a trap, it is thought), and answered it in seven pages, and in +continuation was so vaguely communicative, that he drove Sir Charles +back into the far west. + +Sir Charles knew him again in a moment, and at sight of him bolted. They +met at the door. "Ah! Mr. Triplet!" said the fugitive, "enchanted--to +wish you good-morning!" and he plunged into the hiding-places of the +theater. + +"That is a very polite gentleman!" thought Triplet. He was followed +by the call-boy, to whom he was explaining that his avocations, though +numerous, would not prevent his paying Mr. Rich the compliment of +waiting all day in his green-room, sooner than go without an answer +to three important propositions, in which the town and the arts were +concerned. + +"What is your name?" said the boy of business to the man of words. + +"Mr. Triplet," said Triplet. + +"Triplet? There is something for you in the hall," said the urchin, and +went off to fetch it. + +"I knew it," said Triplet to himself; "they are accepted. There's a note +in the hall to fix the reading." He then derided his own absurdity in +having ever for a moment desponded. "Master of three arts, by each of +which men grow fat, how was it possible he should starve all his days!" + +He enjoyed a natural vanity for a few moments, and then came more +generous feelings. What sparkling eyes there would be in Lambeth to-day! +The butcher, at sight of Mr. Rich's handwriting, would give him credit. +Jane should have a new gown. + +But when his tragedies were played, and he paid! El Dorado! His children +should be the neatest in the street. Lysimachus and Roxalana should +learn the English language, cost what it might; sausages should be +diurnal; and he himself would not be puffed up, fat, lazy. No! he would +work all the harder, be affable as ever, and, above all, never swamp +the father, husband, and honest man in the poet and the blackguard of +sentiment. + +Next his reflections took a business turn. + +"These tragedies--the scenery? Oh, I shall have to paint it myself. The +heroes? Well, they have nobody who will play them as I should. (This was +true!) It will be hard work, all this; but then I shall be paid for +it. It cannot go on this way; I must and will be paid separately for my +branches." + +Just as he came to this resolution, the boy returned with a brown-paper +parcel, addressed to Mr. James Triplet. Triplet weighed it in his hand; +it was heavy. "How is this?" cried he. "Oh, I see," said he, "these +are the tragedies. He sends them to me for some trifling alterations; +managers always do." Triplet then determined to adopt these alterations, +if judicious; for, argued he, sensibly enough: "Managers are practical +men; and we, in the heat of composition, sometimes _(sic?)_ say more +than is necessary, and become tedious." + +With that he opened the parcel, and looked for Mr. Rich's communication; +it was not in sight. He had to look between the leaves of the +manuscripts for it; it was not there. He shook them; it did not fall +out. He shook them as a dog shakes a rabbit; nothing! + +The tragedies were returned without a word. It took him some time to +realize the full weight of the blow; but at last he saw that the manager +of the Theater Royal, Covent Garden, declined to take a tragedy by +Triplet into consideration or bare examination. + +He turned dizzy for a moment. Something between a sigh and a cry escaped +him, and he sank upon a covered bench that ran along the wall. His poor +tragedies fell here and there upon the ground, and his head went down +upon his hands, which rested on Mrs. Woffington's picture. His anguish +was so sharp, it choked his breath; when he recovered it, his eye bent +down upon the picture. "Ah, Jane," he groaned, "you know this villainous +world better than I!" He placed the picture gently on the seat (that +picture must now be turned into bread), and slowly stooped for his +tragedies; they had fallen hither and thither; he had to crawl about for +them; he was an emblem of all the humiliations letters endure. + +As he went after them on all-fours, more than one tear pattered on +the dusty floor. Poor fellow! he was Triplet, and could not have died +without tingeing the death-rattle with some absurdity; but, after all, +he was a father driven to despair; a castle-builder, with his work +rudely scattered; an artist, brutally crushed and insulted by a greater +dunce than himself. + +Faint, sick, and dark, he sat a moment on the seat before he could find +strength to go home and destroy all the hopes he had raised. + +While Triplet sat collapsed on the bench, fate sent into the room all +in one moment, as if to insult his sorrow, a creature that seemed the +goddess of gayety, impervious to a care. She swept in with a bold, free +step, for she was rehearsing a man's part, and thundered without rant, +but with a spirit and fire, and pace, beyond the conception of our poor +tame actresses of 1852, these lines: + +"Now, by the joys Which my soul still has uncontrolled pursued, I would +not turn aside from my least pleasure, Though all thy force were armed +to bar my way; But, like the birds, great Nature's happy commoners, +Rifle the sweets--" + +"I beg--your par--don, sir!" holding the book on a level with her eye, +she had nearly run over "two poets instead of one." + +"Nay, madam," said Triplet, admiring, though sad, wretched, but polite, +"pray continue. Happy the hearer, and still happier the author of verses +so spoken. Ah!" + +"Yes," replied the lady, "if you could persuade authors what we do +for them, when we coax good music to grow on barren words. Are you an +author, sir?" added she, slyly. + +"In a small way, madam. I have here three trifles--tragedies." + +Mrs. Woffington looked askant at them, like a shy mare. + +"Ah, madam!" said Triplet, in one of his insane fits, "if I might but +submit them to such a judgment as yours?" + +He laid his hand on them. It was as when a strange dog sees us go to +take up a stone. + +The actress recoiled. + +"I am no judge of such things," cried she, hastily. + +Triplet bit his lip. He could have killed her. It was provoking, people +would rather be hanged than read a manuscript. Yet what hopeless +trash they will read in crowds, which was manuscript a day ago. _Les +imbeciles!_ + +"No more is the manager of this theater a judge of such things," cried +the outraged quill-driver, bitterly. + +"What! has he accepted them?" said needle-tongue. + +"No, madam, he has had them six months, and see, madam, he has returned +them me without a word." + +Triplet's lip trembled. + +"Patience, my good sir," was the merry reply. "Tragic authors should +possess that, for they teach it to their audiences. Managers, sir, are +like Eastern monarchs, inaccessible but to slaves and sultanas. Do you +know I called upon Mr. Rich fifteen times before I could see him?" + +"You, madam? Impossible!" + +"Oh, it was years ago, and he has paid a hundred pounds for each of +those little visits. Well, now, let me see, fifteen times; you must +write twelve more tragedies, and then he will read _one;_ and when he +has read it, he will favor you with his judgment upon it; and when you +have got that, you will have what all the world knows is not worth a +farthing. He! he! he! + + 'And like the birds, gay Nature's happy commoners, + Rifle the sweets'--mum--mum--mum." + +Her high spirits made Triplet sadder. To think that one word from this +laughing lady would secure his work a hearing, and that he dared not ask +her. She was up in the world, he was down. She was great, he was nobody. +He felt a sort of chill at this woman--all brains and no heart. He took +his picture and his plays under his arms and crept sorrowfully away. + +The actress's eye fell on him as he went off like a fifth act. His Don +Quixote face struck her. She had seen it before. + +"Sir," said she. + +"Madam," said Triplet, at the door. + +"We have met before. There, don't speak, I'll tell you who you are. +Yours is a face that has been good to me, and I never forget them." + +"Me, madam!" said Triplet, taken aback. "I trust I know what is due to +you better than to be good to you, madam," said he, in his confused way. + +"To be sure!" cried she, "it is Mr. Triplet, good Mr. Triplet!" And this +vivacious dame, putting her book down, seized both Triplet's hands and +shook them. + +He shook hers warmly in return out of excess of timidity, and dropped +tragedies, and kicked at them convulsively when they were down, for fear +they should be in her way, and his mouth opened, and his eyes glared. + +"Mr. Triplet," said the lady, "do you remember an Irish orange-girl you +used to give sixpence to at Goodman's Fields, and pat her on the head +and give her good advice, like a good old soul as you were? She took the +sixpence." + +"Madam," said Trip, recovering a grain of pomp, "singular as it may +appear, I remember the young person; she was very engaging. I trust +no harm hath befallen her, for methought I discovered, in spite of her +brogue, a beautiful nature in her." + +"Go along wid yer blarney," answered a rich brogue; "an' is it the +comanther ye'd be putting on poor little Peggy?" + +"Oh! oh gracious!" gasped Triplet. + +"Yes," was the reply; but into that "yes" she threw a whole sentence of +meaning. "Fine cha-ney oranges!" chanted she, to put the matter beyond +dispute. + +"Am I really so honored as to have patted you on that queen-like head!" +and he glared at it. + +"On the same head which now I wear," replied she, pompously. "I kept +it for the convaynience hintirely, only there's more in it. Well, Mr. +Triplet, you see what time has done for me; now tell me whether he has +been as kind to you. Are you going to speak to me, Mr. Triplet?" + +As a decayed hunter stands lean and disconsolate, head poked forward +like a goose's, but if hounds sweep by his paddock in full cry, followed +by horses who are what he was not, he does, by reason of the good blood +that is and will be in his heart, _dum spiritus hoss regit artus,_ cock +his ears, erect his tail, and trot fiery to his extremest hedge, and +look over it, nostril distended, mane flowing, and neigh the hunt +onward like a trumpet; so Triplet, who had manhood at bottom, instead of +whining out his troubles in the ear of encouraging beauty, as a sneaking +spirit would, perked up, and resolved to put the best face upon it all +before so charming a creature of the other sex. + +"Yes, madam," cried he, with the air of one who could have smacked +his lips, "Providence has blessed me with an excellent wife and four +charming children. My wife was Miss Chatterton; you remember her?" + +"Yes! Where is she playing now?" + +"Why, madam, her health is too weak for it." + +"Oh!--You were scene-painter. Do you still paint scenes?" + +"With the pen, madam, not the brush. As the wags said, I transferred +the distemper from my canvas to my imagination." And Triplet laughed +uproariously. + +When he had done, Mrs. Woffington, who had joined the laugh, inquired +quietly whether his pieces had met with success. + +"Eminent--in the closet; the stage is to come!" and he smiled absurdly +again. + +The lady smiled back. + +"In short," said Triplet, recapitulating, "being blessed with health, +and more tastes in the arts than most, and a cheerful spirit, I should +be wrong, madam, to repine; and this day, in particular, is a happy +one," added the rose colorist, "since the great Mrs. Woffington has +deigned to remember me, and call me friend." + +Such was Triplet's summary. + +Mrs. Woffington drew out her memorandum-book, and took down her summary +of the crafty Triplet's facts. So easy is it for us Triplets to draw the +wool over the eyes of women and Woffingtons. + +"Triplet, discharged from scene-painting; wife, no engagement; four +children supported by his pen--that is to say, starving; lose no time!" + +She closed her book; and smiled, and said: + +"I wish these things were comedies instead of trash-edies, as the French +call them; we would cut one in half, and slice away the finest passages, +and then I would act in it; and you would see how the stage-door would +fly open at sight of the author." + +"O Heaven!" said poor Trip, excited by this picture. "I'll go home, and +write a comedy this moment." + +"Stay!" said she; "you had better leave the tragedies with me." + +"My dear madam! You will read them?" + +"Ahem! I will make poor Rich read them." + +"But, madam, he has rejected them." + +"That is the first step. Reading them comes after, when it comes at all. +What have you got in that green baize?" + +"In this green baize?" + +"Well, in this green baize, then." + +"Oh madam! nothing--nothing! To tell the truth, it is an adventurous +attempt from memory. I saw you play Silvia, madam; I was so charmed, +that I came every night. I took your face home with me--forgive my +presumption, madam--and I produced this faint adumbration, which I +expose with diffidence." + +So then he took the green baize off. + +The color rushed into her face; she was evidently gratified. Poor, silly +Mrs. Triplet was doomed to be right about this portrait. + +"I will give you a sitting," said she. "You will find painting dull +faces a better trade than writing dull tragedies. Work for other +people's vanity, not your own; that is the art of art. And now I want +Mr. Triplet's address." + +"On the fly-leaf of each work, madam," replied that florid author, "and +also at the foot of every page which contains a particularly brilliant +passage, I have been careful to insert the address of James Triplet, +painter, actor, and dramatist, and Mrs. Woffington's humble, devoted +servant." He bowed ridiculously low, and moved toward the door; but +something gushed across his heart, and he returned with long strides to +her. "Madam!" cried he, with a jaunty manner, "you have inspired a son +of Thespis with dreams of eloquence, you have tuned in a higher key a +poet's lyre, you have tinged a painter's existence with brighter colors, +and--and--" His mouth worked still, but no more artificial words would +come. He sobbed out, "and God in heaven bless you, Mrs. Woffington!" and +ran out of the room. + +Mrs. Woffington looked after him with interest, for this confirmed her +suspicions; but suddenly her expression changed, she wore a look we have +not yet seen upon her--it was a half-cunning, half-spiteful look; it was +suppressed in a moment, she gave herself to her book, and presently Sir +Charles Pomander sauntered into the room. + +"Ah! what, Mrs. Woffington here?" said the diplomat. + +"Sir Charles Pomander, I declare!" said the actress. + +"I have just parted with an admirer of yours. + +"I wish I could part with them all," was the reply. + +"A pastoral youth, who means to win La Woffington by agricultural +courtship--as shepherds woo in sylvan shades." + +"With oaten pipe the rustic maids," quoth the Woffington, improvising. + +The diplomat laughed, the actress laughed, and said, laughingly: _"Tell +me what he says word for word?"_ + +"It will only make you laugh." + +"Well, and am I never to laugh, who provide so many laughs for you all?" + +_"C'est juste._ You shall share the general merriment. Imagine a +romantic soul, who adores you for _your simplicity!"_ + +"My simplicity! Am I so very simple?" + +"No," said Sir Charles, monstrous dryly. "He says you are out of place +on the stage, and wants to take the star from its firmament, and put it +in a cottage." + +"I am not a star," replied the Woffington, "I am only a meteor. And what +does the man think I am to do without this (here she imitated applause) +from my dear public's thousand hands?" + +"You are to have this" (he mimicked a kiss) "from a single mouth, +instead." + +"He is mad! Tell me what more he says. Oh, don't stop to invent; I +should detect you; and you would only spoil this man." + +He laughed conceitedly. "I should spoil him! Well, then, he proposes to +be your friend rather than your lover, and keep you from being talked +of, he! he! instead of adding to your _eclat."_ + +"And if he is your friend, why don't you tell him my real character, and +send him into the country?" + +She said this rapidly and with an appearance of earnest. The diplomatist +fell into the trap. + +"I do," said he; "but he snaps his fingers at me and common sense and +the world. I really think there is only one way to get rid of him, and +with him of every annoyance." + +"Ah! that would be nice." + +"Delicious! I had the honor, madam, of laying certain proposals at your +feet." + +"Oh! yes--your letter, Sir Charles. I have only just had time to run my +eye down it. Let us examine it together." + +She took out the letter with a wonderful appearance of interest, and the +diplomat allowed himself to fall into the absurd position to which she +invited him. They put their two heads together over the letter. + +"'A coach, a country-house, pin-money'--and I'm so tired of houses and +coaches and pins. Oh! yes, here's something; what is this you offer me, +up in this corner?" + +Sir Charles inspected the place carefully, and announced that it was +"his heart." + +"And he can't even write it!" said she. "That word is 'earth.' Ah! well, +you know best. There is your letter, Sir Charles." + +She courtesied, returned him the letter, and resumed her study of +Lothario. + +"Favor me with your answer, madam," said her suitor. + +"You have it," was the reply. + +"Madam, I don't understand your answer," said Sir Charles, stiffly. + +"I can't find you answers and understandings, too," was the lady-like +reply. "You must beat my answer into your understanding while I beat +this man's verse into mine. + + 'And like the birds, etc.'" + +Pomander recovered himself a little; he laughed with quiet insolence. +"Tell me," said he, "do you really refuse?" + +"My good soul," said Mrs. Woffington, "why this surprise! Are you so +ignorant of the stage and the world as not to know that I refuse such +offers as yours every week of my life?" + +"I know better," was the cool reply. She left it unnoticed. + +"I have so many of these," continued she, "that I have begun to forget +they are insults." + +At this word the button broke off Sir Charles's foil. + +"Insults, madam! They are the highest compliments you have left it in +our power to pay you." + +The other took the button off her foil. + +"Indeed!" cried she, with well-feigned surprise. "Oh! I understand. +To be your mistress could be but a temporary disgrace; to be your wife +would be a lasting discredit," she continued. "And now, sir, having +played your rival's game, and showed me your whole hand" (a light broke +in upon our diplomat), "do something to recover the reputation of a man +of the world. A gentleman is somewhere about in whom you have interested +me by your lame satire; pray tell him I am in the green-room, with no +better companion than this bad poet." + +Sir Charles clinched his teeth. + +"I accept the delicate commission," replied he, "that you may see how +easily the man of the world drops what the rustic is eager to pick up." + +"That is better," said the actress, with a provoking appearance of +good-humor. "You have a woman's tongue, if not her wit; but, my good +soul," added she, with cool _hauteur,_ "remember you have something to +do of more importance than anything you can say." + +"I accept your courteous dismissal, madam," said Pomander, grinding his +teeth. "I will send a carpenter for your swain. And I leave you." + +He bowed to the ground. + +"Thanks for the double favor, good Sir Charles." + +She courtesied to the floor. + +Feminine vengeance! He had come between her and her love. All very +clever, Mrs. Actress; but was it wise? + +"I am revenged," thought Mrs. Woffington, with a little feminine smirk. + +"I will be revenged," vowed Pomander, clinching his teeth. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +COMPARE a November day with a May day. They are not more unlike than a +beautiful woman in company with a man she is indifferent to or averse, +and the same woman with the man of her heart by her side. + +At sight of Mr. Vane, all her coldness and _nonchalance_ gave way to a +gentle complacency; and when she spoke to him, her voice, so clear and +cutting in the late _assaut d'armes,_ sank of its own accord into the +most tender, delicious tone imaginable. + +Mr. Vane and she made love. He pleased her, and she desired to please +him. My reader knows her wit, her _finesse,_ her fluency; but he cannot +conceive how god-like was her way of making love. I can put a few of the +corpses of her words upon paper, but where are the heavenly tones--now +calm and convincing, now soft and melancholy, now thrilling with +tenderness, now glowing with the fiery eloquence of passion? She told +him that she knew the map of his face; that for some days past he had +been subject to an influence adverse to her. She begged him, calmly, for +his own sake, to distrust false friends, and judge her by his own heart, +eyes, and judgment. He promised her he would. + +"And I do trust you, in spite of them all," said he; "for your face is +the shrine of sincerity and candor. I alone know you." + +Then she prayed him to observe the heartlessness of his sex, and to say +whether she had done ill to hide the riches of her heart from the cold +and shallow, and to keep them all for one honest man, "who will be my +friend, I hope," said she, "as well as my lover." + +"Ah!" said Vane, "that is my ambition." + +"We actresses," said she, "make good the old proverb, 'Many lovers, but +few friends.' And oh, 'tis we who need a friend. Will you be mine?" + +While he lived, he would. + +In turn, he begged her to be generous, and tell him the way for him, +Ernest Vane, inferior in wit and address to many of her admirers, to win +her heart from them all. + +This singular woman's answer is, I think, worth attention. + +"Never act in my presence; never try to be eloquent, or clever; never +force a sentiment, or turn a phrase. Remember, I am the goddess of +tricks. Do not descend to competition with me and the Pomanders of the +world. At all littlenesses, you will ever be awkward in my eyes. And I +am a woman. I must have a superior to love--lie open to my eye. Light +itself is not more beautiful than the upright man, whose bosom is open +to the day. Oh yes! fear not you will be my superior, dear; for in me +honesty has to struggle against the habits of my art and life. Be simple +and sincere, and I shall love you, and bless the hour you shone upon my +cold, artificial life. Ah, Ernest!" said she, fixing on his eye her own, +the fire of which melted into tenderness as she spoke, "be my friend. +Come between me and the temptations of an unprotected life--the +recklessness of a vacant heart." + +He threw himself at her feet. He called her an angel. He told her he +was unworthy of her, but that he would try and deserve her. Then he +hesitated, and trembling he said: + +"I will be frank and loyal. Had I not better tell you everything? You +will not hate me for a confession I make myself?" + +"I shall like you better--oh! so much better!" + +"Then I will own to you--" + +"Oh, do not tell me you have ever loved before me! I could not bear to +hear it!" cried this inconsistent personage. + +The other weak creature needed no more. + +"I see plainly I never loved but you," said he. + +"Let me hear that only!" cried she; "I am jealous even of the past. Say +you never loved but me. Never mind whether it is true. My child, you do +not even yet know love. Ernest, shall I make you love--as none of your +sex ever loved--with heart, and brain, and breath, and life, and soul?" + +With these rapturous words, she poured the soul of love into his eyes; +he forgot everything in the world but her; he dissolved in present +happiness and vowed himself hers forever. And she, for her part, bade +him but retain her esteem and no woman ever went further in love than +she would. She was a true epicure. She had learned that passion, vulgar +in itself, is god-like when based upon esteem. + +This tender scene was interrupted by the call-boy, who brought Mrs. +Woffington a note from the manager, informing her there would be +no rehearsal. This left her at liberty, and she proceeded to take a +somewhat abrupt leave of Mr. Vane. He was endeavoring to persuade her +to let him be her companion until dinner-time (she was to be his quest), +when Pomander entered the room. + +Mrs. Woffington, however, was not to be persuaded, she excused herself +on the score of a duty which she said she had to perform, and whispering +as she passed Pomander, "Keep your own counsel," she went out rather +precipitately. + +Vane looked slightly disappointed. + +Sir Charles, who had returned to see whether (as he fully expected) she +had told Vane everything--and who, at that moment, perhaps, would +not have been sorry had Mrs. Woffington's lover called him to serious +account--finding it was not her intention to make mischief, and not +choosing to publish his own defeat, dropped quietly into his old line, +and determined to keep the lovers in sight, and play for revenge. +He smiled and said: "My good sir, nobody can hope to monopolize Mrs. +Woffington. She has others to do justice to besides you." + +To his surprise, Mr. Vane turned instantly round upon him, and, looking +him haughtily in the face, said: "Sir Charles Pomander, the settled +malignity with which you pursue that lady is unmanly and offensive to +me, who love her. Let our acquaintance cease here, if you please, or let +her be sacred from your venomous tongue." + +Sir Charles bowed stiffly, and replied, that it was only due to himself +to withdraw a protection so little appreciated. + +The two friends were in the very act of separating forever, when who +should run in but Pompey, the renegade. He darted up to Sir Charles, and +said: "Massa Pomannah she in a coach, going to 10, Hercules Buildings. +I'm in a hurry, Massa Pomannah." + +"Where?" cried Pomander. "Say that again." + +"10, Hercules Buildings, Lambeth. Me in a hurry, Massa Pomannah." + +"Faithful child, there's a guinea for thee. Fly!" + +The slave flew, and, taking a short cut, caught and fastened on to the +slow vehicle in the Strand. + +"It is a house of rendezvous," said Sir Charles, half to himself, half +to Mr. Vane. He repeated in triumph: "It is a house of rendezvous." He +then, recovering his _sang-froid,_ and treating it all as a matter of +course, explained that at 10, Hercules Buildings, was a fashionable +shop, with entrances from two streets; that the best Indian scarfs and +shawls were sold there, and that ladies kept their carriages waiting an +immense time in the principal street, while they were supposed to be in +the shop, or the show-room. He then went on to say that he had only this +morning heard that the intimacy between Mrs. Woffington and a Colonel +Murthwaite, although publicly broken off for prudential reasons, was +still clandestinely carried on. She had, doubtless, slipped away to meet +the colonel. + +Mr. Vane turned pale. + +"No! I will not suspect. I will not dog her like a bloodhound," cried +he. + +"I will!" said Pomander. + +"You! By what right?" + +"The right of curiosity. I will know whether it is you who are imposed +on, or whether you are right, and all the world is deceived in this +woman." + +He ran out; but, for all his speed, when he got into the street there +was the jealous lover at his elbow. They darted with all speed into the +Strand; got a coach. Sir Charles, on the box, gave Jehu a guinea, and +took the reins--and by a Niagara of whipcord they attained Lambeth; and +at length, to his delight, Pomander saw another coach before him with a +gold-laced black slave behind it. The coach stopped; and the slave came +to the door. The shop in question was a few hundred yards distant. The +adroit Sir Charles not only stopped but turned his coach, and let the +horses crawl back toward London; he also flogged the side panels to +draw the attention of Mr. Vane. That gentleman looked through the little +circular window at the back of the vehicle, and saw a lady paying the +coachman. There was no mistaking her figure. This lady, then, followed +at a distance by her slave, walked on toward Hercules Buildings; and it +was his miserable fate to see her look uneasily round, and at last glide +in at a side door, close to the silk-mercer's shop. + +The carriage stopped. Sir Charles came himself to the door. + +"Now, Vane," said he, "before I consent to go any further in this +business, you must promise me to be cool and reasonable. I abhor +absurdity; and there must be no swords drawn for this little hypocrite." + +"I submit to no dictation," said Vane, white as a sheet. + +"You have benefited so far by my knowledge," said the other politely; +"let me, who am self-possessed, claim some influence with you." + +"Forgive me!" said poor Vane. "My ang--my sorrow that such an angel +should be a monster of deceit." He could say no more. + +They walked to the shop. + +"How she peeped, this way and that," said Pomander, "sly little Woffy! + +"No! on second thoughts," said he, "it is the other street we must +reconnoiter; and, if we don't see her there, we will enter the shop, +and by dint of this purse we shall soon untie the knot of the Woffington +riddle." + +Vane leaned heavily on his tormentor. + +"I am faint," said he. + +"Lean on me, my dear friend," said Sir Charles. "Your weakness will +leave you in the next street." + +In the next street they discovered--nothing. In the shop, they found--no +Mrs. Woffington. They returned to the principal street. Vane began to +hope there was no positive evidence. Suddenly three stories up a fiddle +was heard. Pomander took no notice, but Vane turned red; this put Sir +Charles upon the scent. + +"Stay!" said he. "Is not that an Irish tune?" + +Vane groaned. He covered his face with his hands, and hissed out: + +"It is her favorite tune." + +"Aha!" said Pomander. "Follow me!" + +They crept up the stairs, Pomander in advance; they heard the signs of +an Irish orgie--a rattling jig played and danced with the inspiriting +interjections of that frolicsome nation. These sounds ceased after a +while, and Pomander laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. + +"I prepare you," said he, "for what you are sure to see. This woman +was an Irish bricklayer's daughter, and 'what is bred in the bone never +comes out of the flesh;' you will find her sitting on some Irishman's +knee, whose limbs are ever so much stouter than yours. You are the man +of her head, and this is the man of her heart. These things would be +monstrous, if they were not common; incredible, if we did not see them +every day. But this poor fellow, whom probably she deceives as well as +you, is not to be sacrificed like a dog to your unjust wrath; he is as +superior to her as you are to him." + +"I will commit no violence," said Vane. "I still hope she is innocent." + +Pomander smiled, and said he hoped so too. + +"And if she is what you think, I will but show her she is known, and, +blaming myself as much as her--oh yes! more than her!--I will go down +this night to Shropshire, and never speak word to her again in this +world or the next." + +"Good," said Sir Charles. + + "'Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte est pour le sot, + L'honndete homine trompe s'eloigne et ne dit mot.' + +Are you ready?" + +"Yes." + +"Then follow me." + +Turning the handle gently, he opened the door like lightning, and was in +the room. Vane's head peered over his shoulder. She was actually there! + +For once in her life, the cautious, artful woman was taken by surprise. +She gave a little scream, and turned as red as fire. But Sir Charles +surprised somebody else even more than he did poor Mrs. Woffington. + +It would be impertinent to tantalize my reader, but I flatter myself +this history is not written with power enough to do that, and I may +venture to leave him to guess whom Sir Charles Pomander surprised more +than he did the actress, while I go back for the lagging sheep. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +JAMES TRIPLET, water in his eye, but fire in his heart, went home on +wings. Arrived there, he anticipated curiosity by informing all hands he +should answer no questions. Only in the intervals of a work, which was +to take the family out of all its troubles, he should gradually unfold +a tale, verging on the marvelous--a tale whose only fault was, that +fiction, by which alone the family could hope to be great, paled beside +it. He then seized some sheets of paper fished out some old dramatic +sketches, and a list of _dramatis personae,_ prepared years ago, and +plunged into a comedy. As he wrote, true to his promise, he painted, +Triplet-wise, that story which we have coldly related, and made it +appear, to all but Mrs. Triplet, that he was under the tutela, or +express protection of Mrs. Woffington, who would push his fortunes until +the only difficulty would be to keep arrogance out of the family heart. + +Mrs. Triplet groaned aloud. "You have brought the picture home, I see," +said she. + +"Of course I have. She is going to give me a sitting." + +"At what hour, of what day?" said Mrs. Triplet, with a world of meaning. + +"She did not say," replied Triplet, avoiding his wife's eye. + +"I know she did not," was the answer. "I would rather you had brought me +the ten shillings than this fine story," said she. + +"Wife!" said Triplet, "don't put me into a frame of mind in which +successful comedies are not written." He scribbled away; but his wife's +despondency told upon the man of disappointments. Then he stuck fast; +then he became fidgety. + +"Do keep those children quiet!" said the father. + +"Hush, my dears," said the mother; "let your father write. Comedy seems +to give you more trouble than tragedy, James," added she, soothingly. + +"Yes," was his answer. "Sorrow comes somehow more natural to me; but for +all that I have got a bright thought, Mrs. Triplet. Listen, all of you. +You see, Jane, they are all at a sumptuous banquet, all the _dramatis +personae,_ except the poet." + +Triplet went on writing, and reading his work out: "Music, sparkling +wine, massive plate, rose-water in the hand-glasses, soup, fish--shall +I have three sorts of fish? I will; they are cheap in this market. Ah! +Fortune, you wretch, here at least I am your master, and I'll make you +know it--venison," wrote Triplet, with a malicious grin, "game, pickles +and provocatives in the center of the table; then up jumps one of the +guests, and says he--" + +"Oh dear, I am so hungry." + +This was not from the comedy, but from one of the boys. + +"And so am I," cried a girl. + +"That is an absurd remark, Lysimachus," said Triplet with a suspicious +calmness. "How can a boy be hungry three hours after breakfast?" + +"But, father, there was no breakfast for breakfast." + +"Now I ask you, Mrs. Triplet," appealed the author, "how I am to write +comic scenes if you let Lysimachus and Roxalana here put the heavy +business in every five minutes?" + +"Forgive them; the poor things are hungry." + +"Then let them be hungry in another room," said the irritated scribe. +"They shan't cling round my pen, and paralyze it, just when it is going +to make all our fortunes; but you women," snapped Triplet the Just, +"have no consideration for people's feelings. Send them all to bed; +every man Jack of them!" + +Finding the conversation taking this turn, the brats raised a unanimous +howl. + +Triplet darted a fierce glance at them. "Hungry, hungry," cried he; +"is that a proper expression to use before a father who is sitting +down here, all gayety" (scratching wildly with his pen) "and hilarity" +(scratch) "to write a com--com--" he choked a moment; then in a very +different voice, all sadness and tenderness, he said: "Where's the +youngest--where's Lucy? As if I didn't know you are hungry." + +Lucy came to him directly. He took her on his knee, pressed her gently +to his side, and wrote silently. The others were still. + +"Father," said Lucy, aged five, the germ of a woman, "I am not very +hungry." + +"And I am not hungry at all," said bluff Lysimachus, taking his sister's +cue; then going upon his own tact he added, "I had a great piece of +bread and butter yesterday!" + +"Wife, they will drive me mad!" and he dashed at the paper. + +The second boy explained to his mother, _sotto voce:_ "Mother, he _made_ +us hungry out of his book." + +"It is a beautiful book," said Lucy. "Is it a cookery book?" + +Triplet roared: "Do you hear that?" inquired he, all trace of ill-humor +gone. "Wife," he resumed, after a gallant scribble, "I took that sermon +I wrote." + +"And beautiful it was, James. I'm sure it quite cheered me up with +thinking that we shall all be dead before so very long." + +"Well, the reverend gentleman would not have it. He said it was too hard +upon sin. 'You run at the Devil like a mad bull,' said he. 'Sell it in +Lambeth, sir; here calmness and decency are before everything,' says he. +'My congregation expect to go to heaven down hill. Perhaps the chaplain +of Newgate might give you a crown for it,' said he," and Triplet dashed +viciously at the paper. "Ah!" sighed he, "if my friend Mrs. Woffington +would but drop these stupid comedies and take to tragedy, this house +would soon be all smiles." + +"Oh James!" replied Mrs. Triplet, almost peevishly, "how can you expect +anything but fine words from that woman? You won't believe what all the +world says. You will trust to your own good heart." + +"I haven't a good heart," said the poor, honest fellow. "I spoke like a +brute to you just now." + +"Never mind, James," said the woman. "I wonder how you put up with me +at all--a sick, useless creature. I often wish to die, for your sake. I +know you would do better. I am such a weight round your neck." + +The man made no answer, but he put Lucy gently down, and went to the +woman, and took her forehead to his bosom, and held it there; and after +a while returned with silent energy to his comedy. + +"Play us a tune on the fiddle, father." + +"Ay, do, husband. That helps you often in your writing." + +Lysimachus brought him the fiddle, and Triplet essayed a merry tune; but +it came out so doleful, that he shook his head, and laid the +instrument down. Music must be in the heart, or it will come out of the +fingers--notes, not music. + +"No," said he; "let us be serious and finish this comedy slap off. +Perhaps it hitches because I forgot to invoke the comic muse. She must +be a black-hearted jade, if she doesn't come with merry notions to a +poor devil, starving in the midst of his hungry little ones." + +"We are past help from heathen goddesses," said the woman. "We must pray +to Heaven to look down upon us and our children." + +The man looked up with a very bad expression on his countenance. + +"You forget," said he sullenly, "our street is very narrow, and the +opposite houses are very high." + +"James!" + +"How can Heaven be expected to see what honest folk endure in so dark a +hole as this?" cried the man, fiercely. + +"James," said the woman, with fear and sorrow, "what words are these?" + +The man rose and flung his pen upon the floor. + +"Have we given honesty a fair trial--yes or no?" + +"No!" said the woman, without a moment's hesitation; "not till we die, +as we have lived. Heaven is higher than the sky; children," said she, +lest perchance her husband's words should have harmed their young souls, +"the sky is above the earth, and heaven is higher than the sky; and +Heaven is just." + +"I suppose it is so," said the man, a little cowed by her. "Everybody +says so. I think so, at bottom, myself; but I can't see it. I want to +see it, but I can't!" cried he, fiercely. "Have my children offended +Heaven? They will starve--they will die! If I was Heaven, I'd be just, +and send an angel to take these children's part. They cried to me for +bread--I had no bread; so I gave them hard words. The moment I had done +that I knew it was all over. God knows it took a long while to break my +heart; but it is broken at last; quite, quite broken! broken! broken!" + +And the poor thing laid his head upon the table, and sobbed, beyond all +power of restraint. The children cried round him, scarce knowing why; +and Mrs. Triplet could only say, "My poor husband!" and prayed and wept +upon the couch where she lay. + +It was at this juncture that a lady, who had knocked gently and unheard, +opened the door, and with a light step entered the apartment; but no +sooner had she caught sight of Triplet's anguish, than, saying hastily, +"Stay, I forgot something," she made as hasty an exit. + +This gave Triplet a moment to recover himself; and Mrs. Woffington, +whose lynx eye had comprehended all at a glance, and who had determined +at once what line to take, came flying in again, saying: + +"Wasn't somebody inquiring for an angel? Here I am. See, Mr. Triplet;" +and she showed him a note, which said: "Madam, you are an angel. From a +perfect stranger," explained she; "so it must be true." + +"Mrs. Woffington," said Mr. Triplet to his wife. Mrs. Woffington planted +herself in the middle of the floor, and with a comical glance, setting +her arms akimbo, uttered a shrill whistle. + +"Now you will see another angel--there are two sorts of them." + +Pompey came in with a basket; she took it from him. + +"Lucifer, avaunt!" cried she, in a terrible tone, that drove him to the +wall; "and wait outside the door," added she, conversationally. + +"I heard you were ill, ma'am, and I have brought you some physic--black +draughts from Burgundy;" and she smiled. And, recovered from their +first surprise, young and old began to thaw beneath that witching, +irresistible smile. "Mrs. Triplet, I have come to give your husband a +sitting; will you allow me to eat my little luncheon with you? I am so +hungry." Then she clapped her hands, and in ran Pompey. She sent him +for a pie she professed to have fallen in love with at the corner of the +street. + +"Mother," said Alcibiades, "will the lady give me a bit of her pie?" + +"Hush! you rude boy!" cried the mother. + +"She is not much of a lady if she does not," cried Mrs. Woffington. +"Now, children, first let us look at--ahem--a comedy. Nineteen _dramatis +personae!_ What do you say, children, shall we cut out seven, or +nine? that is the question. You can't bring your armies into our +drawing-rooms, Mr. Dagger-and-bowl. Are you the Marlborough of comedy? +Can you marshal battalions on a turkey carpet, and make gentlefolks +witty in platoons? What is this in the first act? A duel, and both +wounded! You butcher!" + +"They are not to die, ma'am!" cried Triplet, deprecatingly "upon my +honor," said he, solemnly, spreading his bands on his bosom. + +"Do you think I'll trust their lives with you? No! Give me a pen; this +is the way we run people through the body." Then she wrote ("business." +Araminta looks out of the garret window. Combatants drop their swords, +put their hands to their hearts, and stagger off O. P. and P. S.) "Now, +children, who helps me to lay the cloth?" + +"I!" + +"And I!" (The children run to the cupboard.) + +_Mrs. Triplet_ (half rising). "Madam, I--can't think of allowing you." + +Mrs. Woffington replied: "Sit down, madam, or I must use brute force. +If you are ill, be ill--till I make you well. Twelve plates, quick! +Twenty-four knives, quicker! Forty-eight forks quickest!" She met the +children with the cloth and laid it; then she met them again and laid +knives and forks, all at full gallop, which mightily excited the bairns. +Pompey came in with the pie, Mrs. Woffington took it and set it before +Triplet. + +_Mrs. Woffington._ "Your coat, Mr. Triplet, if you please." + +_Mr. Triplet._ "My coat, madam!" + +_Mrs. Woffington._ "Yes, off with it--there's a hole in it--and carve." +Then she whipped to the other end of the table and stitched like +wild-fire. "Be pleased to cast your eyes on that, Mrs. Triplet. Pass +it to the lady, young gentleman. Fire away, Mr. Triplet, never mind us +women. Woffington's housewife, ma'am, fearful to the eye, only it holds +everything in the world, and there is a small space for everything +else--to be returned by the bearer. Thank you, sir." (Stitches away like +lightning at the coat.) "Eat away, children! now is your time; when once +I begin, the pie will soon end; I do everything so quick." + +_Roxalana._ "The lady sews quicker than you, mother." + +_Woffington._ "Bless the child, don't come so near my sword-arm; the +needle will go into your eye, and out at the back of your head." + +This nonsense made the children giggle. + +"The needle will be lost--the child no more--enter undertaker--house +turned topsy-turvy--father shows Woffington to the door--off she +goes with a face as long and dismal as some people's comedies--no +names--crying fine chan-ey oranges." + +The children, all but Lucy, screeched with laughter. + +Lucy said gravely: + +"Mother, the lady is very funny." + +"You will be as funny when you are as well paid for it." + +This just hit poor Trip's notion of humor, and he began to choke, with +his mouth full of pie. + +"James, take care," said Mrs. Triplet, sad and solemn. + +James looked up. + +"My wife is a good woman, madam," said he; "but deficient in an +important particular." + +"Oh, James!" + +"Yes, my dear. I regret to say you have no sense of humor; nummore than +a cat, Jane." + +"What! because the poor thing can't laugh at your comedy?" + +"No, ma'am; but she laughs at nothing." + +"Try her with one of your tragedies, my lad." + +"I am sure, James," said the poor, good, lackadaisical woman, "if I +don't laugh, it is not for want of the will. I used to be a very hearty +laugher," whined she; "but I haven't laughed this two years." + +"Oh, indeed!" said the Woffington. "Then the next two years you shall do +nothing else." + +"Ah, madam!" said Triplet. "That passes the art, even of the great +comedian." + +"Does it?" said the actress, coolly. + +_Lucy._ "She is not a comedy lady. You don't ever cry, pretty lady?" + +_Woffington_ (ironically). "Oh, of course not." + +_Lucy_ (confidentially). "Comedy is crying. Father cried all the time he +was writing his one." + +Triplet turned red as fire. + +"Hold your tongue," said he. "I was bursting with merriment. Wife, +our children talk too much; they put their noses into everything, and +criticise their own father." + +"Unnatural offspring!" laughed the visitor. + +"And when they take up a notion, Socrates couldn't convince them to +the contrary. For instance, madam, all this morning they thought fit to +assume that they were starving." + +"So we were," said Lysimachus, "until the angel came; and the devil went +for the pie." + +"There--there--there! Now, you mark my words; we shall never get that +idea out of their heads--" + +"Until," said Mrs. Woffington, lumping a huge cut of pie into Roxalana's +plate, "we put a very different idea into their stomachs." This and the +look she cast on Mrs. Triplet fairly caught that good, though somber +personage. She giggled; put her hand to her face, and said: "I'm sure I +ask your pardon, ma'am." + +It was no use; the comedian had determined they should all laugh, and +they were made to laugh. Then she rose, and showed them how to drink +healths _a la Francaise;_ and keen were her little admirers to touch her +glass with theirs. And the pure wine she had brought did Mrs. Triplet +much good, too; though not so much as the music and sunshine of her face +and voice. Then, when their stomachs were full of good food, and the +soul of the grape tingled in their veins, and their souls glowed under +her great magnetic power, she suddenly seized the fiddle, and showed +them another of her enchantments. She put it on her knee, and played +a tune that would have made gout, cholic and phthisic dance upon their +last legs. She played to the eye as well as to the ear, with such a +smart gesture of the bow, and such a radiance of face as she looked +at them, that whether the music came out of her wooden shell, or her +horse-hair wand, or her bright self, seemed doubtful. They pranced on +their chairs; they could not keep still. She jumped up; so did they. She +gave a wild Irish horroo. She put the fiddle in Triplet's hand. + +"The wind that shakes the barley, ye divil!" cried she. + +Triplet went _hors de lui;_ he played like Paganini, or an intoxicated +demon. Woffington covered the buckle in gallant style; she danced, the +children danced. Triplet fiddled and danced, and flung his limbs in wild +dislocation: the wineglasses danced; and last, Mrs. Triplet was observed +to be bobbing about on her sofa, in a monstrous absurd way, droning out +the tune, and playing her hands with mild enjoyment, all to herself. +Woffington pointed out this pantomimic soliloquy to the two boys, with +a glance full of fiery meaning. This was enough. With a fiendish yell, +they fell upon her, and tore her, shrieking, off the sofa. And lo! when +she was once launched, she danced up to her husband, and set to him with +a meek deliberation that was as funny as any part of the scene. So +then the mover of all this slipped on one side, and let the stone of +merriment--roll--and roll it did; there was no swimming, sprawling, or +irrelevant frisking; their feet struck the ground for every note of the +fiddle, pat as its echo, their faces shone, their hearts leaped, and +their poor frozen natures came out, and warmed themselves at the glowing +melody; a great sunbeam had come into their abode, and these human motes +danced in it. The elder ones recovered their gravity first, they sat +down breathless, and put their hands to their hearts; they looked at +one another, and then at the goddess who had revived them. Their first +feeling was wonder; were they the same, who, ten minutes ago, were +weeping together? Yes! ten minutes ago they were rayless, joyless, +hopeless. Now the sun was in their hearts, and sorrow and sighing were +fled, as fogs disperse before the god of day. It was magical; could +a mortal play upon the soul of man, woman and child like this? Happy +Woffington! and suppose this was more than half acting, but such acting +as Triplet never dreamed of; and to tell the honest, simple truth, I +myself should not have suspected it; but children are sharper than one +would think, and Alcibiades Triplet told, in after years, that, when +they were all dancing except the lady, he caught sight of her face--and +it was quite, quite grave, and even sad; but, as often as she saw him +look at her, she smiled at him so gayly--he couldn't believe it was the +same face. + +If it was art, glory be to such art so worthily applied! and honor to +such creatures as this, that come like sunshine into poor men's houses, +and tune drooping hearts to daylight and hope! + +The wonder of these worthy people soon changed to gratitude. Mrs. +Woffington stopped their mouths at once. + +"No, no!" cried she; "if you really love me, no scenes; I hate them. +Tell these brats to kiss me, and let me go. I must sit for my picture +after dinner; it is a long way to Bloomsbury Square." + +The children needed no bidding; they clustered round her, and poured out +their innocent hearts as children only do. + +"I shall pray for you after father and mother," said one. + +"I shall pray for you after daily bread," said Lucy, "because we were +_tho_ hungry till you came!" + +"My poor children!" cried Woffington, and hard to grown-up actors, +as she called us, but sensitive to children, she fairly melted as she +embraced them. + +It was at this precise juncture that the door was unceremoniously +opened, and the two gentlemen burst upon the scene! + +My reader now guesses whom Sir Charles Pomander surprised more than he +did Mrs. Woffington. He could not for the life of him comprehend what +she was doing, and what was her ulterior object. The _nil admirari_ of +the fine gentleman deserted him, and he gazed open-mouthed, like the +veriest chaw-bacon. + +The actress, unable to extricate herself in a moment from the children, +stood there like Charity, in New College Chapel, while the mother kissed +her hand, and the father quietly dropped tears, like some leaden water +god in the middle of a fountain. + +Vane turned hot and cold by turns, with joy and shame. Pomander's genius +came to the aid of their embarrassment. + +"Follow my lead," whispered he. "What! Mrs. Woffington here!" cried he; +then he advanced business-like to Triplet. "We are aware, sir, of your +various talents, and are come to make a demand on them. I, sir, am the +unfortunate possessor of frescoes; time has impaired their indelicacy, +no man can restore it as you can." + +"Augh! sir! sir!" said the gratified goose. + +"My Cupid's bows are walking-sticks, and my Venus's noses are snubbed. +You must set all that straight on your own terms, Mr. Triplet." + +"In a single morning all shall bloom again, sir! Whom would you wish +them to resemble in feature? I have lately been praised for my skill in +portraiture." (Glancing at Mrs. Woffington.) + +"Oh!" said Pomander, carelessly, "you need not go far for Venuses and +Cupids, I suppose?" + +"I see, sir; my wife and children. Thank you, sir; thank you." + +Pomander stared; Mrs. Woffington laughed. + +Now it was Vane's turn. + +"Let me have a copy of verses from your pen. I shall have five pounds at +your disposal for them." + +"The world has found me out!" thought Triplet, blinded by his vanity.-- + +"The subject, sir?" + +"No matter," said Vane--"no matter." + +"Oh, of course it does not matter to me," said Triplet, with some +_hauteur,_ and assuming poetic omnipotence. "Only, when one knows the +subject, one can sometimes make the verses apply better." + +"Write then, since you are so confident, upon Mrs. Woffington." + +"Ah! that is a subject! They shall be ready in an hour!" cried Trip, +in whose imagination Parnassus was a raised counter. He had in a teacup +some lines on Venus and Mars which he could not but feel would fit +Thalia and Croesus, or Genius and Envy, equally well. "In one hour, +sir," said Triplet, "the article shall be executed, and delivered at +your house." + +Mrs. Woffington called Vane to her, with an engaging smile. A month ago +he would have hoped she would not have penetrated him and Sir Charles; +but he knew her better now. He came trembling. + +"Look me in the face, Mr. Vane," said she, gently, but firmly. + +"I cannot!" said he. "How can I ever look you in the face again?" + +"Ah! you disarm me! But I must strike you, or this will never end. Did +I not promise that, when you had earned my _if_ esteem, I would +tell you--what no mortal knows--Ernest, my whole story? I delay the +confession. It will cost me so many blushes, so many tears! And yet I +hope, if you knew all, you would pity and forgive me. Meantime, did I +ever tell you a falsehood?" + +"Oh no!" + +"Why doubt me then, when I tell you that I hold all your sex cheap +but you? Why suspect me of Heaven knows what, at the dictation of a +heartless, brainless fop--on the word of a known liar, like the world?" + +Black lightning flashed from her glorious eyes as she administered this +royal rebuke. Vane felt what a poor creature he was, and his face showed +such burning shame and contrition, that he obtained his pardon without +speaking. + +"There," said she, kindly, "do not let us torment one another. I forgive +you. Let me make you happy, Ernest. Is that a great favor to ask? I can +make you happier than your brightest dream of happiness, if you will let +yourself be happy." + +They rejoined the others; but Vane turned his back on Pomander, and +would not look at him. + +"Sir Charles," said Mrs. Woffington gayly; for she scorned to admit the +fine gentleman to the rank of a permanent enemy, "you will be of our +party, I trust, at dinner?" + +"Why, no, madam; I fear I cannot give myself that pleasure to-day." Sir +Charles did not choose to swell the triumph. "Mr. Vane, good day!" +said he, rather dryly. "Mr. Triplet--madam--your most obedient!" and, +self-possessed at top, but at bottom crestfallen, he bowed himself away. + +Sir Charles, however, on descending the stair and gaining the street, +caught sight of a horseman, riding uncertainly about, and making his +horse curvet, to attract attention. + +He soon recognized one of his own horses, and upon it the servant he had +left behind to dog that poor innocent country lady. The servant sprang +off his horse and touched his hat. He informed his master that he had +kept with the carriage until ten o'clock this morning, when he had +ridden away from it at Barnet, having duly pumped the servants as +opportunity offered. + +"Who is she?" cried Sir Charles. + +"Wife of a Cheshire squire, Sir Charles," was the reply. + +"His name? Whither goes she in town?" + +"Her name is Mrs. Vane, Sir Charles. She is going to her husband." + +"Curious!" cried Sir Charles. "I wish she had no husband. No! I wish she +came from Shropshire," and he chuckled at the notion. + +"If you please, Sir Charles," said the man, "is not Willoughby in +Cheshire?" + +"No," cried his master; "it is in Shropshire. What! eh! Five guineas for +you if that lady comes from Willoughby in Shropshire. + +"That is where she comes from then, Sir Charles, and she is going to +Bloomsbury Square." + +"How long have they been married?" + +"Not more than twelve months, Sir Charles." + +Pomander gave the man ten guineas instead of five on the spot. + +Reader, it was too true! Mr. Vane--the good, the decent, the +churchgoer--Mr. Vane, whom Mrs. Woffington had selected to improve her +morals--Mr. Vane was a married man! + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +As soon as Pomander had drawn his breath and realized this discovery, he +darted upstairs, and with all the demure calmness he could assume, +told Mr. Vane, whom he met descending, that he was happy to find his +engagements permitted him to join the party in Bloomsbury Square. He +then flung himself upon his servant's horse. + +Like Iago, he saw the indistinct outline of a glorious and a most +malicious plot; it lay crude in his head and heart at present; thus much +he saw clearly, that, if he could time Mrs. Vane's arrival so that she +should pounce upon the Woffington at her husband's table, he might be +present at and enjoy the public discomfiture of a man and woman who +had wounded his vanity. Bidding his servant make the best of his way +to Bloomsbury Square, Sir Charles galloped in that direction himself, +intending first to inquire whether Mrs. Vane was arrived, and, if not, +to ride toward Islington and meet her. His plan was frustrated by an +accident; galloping round a corner, his horse did not change his leg +cleverly, and, the pavement being also loose, slipped and fell on his +side, throwing his rider upon the _trottoir._ The horse got up and +trembled violently, but was unhurt. The rider lay motionless, except +that his legs quivered on the pavement. They took him up and conveyed +him into a druggist's shop, the master of which practiced chirurgery. He +had to be sent for; and, before he could be found, Sir Charles recovered +his reason, so much so, that when the chirurgeon approached with his +fleam to bleed him, according to the practice of the day, the patient +drew his sword, and assured the other he would let out every drop of +blood in his body if he touched him. + +He of the shorter but more lethal weapon hastily retreated. Sir Charles +flung a guinea on the counter, and mounting his horse rode him off +rather faster than before this accident. + +There was a dead silence! + +"I believe that gentleman to be the Devil!" said a thoughtful bystander. +The crowd (it was a century ago) assented _nem. con._ + +Sir Charles, arrived in Bloomsbury Square, found that the whole party +was assembled. He therefore ordered his servant to parade before the +door, and, if he saw Mrs. Vane's carriage enter the Square, to let him +know, if possible, before she should reach the house. On entering he +learned that Mr. Vane and his guests were in the garden (a very fine +one), and joined them there. + +Mrs. Vane demands another chapter, in which I will tell the reader who +she was, and what excuse her husband had for his liaison with Margaret +Woffington. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MABEL CHESTER was the beauty and toast of South Shropshire. She had +refused the hand of half the country squires in a circle of some dozen +miles, till at last Mr. Vane became her suitor. Besides a handsome face +and person, Mr. Vane had accomplishments his rivals did not possess. He +read poetry to her on mossy banks an hour before sunset, and awakened +sensibilities which her other suitors shocked, and they them. + +The lovely Mabel had a taste for beautiful things, without any excess of +that severe quality called judgment. + +I will explain. If you or I, reader, had read to her in the afternoon, +amid the smell of roses and eglantine, the chirp of the mavis, the hum +of bees, the twinkling of butterflies, and the tinkle of distant sheep, +something that combined all these sights, and sounds, and smells--say +Milton's musical picture of Eden, P. L., lib. 3, and after that "Triplet +on Kew," she would have instantly pronounced in favor of "Eden"; but +if _we_ had read her "Milton," and Mr. Vane had read her "Triplet," she +would have as unhesitatingly preferred "Kew" to "Paradise." + +She was a true daughter of Eve; the lady, who, when an angel was telling +her and her husband the truths of heaven in heaven's own music, slipped +away into the kitchen, because she preferred hearing the story at +second-hand, encumbered with digressions, and in mortal but marital +accents. + +When her mother, who guarded Mabel like a dragon, told her Mr. Vane was +not rich enough, and she really must not give him so many opportunities, +Mabel cried and embraced the dragon, and said, "Oh, mother!" The +dragon, finding her ferocity dissolving, tried to shake her off, but the +goose would cry and embrace the dragon till it melted. + +By and by Mr. Vane's uncle died suddenly and left him the great +Stoken Church estate, and a trunk full of Jacobuses and Queen Anne's +guineas--his own hoard and his father's--then the dragon spake +comfortably and said: "My child, he is now the richest man in +Shropshire. He will not think of you now; so steel your heart." + +Then Mabel, contrary to all expectations, did not cry; but, with +flushing cheek, pledged her life upon Ernest's love and honor: and +Ernest, as soon as the funeral, etc., left him free, galloped to Mabel, +to talk of our good fortune. The dragon had done him injustice; that +was not his weak point. So they were married! and they were very, very +happy. But, one month after, the dragon died, and that was their first +grief; but they bore it together. + +And Vane was not like the other Shropshire squires. His idea of pleasure +was something his wife could share. He still rode, walked, and sat with +her, and read to her, and composed songs for her, and about her, which +she played and sang prettily enough, in her quiet, lady-like way, and in +a voice of honey dropping from the comb. Then she kept a keen eye upon +him; and, when she discovered what dishes he liked, she superintended +those herself; and, observing that he never failed to eat of a certain +lemon-pudding the dragon had originated, she always made this pudding +herself, and she never told her husband she made it. + +The first seven months of their marriage was more like blue sky than +brown earth; and if any one had told Mabel that her husband was a +mortal, and not an angel, sent to her that her days and nights might +be unmixed, uninterrupted heaven, she could hardly have realized the +information. + +When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane +was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert +the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have +compounded by giving the man two or three thousand acres or the whole +estate, if he wouldn't take less, not to rob her of her husband for +a month; but she was docile, as she was amorous; so she cried (out of +sight) a week; and let her darling go with every misgiving a loving +heart could have; but one! and that one her own heart told her was +impossible. + +The month rolled away--no symptom of a return. For this, Mr. Vane was +not, in fact, to blame; but, toward the end of the next month, business +became a convenient excuse. When three months had passed, Mrs. Vane +became unhappy. She thought he too must feel the separation. She offered +to come to him. He answered uncandidly. He urged the length, the fatigue +of the journey. She was silenced; but some time later she began to take +a new view of his objections. "He is so self-denying," said she. "Dear +Ernest, he longs for me; but he thinks it selfish to let me travel so +far alone to see him." + +Full of this idea, she yielded to her love. She made her preparations, +and wrote to him, that, if he did not forbid her peremptorily, he must +expect to see her at his breakfast-table in a very few days. + +Mr. Vane concluded this was a jest, and did not answer this letter at +all. + +Mrs. Vane started. She traveled with all speed; but, coming to a halt +at ----, she wrote to her husband that she counted on being with him at +four of the clock on Thursday. + +This letter preceded her arrival by a few hours. It was put into his +hand at the same time with a note from Mrs. Woffington, telling him she +should be at a rehearsal at Covent Garden. Thinking his wife's letter +would keep, he threw it on one side into a sort of a tray; and, after a +hurried breakfast, went out of his house to the theater. He returned, as +we are aware, with Mrs. Woffington; and also, at her request, with Mr. +Cibber, for whom they had called on their way. He had forgotten his +wife's letter, and was entirely occupied with his guests. + +Sir Charles Pomander joined them, and found Mr. Colander, the head +domestic of the London establishment, cutting with a pair of scissors +every flower Mrs. Woffington fancied, that lady having a passion for +flowers. + +Colander, during his temporary absence from the interior, had appointed +James Burdock to keep the house, and receive the two remaining guests, +should they arrive. + +This James Burdock was a faithful old country servant, who had come up +with Mr. Vane, but left his heart at Willoughby. James Burdock had for +some time been ruminating, and his conclusion was, that his mistress, +Miss Mabel (as by force of habit he called her), was not treated as she +deserved. + +Burdock had been imported into Mr. Vane's family by Mabel; he had +carried her in his arms when she was a child; he had held her upon a +donkey when she was a little girl; and when she became a woman, it was +he who taught her to stand close to her horse, and give him her foot and +spring while he lifted her steadily but strongly into her saddle, and, +when there, it was he who had instructed her that a horse was not a +machine, that galloping tires it in time, and that galloping it on +the hard road hammers it to pieces. "I taught the girl," thought James +within himself. + +This honest silver-haired old fellow seemed so ridiculous to Colander, +the smooth, supercilious Londoner, that he deigned sometimes to converse +with James, in order to quiz him. This very morning they had had a +conversation. + +"Poor Miss Mabel! dear heart. A twelvemonth married, and nigh six months +of it a widow, or next door." + +"We write to her, James, and entertain her replies, which are at +considerable length." + +"Ay, but we don't read 'em!" said James, with an uneasy glance at the +tray. + +"Invariably, at our leisure; meantime we make ourselves happy among the +wits and the sirens." + +"And she do make others happy among the poor and the ailing." + +"Which shows," said Colander, superciliously, "the difference of +tastes." + +Burdock, whose eye had never been off his mistress's handwriting, at +last took it up and said: "Master Colander, do if ye please, sir, take +this into master's dressing-room, do now?" + +Colander looked down on the missive with dilating eye. "Not a bill, +James Burdock," said he, reproachfully. + +"A bill! bless ye, no. A letter from missus." + +No, the dog would not take it in to his master; and poor James, with a +sigh, replaced it in the tray. + +This James Burdock, then, was left in charge of the hall by Colander, +and it so happened that the change was hardly effected before a hurried +knocking came to the street door. + +"Ay, ay!" grumbled Burdock, "I thought it would not be long. London for +knocking and ringing all day, and ringing and knocking all night." He +opened the door reluctantly and suspiciously, and in darted a lady, +whose features were concealed by a hood. She glided across the hall, +as if she was making for some point, and old James shuffled after her, +crying: "Stop, stop! young woman. What is your name, young woman?" + +"Why, James Burdock," cried the lady, removing her hood, "have you +forgotten your mistress?" + +"Mistress! Why, Miss Mabel, I ask your pardon, madam--here, John, +Margery!" + +"Hush!" cried Mrs. Vane. + +"But where are your trunks, miss? And where's the coach, and Darby and +Joan? To think of their drawing you all the way here! I'll have 'em into +your room directly, ma'am. Miss, you've come just in time." + +"What a dear, good, stupid old thing you are, James. Where is +Ernest--Mr. Vane? James, is he well and happy? I want to surprise him." + +"Yes, ma'am," said James, looking down. + +"I left the old stupid coach at Islington, James. The something--pin was +loose, or I don't know what. Could I wait two hours there? So I came on +by myself; you wicked old man, you let me talk, and don't tell me how he +is." + +"Master is main well, ma'am, and thank you," said old Burdock, confused +and uneasy. + +"But is he happy? Of course he is. Are we not to meet to-day after six +months? Ah! but never mind, they _are_ gone by." + +"Lord bless her!" thought the faithful old fellow. "If sitting down and +crying could help her, I wouldn't be long." + +By this time they were in the banqueting-room and at the preparations +there Mabel gave a start; she then colored. "Oh, he has invited his +friends to make acquaintance. I had rather we had been alone all this +day and to-morrow. But he must not know that. No; _his_ friends are _my_ +friends, and shall be too," thought the country wife. She then glanced +with some misgiving at her traveling attire, and wished she had brought +_one_ trunk with her. + +"James," said she, "where is my room? And, mind, I forbid you to tell a +soul I am come." + +"Your room, Miss Mabel?" + +"Well, any room where there is looking-glass and water." + +She then went to a door which opened in fact on a short passage leading +to a room occupied by Mr. Vane himself. + +"No, no!" cried James. "That is master's room." + +"Well, is not master's room mistress's room, old man? But stay; is he +there?" + +"No, ma'am; he is in the garden, with a power of fine folks." + +"They shall not see me till I have made myself a little more decent," +said the young beauty, who knew at bottom how little comparatively +the color of her dress could affect her appearance, and she opened Mr. +Vane's door and glided in. + +Burdock's first determination was, in spite of her injunction, to tell +Colander; but on reflection he argued: "And then what will they do? +They will put their heads together, and deceive us some other way. No!" +thought James, with a touch of spite, "we shall see how they will all +look." He argued also, that, at sight of his beautiful wife, his master +must come to his senses, and the Colander faction be defeated; and +perhaps, by the mercy of Providence, Colander himself turned off. + +While thus ruminating, a thundering knock at the door almost knocked him +off his legs. "There ye go again," said he, and he went angrily to the +door. This time it was Hunsdon, who was in a desperate hurry to see his +master. + +"Where is Sir Charles Pomander, my honest fellow?" said he. + +"In the garden, my Jack-a-dandy!" said Burdock, furiously. + +("Honest fellow," among servants, implies some moral inferiority.) + +In the garden went Hunsdon. His master--all whose senses were playing +sentinel--saw him, and left the company to meet him. + +"She is in the house, sir." + +"Good! Go--vanish!" + +Sir Charles looked into the banquet-room; the haunch was being placed on +the table. He returned with the information. He burned to bring husband +and wife together; he counted each second lost that postponed this (to +him) thrilling joy. Oh, how happy he was!--happier than the serpent when +he saw Eve's white teeth really strike into the apple! + +"Shall we pay respect to this haunch, Mr. Quin?" said Vane, gayly. + +"If you please, sir," said Quin, gravely. Colander ran down a by-path +with an immense bouquet, which he arranged for Mrs. Woffington in a vase +at Mr. Vane's left hand. He then threw open the windows, which were on +the French plan, and shut within a foot of the lawn. + +The musicians in the arbor struck up, and the company, led by Mr. +Vane and Mrs. Woffington, entered the room. And a charming room it +was!--light, lofty, and large--adorned in the French way with white and +gold. The table was an exact oval, and at it everybody could hear what +any one said; an excellent arrangement where ideaed guests only are +admitted--which is another excellent arrangement, though I see people +don't think so. + +The repast was luxurious and elegant. There was no profusion of +unmeaning dishes; each was a _bonne-bouche_--an undeniable delicacy. The +glass was beautiful, the plates silver. The flowers rose like walls +from the table; the plate massive and glorious; rose-water in the +hand-glasses; music crept in from the garden, deliciously subdued into +what seemed a natural sound. A broad stream of southern sun gushed in +fiery gold through the open window, and, like a red-hot rainbow, danced +through the stained glass above it. Existence was a thing to bask in--in +such a place, and so happy an hour! + +The guests were Quin, Mrs. Clive, Mr. Cibber, Sir Charles Pomander, Mrs. +Woffington, and Messrs. Soaper and Snarl, critics of the day. This pair, +with wonderful sagacity, had arrived from the street as the haunch +came from the kitchen. Good-humor reigned; some cuts passed, but as the +parties professed wit, they gave and took. + +Quin carved the haunch, and was happy; Soaper and Snarl eating the same, +and drinking Toquay, were mellowed and mitigated into human flesh. Mr. +Vane and Mrs. Woffington were happy; he, because his conscience was +asleep; and she, because she felt nothing now could shake her hold of +him. Sir Charles was in a sort of mental chuckle. His head burned, his +bones ached; but he was in a sort of nervous delight. + +"Where is she?" thought he. "What will she do? Will she send her maid +with a note? How blue he will look! Or will she come herself? She is a +country wife; there must be a scene. Oh, why doesn't she come into this +room? She must know we are here! is she watching somewhere?" His brain +became puzzled, and his senses were sharpened to a point; he was all +eye, ear and expectation; and this was why he was the only one to hear +a very slight sound behind the door we have mentioned, and next to +perceive a lady's glove lying close to that door. Mabel had dropped it +in her retreat. Putting this and that together, he was led to hope and +believe she was there, making her toilet, perhaps, and her arrival at +present unknown. + +"Do you expect no one else?" said he, with feigned carelessness, to Mr. +Vane. + +"No," said Mr. Vane, with real carelessness. + +"It must be so! What fortune!" thought Pomander. + +_Soaper._ "Mr. Cibber looks no older than he did five years ago." + +_Snarl._ "There was no room on his face for a fresh wrinkle." + +_Soaper._ "He! he! Nay, Mr. Snarl: Mr. Cibber is like old port; the more +ancient he grows, the more delicious his perfume." + +_Snarl._ "And the crustier he gets." + +_Clive._ "Mr. Vane, you should always separate those two. Snarl, by +himself, is just supportable; but, when Soaper paves the way with his +hypocritical praise, the pair are too much; they are a two-edged sword." + +_Woffington._ "Wanting nothing but polish and point." + +_Vane._ "Gentlemen, we abandon your neighbor, Mr. Quin, to you." + +_Quin._ "They know better. If they don't keep a civil tongue in their +heads, no fat goes from here to them." + +_Cibber._ "Ah, Mr. Vane; this room is delightful; but it makes me sad. I +knew this house in Lord Longueville's time; an unrivaled gallant, Peggy. +You may just remember him, Sir Charles?" + +_Pomander_ (with his eye on a certain door). "Yes, yes; a gouty old +fellow." + +Cibber fired up. "I wish you may ever be like him. Oh, the beauty, the +wit, the _petits-soupers_ that used to be here! Longueville was a great +creature, Mr. Vane. I have known him entertain a fine lady in this room, +while her rival was fretting and fuming on the other side of that door." + +"Ah, indeed!" said Sir Charles. + +"More shame for him," said Mr. Vane. + +Here was luck! Pomander seized this opportunity of turning the +conversation to his object. With a malicious twinkle in his eye, he +inquired of Mr. Cibber what made him fancy the house had lost its virtue +in Mr. Vane's hands. + +"Because," said Cibber, peevishly, "you all want the true _savoir faire_ +nowadays, because there is no _juste milieu,_ young gentlemen. The young +dogs of the day are all either unprincipled heathen, like yourself, or +Amadisses, like our worthy host." The old gentleman's face and manners +were like those of a patriarch, regretting the general decay of virtue, +not the imaginary diminution of a single vice. He concluded with a sigh +that, "The true _preux des dames_ went out with the full periwig; stab +my vitals!" + +"A bit of fat, Mr. Cibber?" said Quin, whose jokes were not polished. + +"Jemmy, thou art a brute," was the reply. + +"You refuse, sir?" said Quin, sternly. + +"No, sir!" said Cibber, with dignity. "I accept." + +Pomander's eye was ever on the door. + +"The old are so unjust to the young," said he. "You pretend that the +Deluge washed away iniquity, and that a rake is a fossil. What," said +he, leaning as it were on every word, "if I bet you a cool hundred +that Vane has a petticoat in that room, and that Mrs. Woffington shall +unearth her?" + +The malicious dog thought this was the surest way to effect a dramatic +exposure, because if Peggy found Mabel to all appearances concealed, +Peggy would scold her, and betray herself. + +"Pomander!" cried Vane, in great heat; then, checking himself, he said +coolly: "but you all know Pomander." + +"None of you," replied that gentleman. "Bring a chair, sir," said he, +authoritatively, to a servant; who, of course, obeyed. + +Mrs. Clive looked at him, and thought: "There is something in this!" + +"It is for the lady," said he, coolly. Then, leaning over the table, +he said to Mrs. Woffington, with an impudent affectation of friendly +understanding: "I ran her to earth in this house not ten minutes ago. +Of course I don't know who she is! But," smacking his lips, "a rustic +Amaryllis, breathing all May-buds and Meadowsweet." + +"Have her out, Peggy!" shouted Cibber. "I know the run--there's the +covert! Hark, forward! Ha, ha, ha!" + +Mr. Vane rose, and, with a sternness that brought the old beau up with +a run, he said: "Mr. Cibber, age and infirmity are privileged; but for +you, Sir Charles--" + +"Don't be angry," interposed Mrs. Woffington, whose terror was lest he +should quarrel with so practiced a swordsman. "Don't you see it is a +jest! and, as might be expected from poor Sir Charles, a very sorry one. + +"A jest!" said Vane, white with rage. "Let it go no further, or it will +be earnest!" + +Mrs. Woffington placed her hand on his shoulder, and at that touch he +instantly yielded, and sat down. + +It was at this moment, when Sir Charles found himself for the present +baffled--for he could no longer press his point, and search that room; +when the attention of all was drawn to a dispute, which, for a moment, +had looked like a quarrel; while Mrs. Woffington's hand still lingered, +as only a woman's hand can linger in leaving the shoulder of the man she +loves; it was at this moment the door opened of its own accord, and a +most beautiful woman stood, with a light step, upon the threshold! + +Nobody's back was to her, except Mr. Vane's. Every eye but his was +spellbound upon her. + +Mrs. Woffington withdrew her hand, as if a scorpion had touched her. + +A stupor of astonishment fell on them all. + +Mr. Vane, seeing the direction of all their eyes, slewed himself round +in his chair into a most awkward position, and when he saw the lady, he +was utterly dumfounded! But she, as soon as he turned his face her way, +glided up to him, with a little half-sigh, half-cry of joy, and taking +him round the neck, kissed him deliciously, while every eye at the table +met every other eye in turn. One or two of the men rose; for the lady's +beauty was as worthy of homage as her appearing was marvelous. + +Mrs. Woffington, too astonished for emotion to take any definite shape, +said, in what seemed an ordinary tone: "Who is this lady?" + +"I am his wife, madam," said Mabel, in the voice of a skylark, and +smiling friendly on the questioner. + +"It is my wife!" said Vane, like a speaking-machine; he was scarcely in +a conscious state. "It is my wife!" he repeated, mechanically. + +The words were no sooner out of Mabel's mouth than two servants, who had +never heard of Mrs. Vane before, hastened to place on Mr. Vane's right +hand the chair Pomander had provided, a plate and napkin were there in a +twinkling, and the wife modestly, but as a matter of course, courtesied +low, with an air of welcome to all her guests, and then glided into the +seat her servants obsequiously placed before her. + +The whole thing did not take half a minute! + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MR. VANE, besides being a rich, was a magnificent man; when his features +were in repose their beauty had a wise and stately character. Soaper and +Snarl had admired and bitterly envied him. At the present moment no one +of his guests envied him--they began to realize his position. And he, a +huge wheel of shame and remorse, began to turn and whir before his +eyes. He sat between two European beauties, and, pale and red by turns, +shunned the eyes of both, and looked down at his plate in a cold sweat +of humiliation, mortification and shame. + +The iron passed through Mrs. Woffington's soul. So! this was a villain, +too, the greatest villain of all--a hypocrite! She turned very faint, +but she was under an enemy's eye, and under a rival's; the thought +drove the blood back from her heart, and with a mighty effort she was +Woffington again. Hitherto her liaison with Mr. Vane had called up the +better part of her nature, and perhaps our reader has been taking her +for a good woman; but now all her dregs were stirred to the surface. The +mortified actress gulled by a novice, the wronged and insulted woman, +had but two thoughts; to defeat her rival--to be revenged on her false +lover. More than one sharp spasm passed over her features before she +could master them, and then she became smiles above, wormwood and +red-hot steel below--all in less than half a minute. + +As for the others, looks of keen intelligence passed between them, and +they watched with burning interest for the _denouement._ That interest +was stronger than their sense of the comicality of all this (for the +humorous view of what passes before our eyes comes upon cool reflection, +not often at the time). + +Sir Charles, indeed, who had foreseen some of this, wore a demure look, +belied by his glittering eye. He offered Cibber snuff, and the two +satirical animals grinned over the snuff-box, like a malicious old ape +and a mischievous young monkey. + +The newcomer was charming; she was above the middle height, of a +full, though graceful figure, her abundant, glossy, bright brown hair +glittered here and there like gold in the light; she had a snowy brow, +eyes of the profoundest blue, a cheek like a peach, and a face beaming +candor and goodness; the character of her countenance resembled "the +Queen of the May," in Mr. Leslie's famous picture, more than any face of +our day I can call to mind. + +"You are not angry with me for this silly trick?" said she, with some +misgiving. "After all I am only two hours before my time; you know, +dearest, I said four in my letter--did I not?" + +Vane stammered. What could he say? + +"And you have had three days to prepare you, for I wrote, like a good +wife, to ask leave before starting; but he never so much as answered my +letter, madam." (This she addressed to Mrs. Woffington, who smiled by +main force.) + +"Why," stammered Vane, "could you doubt? I--I--" + +"No! Silence was consent, was it not? But I beg your pardon, ladies +and gentlemen, I hope you will forgive me. It is six months since I saw +him--so you understand--I warrant me you did not look for me so soon, +ladies?" + +"Some of us did not look for you at all, madam," said Mrs. Woffington. + +"What, Ernest did not tell you he expected me?" + +"No! He told us this banquet was in honor of a lady's first visit to his +house, but none of us imagined that lady to be his wife." + +Vane began to writhe under that terrible tongue, whose point hitherto +had ever been turned away from him. + +"He intended to steal a march on us," said Pomander, dryly; "and, with +your help, we steal one on him;" and he smiled maliciously on Mrs. +Woffington. + +"But, madam," said Mr. Quin, "the moment you did arrive, I kept sacred +for you a bit of the fat; for which, I am sure, you must be ready. Pass +her plate!" + +"Not at present, Mr. Quin," said Mr. Vane, hastily. "She is about to +retire and change her traveling-dress." + +"Yes, dear; but, you forget, I am a stranger to your friends. Will you +not introduce me to them first?" + +"No, no!" cried Vane, in trepidation. "It is not usual to introduce in +the _beau monde."_ + +"We always introduce ourselves," rejoined Mrs. Woffington. She rose +slowly, with her eye on Vane. He cast a look of abject entreaty on her; +but there was no pity in that curling lip and awful eye. He closed his +own eyes and waited for the blow. Sir Charles threw himself back in his +chair, and, chuckling, prepared for the explosion. Mrs. Woffington saw +him, and cast on him a look of ineffable scorn; and then she held the +whole company fluttering a long while. At length: "The Honorable Mrs. +Quickly, madam," said she, indicating Mrs. Clive. + +This turn took them all by surprise. Pomander bit his lip. + +"Sir John Brute--" + +"Falstaff," cried Quin; "hang it." + +"Sir John Brute Falstaff," resumed Mrs. Woffington. "We call him, for +brevity, Brute." + +Vane drew a long breath. "Your neighbor is Lord Foppington; a butterfly +of some standing, and a little gouty." + +"Sir Charles Pomander." + +"Oh," cried Mrs. Vane. "It is the good gentleman who helped us out +of the slough, near Huntingdon. Ernest, if it had not been for this +gentleman, I should not have had the pleasure of being here now." And +she beamed on the good Pomander. + +Mr. Vane did not rise and embrace Sir Charles. + +"All the company thanks the good Sir Charles," said Cibber, bowing. + +"I see it in all their faces," said the good Sir Charles, dryly. + +Mrs. Woffington continued: "Mr. Soaper, Mr. Snarl; gentlemen who would +butter and slice up their own fathers!" + +"Bless me!" cried Mrs. Vane, faintly. + +"Critics!" And she dropped, as it were, the word dryly, with a sweet +smile, into Mabel's plate. + +Mrs. Vane was relieved; she had apprehended cannibals. London they had +told her was full of curiosities. + +"But yourself, madam?" + +"I am the Lady Betty Modish; at your service." + +A four-inch grin went round the table. The dramatical old rascal, +Cibber, began now to look at it as a bit of genteel comedy; and slipped +out his note-book under the table. Pomander cursed her ready wit, which +had disappointed him of his catastrophe. Vane wrote on a slip of paper: +"Pity and respect the innocent!" and passed it to Mrs. Woffington. He +could not have done a more superfluous or injudicious thing. + +"And now, Ernest," cried Mabel, "for the news from Willoughby." + +Vane stopped her in dismay. He felt how many satirical eyes and ears +were upon him and his wife. "Pray go and change your dress first, +Mabel," cried he, fully determined that on her return she should not +find the present party there. + +Mrs. Vane cast an imploring look on Mrs. Woffington. "My things are not +come," said she. "And, Lady Betty, I had so much to tell him, and to be +sent away;" and the deep blue eyes began to fill. + +Now Mrs. Woffington was determined that this lady, who she saw was +simple, should disgust her husband by talking twaddle before a band of +satirists. So she said warmly: "It is not fair on us. Pray, madam, your +budget of country news. Clouted cream so seldom comes to London quite +fresh." + +"There, you see, Ernest," said the unsuspicious soul. "First, you must +know that Gray Gillian is turned out for a brood mare, so old George +won't let me ride her; old servants are such tyrants, my lady. And my +Barbary hen has laid two eggs; Heaven knows the trouble we had to bring +her to it. And Dame Best, that is my husband's old nurse, Mrs. Quickly, +has had soup and pudding from the Hall everyday; and once she went so +far as to say it wasn't altogether a bad pudding. She is not a very +grateful woman, in a general way, poor thing! I made it with these +hands." + +Vane writhed. + +"Happy pudding!" observed Mr. Cibber. + +"Is this mockery, sir?" cried Vane, with a sudden burst of irritation. + +"No, sir; it is gallantry," replied Cibber, with perfect coolness. + +"Will you hear a little music in the garden?" said Vane to Mrs. +Woffington, pooh-poohing his wife's news. + +"Not till I hear the end of Dame Bess." + +"Best, my lady." + +"Dame Best interests _me,_ Mr. Vane." + +"Ay, and Ernest is very fond of her, too, when he is at home. She is in +her nice new cottage, dear; but she misses the draughts that were in +her old one--they were like old friends. 'The only ones I have, I'm +thinking,' said the dear cross old thing; and there stood I, on her +floor, with a flannel petticoat in both hands, that I had made for her, +and ruined my finger. Look else, my Lord Foppington?" She extended a +hand the color of cream. + +"Permit me, madam?" taking out his glasses, with which he inspected her +finger; and gravely announced to the company: "The laceration is, in +fact, discernible. May I be permitted, madam," added he, "to kiss this +fair hand, which I should never have suspected of having ever made +itself half so useful?" + +"Ay, my lord!" said she, coloring slightly, "you shall, because you are +so old; but I don't say for a young gentleman, unless it was the one +that belongs to me; and he does not ask me." + +"My dear Mabel; pray remember we are not at Willoughby." + +"I see we are not, Ernest." And the dove-like eyes filled brimful; and +all her innocent prattle was put an end to. + +"What brutes men are," thought Mrs. Woffington. "They are not worthy +even of a fool like this." + +Mr. Vane once more pressed her to hear a little music in the garden; +and this time she consented. Mr. Vane was far from being unmoved by +his wife's arrival, and her true affection. But she worried him; he +was anxious, above all things, to escape from his present position, and +separate the rival queens; and this was the only way he could see to do +it. He whispered Mabel, and bade her somewhat peremptorily rest herself +for an hour after her journey, and he entered the garden with Mrs. +Woffington. + +Now the other gentlemen admired Mrs. Vane the most. She was new. She was +as lovely, in her way, as Peggy; and it was the young May-morn beauty +of the country. They forgave her simplicity, and even her goodness, on +account of her beauty; men are not severe judges of beautiful women. +They all solicited her to come with them, and be the queen of the +garden. But the good wife was obedient. Her lord had told her she was +fatigued; so she said she was tired. + +"Mr. Vane's garden will lack its sweetest and fairest flower, madam," +cried Cibber, "if we leave you here." + +"Nay, my lord, there are fairer than I." + +"Poor Quin!" cried Kitty Clive; "to have to leave the alderman's walk +for the garden-walk." + +"All I regret," said the honest glutton, stoutly, "is that I go without +carving for Mrs. Vane." + +"You are very good, Sir John; I will be more troublesome to you at +supper-time." + +When they were all gone, she couldn't help sighing. It almost seemed as +if everybody was kinder to her than he whose kindness alone she valued. +"And he must take Lady Betty's hand instead of mine," thought she. "But +that is good breeding, I suppose. I wish there was no such thing; we +are very happy without it in Shropshire." Then this poor little soul was +ashamed of herself, and took herself to task. "Poor Ernest," said she, +pitying the wrongdoer, like a woman, "he was not pleased to be so taken +by surprise. No wonder; they are so ceremonious in London. How good of +him not to be angry!" Then she sighed; her heart had received a damp. +His voice seemed changed, and he did not meet her eyes with the look he +wore at Willoughby. She looked timidly into the garden. She saw the gay +colors of beaux, as well as of belles--for in these days broadcloth had +not displaced silk and velvet--glancing and shining among the trees; and +she sighed, but, presently brightening up a little, she said: "I will go +and see that the coffee is hot and clear, and the chocolate well mixed +for them." The poor child wanted to do something to please her husband. +Before she could carry out this act of domestic virtue, her attention +was drawn to a strife of tongues in the hall. She opened the +folding-doors, and there was a fine gentleman obstructing the entrance +of a somber, rusty figure, with a portfolio and a manuscript under each +arm. + +The fine gentleman was Colander. The seedy personage was the eternal +Triplet, come to make hay with his five-foot rule while the sun shone. +Colander had opened the door to him, and he had shot into the hall. The +major-domo obstructed the farther entrance of such a coat. + +"I tell you my master is not at home," remonstrated the major-domo. + +"How can you say so," cried Mrs. Vane, in surprise, "when you know he is +in the garden?" + +"Simpleton!" thought Colander. + +"Show the gentleman in." + +"Gentleman!" muttered Colander. + +Triplet thanked her for her condescension; he would wait for Mr. Vane in +the hall. "I came by appointment, madam; this is the only excuse for the +importunity you have just witnessed." + +Hearing this, Mrs. Vane dismissed Colander to inform his master. +Colander bowed loftily, and walked into the servants' hall without +deigning to take the last proposition into consideration. + +"Come in here, sir," said Mabel; "Mr. Vane will come as soon as he can +leave his company." Triplet entered in a series of obsequious jerks. +"Sit down and rest you, sir." And Mrs. Vane seated herself at the table, +and motioned with her white hand to Triplet to sit beside her. + +Triplet bowed, and sat on the edge of a chair, and smirked and dropped +his portfolio, and instantly begged Mrs. Vane's pardon; in taking it up, +he let fall his manuscript, and was again confused; but in the middle +of some superfluous and absurd excuse his eye fell on the haunch; it +straightway dilated to an enormous size, and he became suddenly silent +and absorbed in contemplation. + +"You look sadly tired, sir." + +"Why, yes, madam. It is a long way from Lambeth Walk, and it is passing +hot, madam." He took his handkerchief out, and was about to wipe his +brow, but returned it hastily to his pocket. "I beg your pardon, madam," +said Triplet, whose ideas of breeding, though speculative, were severe, +"I forgot myself." + +Mabel looked at him, and colored, and slightly hesitated. At last she +said: "I'll be bound you came in such a hurry you forgot--you mustn't be +angry with me--to have your dinner first!" + +For Triplet looked like an absurd wolf--all benevolence and starvation! + +"What divine intelligence!" thought Trip. "How strange, madam," cried +he, "you have hit it! This accounts, at once, for a craving I feel. Now +you remind me, I recollect carving for others, I did forget to remember +myself. Not that I need have forgot it to-day, madam; but, being used to +forget it, I did not remember not to forget it to-day, madam, that was +all." And the author of this intelligent account smiled very, very, very +absurdly. + +She poured him out a glass of wine. He rose and bowed; but peremptorily +refused it, with his tongue--his eye drank it. + +"But you must," persisted this hospitable lady. + +"But, madam, consider I am not entitled to--Nectar, as I am a man!" + +The white hand was filling his plate with partridge pie: "But, madam, +you don't consider how you overwhelm me with your--Ambrosia, as I am a +poet!" + +"I am sorry Mr. Vane should keep you waiting." + +"By no means, madam; it is fortunate--I mean, it procures me the +pleasure of" (here articulation became obstructed) "your society, madam. +Besides, the servants of the Muse are used to waiting. What we are not +used to is" (here the white hand filled his glass) "being waited upon +by Hebe and the Twelve Graces, whose health I have the honor +"--(Deglutition). + +"A poet!" cried Mabel; "oh! I am so glad! Little did I think ever to see +a living poet! Dear heart! I should not have known, if you had not told +me. Sir, I love poetry!" + +"It is in your face, madam." Triplet instantly whipped out his +manuscript, put a plate on one corner of it, and a decanter on the +other, and begged her opinion of this trifle, composed, said he, "in +honor of a lady Mr. Vane entertains to-day." + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Vane, and colored with pleasure. How ungrateful she had +been! Here was an attention!--For, of course, she never doubted that the +verses were in honor of her arrival. + +"'Bright being--'" sang out Triplet. + +"Nay, sir," said Mabel; "I think I know the lady, and it would be hardly +proper of me--" + +"Oh, madam!" said Triplet, solemnly; "strictly correct, madam!" And +he spread his hand out over his bosom. "Strictly!--'Blunderbuss' (my +poetical name, madam) never stooped to the taste of the town. + + 'Bright being, thou--'" + +"But you must have another glass of wine first, and a slice of the +haunch." + +"With alacrity, madam." He laid in a fresh stock of provisions. + +Strange it was to see them side by side! _he,_ a Don Quixote, with +cordage instead of lines in his mahogany face, and clothes hanging upon +him; _she,_ smooth, duck-like, delicious, and bright as an opening rose +fresh with dew! + +She watched him kindly, archly and demurely; and still plied him, +countrywise, with every mortal thing on the table. + +But the poet was not a boa-constrictor, and even a boa-constrictor has +an end. Hunger satisfied, his next strongest feeling, simple vanity, +remained to be contented. As the last morsel went in out came: + +"'Bright being, thou whose ra--'" + +"No! no!" said she, who fancied herself (and not without reason) the +bright being. "Mr. Vane intended them for a surprise." + +"As you please, madam;" and the disappointed bore sighed. "But you +would have liked them, for the theme inspired me. The kindest, the most +generous of women! Don't you agree with me, madam?" + +Mabel Vane opened her eyes. "Hardly, sir," laughed she. + +"If you knew her as I do." + +"I ought to know her better, sir." + +"Ay, indeed! Well, madam, now her kindness to me, for instance--a poor +devil like me. The expression, I trust, is not disagreeable to you, +madam? If so, forgive me, and consider it withdrawn." + +"La, sir! civility is so cheap, if you go to that." + +"Civility, ma'am? Why, she has saved me from despair--from starvation, +perhaps." + +"Poor thing! Well, indeed, sir, you looked--you looked--what a shame! +and you a poet." + +"From an epitaph to an epic, madam." + +At this moment a figure looked in upon them from the garden, but +retreated unobserved. It was Sir Charles Pomander, who had slipped away, +with the heartless and malicious intention of exposing the husband to +the wife, and profiting by her indignation and despair. Seeing Triplet, +he made an extemporaneous calculation that so infernal a chatterbox +could not be ten minutes in her company without telling her everything, +and this would serve his turn very well. He therefore postponed his +purpose, and strolled away to a short distance. + +Triplet justified the baronet's opinion. Without any sort of sequency +he now informed Mrs. Vane that the benevolent lady was to sit to him for +her portrait. + +Here was a new attention of Ernest's. How good he was, and how wicked +and ungrateful she! + +"What! are you a painter too?" she inquired. + +"From a house front to an historical composition, madam." + +"Oh, what a clever man! And so Ernest commissioned you to paint a +portrait?" + +"No, madam; for that I am indebted to the lady herself." + +"The lady herself?" + +"Yes, madam; and I expected to find her here. Will you add to your +kindness by informing me whether she has arrived? Or she is gone--" + +"Who, sir? (Oh, dear! not my portrait! Oh, Ernest!)" + +"Who, madam!" cried Triplet; "why, Mrs. Woffington!" + +"She is not here," said Mrs. Vane, who remembered all the names +perfectly well. "There is one charming lady among our guests, her +face took me in a moment; but she is a titled lady. There is no Mrs. +Woffington among them." + +"Strange!" replied Triplet; "she was to be here; and, in fact, that is +why I expedited these lines in her honor." + +"In _her_ honor, sir?" + +"Yes, madam. Allow me: + + 'Brights being, thou whose radiant brow--'" + +"No! no! I don't care to hear them now, for I don't know the lady." + +"Well, madam, but at least you have seen her act?" + +"Act! you don't mean all this is for an actress?" + +_"An_ actress? _The_ actress! And you have never seen her act? What a +pleasure you have to come! To see her act is a privilege; but to act +with her, as _I_ once did! But she does not remember that, nor shall +I remind her, madam," said Triplet sternly. "On that occasion I was +hissed, owing to circumstances which, for the credit of our common +nature, I suppress." + +"What! are you an actor too? You are everything." + +"And it was in a farce of my own, madam, which, by the strangest +combination of accidents, was damned!" + +"A play-writer? Oh, what clever men there are in the world--in London, +at least! He is a play-writer, too. I wonder my husband comes not. Does +Mr. Vane--does Mr. Vane admire this actress?" said she, suddenly. + +"Mr. Vane, madam, is a gentleman of taste," said he, pompously. + +"Well, sir," said the lady, languidly, "she is not here." Triplet took +the hint and rose. "Good-by," said she, sweetly; and thank you kindly +for your company. + +"Triplet, madam--James Triplet, of 10, Hercules Buildings, Lambeth. +Occasional verses, odes, epithalamia, elegies, dedications, squibs, +impromptus and hymns executed with spirit, punctuality and secrecy. +Portraits painted, and instruction in declamation, sacred, profane and +dramatic. The card, madam" (and he drew it as doth a theatrical fop +his rapier) "of him who, to all these qualifications adds a prouder +still--that of being, + +"Madam, + +"Your humble, devoted and grateful servant, + +"JAMES TRIPLET." + + +He bowed in a line from his right shoulder to his left toe, and moved +off. But Triplet could not go all at one time out of such company; he +was given to return in real life, he had played this trick so often on +the stage. He came back, exuberant with gratitude. + +"The fact is, madam," said he, "strange as it may appear to you, a kind +hand has not so often been held out to me, that I should forget it, +especially when that hand is so fair and gracious. May I be permitted, +madam--you will impute it to gratitude rather than audacity--I--I--" +(whimper), "madam" (with sudden severity), "I am gone!" + +These last words he pronounced with the right arm at an angle of +forty-five degrees, and the fingers pointing horizontally. The stage had +taught him this grace also. In his day, an actor who had three words to +say, such as, "My lord's carriage is waiting," came on the stage with +the right arm thus elevated, delivered his message in the tones of a +falling dynasty, wheeled like a soldier, and retired with the left +arm pointing to the sky and the right hand extended behind him like a +setter's tail. + +Left to herself, Mabel was uneasy. "Ernest is so warm-hearted." This was +the way she put it even to herself. He admired her acting and wished to +pay her a compliment. "What if I carried him the verses?" She thought +she should surely please him by showing she was not the least jealous +or doubtful of him. The poor child wanted so to win a kind look from +her husband; but ere she could reach the window Sir Charles Pomander had +entered it. + +Now Sir Charles was naturally welcome to Mrs. Vane; for all she knew of +him was, that he had helped her on the road to her husband. + +_Pomander._ "What, madam! all alone here as in Shropshire?" + +_Mabel._ "For the moment, sir." + +_Pomander._ "Force of habit. A husband with a wife in Shropshire is so +like a bachelor." + +_Mabel._ "Sir!" + +_Pomander._ "And our excellent Ernest is such a favorite!" + +_Mabel._ "No wonder, sir!" + +_Pomander._ "Few can so pass from the larva state of country squire to +the butterfly nature of beau." + +_Mabel._ "Yes" (sadly), "I find him changed." + +_Pomander._ "Changed! Transformed. He is now the prop of the +'Cocoa-Tree,' the star of Ranelagh, the Lauzun of the green-room." + +_Mabel._ "The green-room! Where is that? You mean kindly, sir; but you +make me unhappy." + +_Pomander._ "The green-room, my dear madam, is the bower where houris +put off their wings, and goddesses become dowdies; where Lady Macbeth +weeps over her lap-dog, dead from repletion; and Belvidera soothes her +broken heart with a dozen of oysters. In a word, it is the place where +actors and actresses become men and women, and act their own parts with +skill, instead of a poet's clumsily." + +_Mabel._ "Actors! actresses! Does Mr. Vane frequent such--" + +_Pomander._ "He has earned in six months a reputation many a fine +gentleman would give his ears for. Not a scandalous journal his initials +have not figured in; not an actress of reputation gossip has not given +him for a conquest." + +"How dare you say this to me?" cried Mrs. Vane, with a sudden flash of +indignation, and then the tears streamed over her lovely cheeks; and +even a Pomander might have forborne to torture her so; but Sir Charles +had no mercy. + +"You would be sure to learn it," said he; "and with malicious additions. +It is better to hear the truth from a friend." + +"A friend? He is no friend to a house who calumniates the husband to the +wife. Is it the part of a friend to distort dear Ernest's kindliness and +gayety into ill morals; to pervert his love of poetry and plays into an +unworthy attachment to actors and--oh!" and the tears would come. But +she dried them, for now she hated this man; with all the little power +of hatred she had, she detested him. "Do you suppose I did not know Mrs. +Woffington was to come to us to-day?" cried she, struggling passionately +against her own fears and Sir Charles's innuendoes. + +"What!" cried he; "you recognized her? You detected the actress of all +work under the airs of Lady Betty Modish?" + +"Lady Betty Modish!" cried Mabel. "That good, beautiful face!" + +"Ah!" cried Sir Charles, "I see you did not. Well, Lady Betty was Mrs. +Woffington!" + +"Whom my husband, I know, had invited here to present her with these +verses, which I shall take him for her;" and her poor little lip +trembled. "Had the visit been in any other character, as you are so +base, so cruel as to insinuate (what have I done to you that you kill me +so, you wicked gentleman?), would he have chosen the day of my arrival?" + +"Not if he knew you were coming," was the cool reply. + +"And he did know--I wrote to him." + +"Indeed!" said Pomander, fairly puzzled. + +Mrs. Vane caught sight of her handwriting on the tray, and darted to it, +and seized her letter, and said, triumphantly: + +"My last letter, written upon the road--see!" + +Sir Charles took it with surprise, but, turning it in his hand, a cool, +satirical smile came to his face. He handed it back, and said, coldly: + +"Read me the passage, madam, on which you argue." + +Poor Mrs. Vane turned the letter in her hand, and her eye became +instantly glazed; the seal was unbroken! She gave a sharp cry of agony, +like a wounded deer. She saw Pomander no longer; she was alone with her +great anguish. "I had but my husband and my God in the world," cried +she. "My mother is gone. My God, have pity on me! my husband does not +love me." + +The cold villain was startled at the mighty storm his mean hand had +raised. This creature had not only more feeling, but more passion, than +a hundred libertines. He muttered some villain's commonplaces; while +this unhappy young lady raised her hands to heaven, and sobbed in a way +very terrible to any manly heart. + +"He is unworthy you," muttered Pomander. "He has forfeited your love. He +has left you nothing but revenge. Be comforted. Let me, who have learned +already to adore you--" + +"So," cried she, turning on him in a moment (for, on some points, +woman's instinct is the lightning of wisdom), "this, sir, was your +object? I may no longer hold a place in my husband's heart; but I am +mistress of his house. Leave it, sir! and never return to it while I +live." + +Sir Charles, again discomfited, bowed reverentially. "Your wish shall +ever be respected by me, madam! But here they come. Use the right of a +wife. Conceal yourself in that high chair. See, I turn it; so that they +cannot see you. At least you will find I have but told you the truth." + +"No!" cried Mabel, violently. "I will not spy upon my husband at the +dictation of his treacherous friend." + +Sir Charles vanished. He was no sooner gone than Mrs. Vane crouched, +trembling, and writhing with jealousy, in the large, high-backed chair. +She heard her husband and the _soi-disant_ Lady Betty Modish enter. +During their absence, Mrs. Woffington had doubtless been playing her +cards with art; for it appeared that a reconciliation was now taking +place. The lady, however, was still cool and distant. It was poor +Mabel's fate to hear these words: "You must permit me to go alone, Mr. +Vane. I insist upon leaving this house alone." + +On this, he whispered to her. + +She answered: "You are not justified." + +"I can explain all," was his reply. "I am ready to renounce credit, +character, all the world for you." + +They passed out of the room before the unhappy listener could recover +the numbing influence of these deadly words. + +But the next moment she started wildly up, and cried as one drowning +cries vaguely for help: "Ernest! oh, no--no! you cannot use me so! +Ernest--husband! Oh, mother! mother!" + +She rose, and would have made for the door, but nature had been too +cruelly tried. At the first step she could no longer see anything; and +the next moment, swooning dead away, she fell back insensible, with her +head and shoulders resting on the chair. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +MR. VANE was putting Mrs. Woffington into her chair, when he thought he +heard his name cried. He bade that lady a mournful farewell, and stepped +back into his own hall. He had no sooner done so than he heard a voice, +the accent of which alarmed him, though he distinguished no word. He +hastily crossed the hall and flew into the banquet-room. Coming rapidly +in at the folding-doors he almost fell over his wife, lying insensible +half upon the floor and half upon the chair. When he saw her pale and +motionless, a terrible misgiving seized him; he fell on his knees. + +"Mabel, Mabel!" cried he, "my love! my innocent wife! Oh, God! what have +I done? Perhaps it is the fatigue--perhaps she has fainted." + +"No, it is not the fatigue!" screamed a voice near him. It was old James +Burdock, who, with his white hair streaming and his eye gleaming with +fire, shook his fist in his master's face--"no, it is not the fatigue, +you villain! It is you who have killed her, with your jezebels and +harlots, you scoundrel!" + +"Send the women here, James, for God's sake!" cried Mr. Vane, not +even noticing the insult he had received from a servant. He stamped +furiously, and cried for help. The whole household was round her in a +moment. They carried her to bed. + +The remorse-stricken man, his own knees trembling under him, flew, in an +agony of fear and self-reproach, for a doctor! + +_A doctor?_ + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +DURING the garden scene, Mr. Vane had begged Mrs. Woffington to let him +accompany her. She peremptorily refused, and said in the same breath +she was going to Triplet, in Hercules Buildings, to have her portrait +finished. + +Had Mr. Vane understood the sex, he would not have interpreted her +refusal to the letter; when there was a postscript, the meaning of which +was so little enigmatical. + +Some three hours after the scene we have described, Mrs. Woffington sat +in Triplet's apartment; and Triplet, palette in hand, painted away upon +her portrait. + +Mrs. Woffington was in that languid state which comes to women after +their hearts have received a blow. She felt as if life was ended, and +but the dregs of existence remained; but at times a flood of bitterness +rolled over her, and she resigned all hope of perfect happiness in this +world--all hope of loving and respecting the same creature; and at these +moments she had but one idea--to use her own power, and bind her lover +to her by chains never to be broken; and to close her eyes, and glide +down the precipice of the future. + +"I think you are master of this art," said she, very languidly, to +Triplet, "you paint so rapidly." + +"Yes, madam," said Triplet, gloomily; and painted on. "Confound this +shadow!" added he; and painted on. + +His soul, too, was clouded. Mrs. Woffington, yawning in his face, had +told him she had invited all Mr. Vane's company to come and praise his +work; and ever since that he had been _morne et silencieux._ + +"You are fortunate," continued Mrs. Woffington, not caring what she +said; "it is so difficult to make execution keep pace with conception." + +"Yes, ma'am;" and he painted on. + +"You are satisfied with it?" + +"Anything but, ma'am;" and he painted on. + +"Cheerful soul!--then I presume it is like?" + +"Not a bit, ma'am;" and he painted on. + +Mrs. Woffington stretched. + +"You can't yawn, ma'am--you can't yawn." + +"Oh, yes, I can. You are such good company;" and she stretched again. + +"I was just about to catch the turn of the lip," remonstrated Triplet. + +"Well, catch it--it won't run away." + +"I'll try, ma'am. A pleasant half-hour it will be for me, when they all +come here like cits at a shilling ordinary--each for his cut." + +"At a sensitive goose!" + +"That is as may be, madam. Those critics flay us alive!" + +"You should not hold so many doors open to censure." + +"No, ma'am. Head a little more that way. I suppose you _can't_ sit +quiet, ma'am?--then never mind!" (This resignation was intended as a +stinging reproach.) "Mr. Cibber, with his sneering snuff-box! Mr. Quin, +with his humorous bludgeon! Mrs. Clive, with her tongue! Mr. Snarl, with +his abuse! And Mr. Soaper, with his praise!--arsenic in treacle I call +it! But there, I deserve it all! For look on this picture, and on this!" + +"Meaning, I am painted as well as my picture!" + +"Oh, no, no, no! But to turn from your face, madam--on which the +lightning of expression plays, continually--to this stony, detestable, +dead daub!--I could--And I will, too! Imposture! dead caricature of +life and beauty, take that!" and he dashed his palette-knife through the +canvas. "Libelous lie against nature and Mrs. Woffington, take that!" +and he stabbed the canvas again; then, with sudden humility: "I beg your +pardon, ma'am," said he, "for this apparent outrage, which I trust you +will set down to the excitement attendant upon failure. The fact is, I +am an incapable ass, and no painter! Others have often hinted as much; +but I never observed it myself till now!" + +"Right through my pet dimple!" said Mrs. Woffington, with perfect +_nonchalance._ "Well, now I suppose I may yawn, or do what I like?" + +"You may, madam," said Triplet, gravely. "I have forfeited what little +control I had over you, madam." + +So they sat opposite each other, in mournful silence. At length the +actress suddenly rose. She struggled fiercely against her depression, +and vowed that melancholy should not benumb her spirits and her power. + +"He ought to have been here by this time," said she to herself. "Well, I +will not mope for him. I must do something. Triplet," said she. + +"Madam." + +"Nothing." + +"No, madam." + +She sat gently down again, and leaned her head on her hand, and thought. +She was beautiful as she thought!--her body seemed bristling with +mind! At last, her thoughtful gravity was illumined by a smile. She had +thought out something _excogitaverat._ + +"Triplet, the picture is quite ruined!" + +"Yes, madam. And a coach-load of criticism coming!" + +"Triplet, we actors and actresses have often bright ideas." + +"Yes, ma am." + +"When we take other people's!" + +"He, he!" went Triplet. "Those are our best, madam!" + +"Well, sir, I have got a bright idea." + +"You don't say so, ma'am!" + +"Don't be a brute, dear!" said the lady gravely. + +Triplet stared! + +"When I was in France, taking lessons of Dumesnil, one of the actors of +the Theatre Francais had his portrait painted by a rising artist. The +others were to come and see it. They determined, beforehand, to mortify +the painter and the sitter, by abusing the work in good set terms. But +somehow this got wind, and the patients resolved to be the physicians. +They put their heads together, and contrived that the living face should +be in the canvas, surrounded by the accessories; these, of course, were +painted. Enter the actors, who played their little prearranged farce; +and, when they had each given the picture a slap, the picture rose and +laughed in their faces, and discomfited them! By the by, the painter +did not stop there; he was not content with a short laugh, he laughed at +them five hundred years!" + +"Good gracious, Mrs. Woffington!" + +"He painted a picture of the whole thing; and as his work is immortal, +ours an April snow-flake, he has got tremendously the better of those +rash little satirists. Well, Trip, what is sauce for the gander is sauce +for the goose; so give me the sharpest knife in the house." + +Triplet gave her a knife, and looked confused, while she cut away the +face of the picture, and by dint of scraping, cutting, and measuring, +got her face two parts through the canvas. She then made him take his +brush and paint all round her face, so that the transition might not be +too abrupt. Several yards of green baize were also produced. This was to +be disposed behind the easel, so as to conceal her. + +Triplet painted here, and touched and retouched there. While thus +occupied, he said, in his calm, resigned way: "It won't do, madam. I +suppose you know that?" + +"I know nothing," was the reply: "life is a guess. I don't think we +could deceive Roxalana and Lucy this way, because their eyes are +without colored spectacles; but, when people have once begun to see by +prejudices and judge by jargon what can't be done with them? Who knows? +do you? I don't; so let us try." + +"I beg your pardon, madam; my brush touched your face." + +"No offense, sir; I am used to that. And I beg, if you can't tone the +rest of the picture up to me, that you will instantly tone me down to +the rest. Let us be in tune, whatever it costs, sir." + +"I will avail myself of the privilege, madam, but sparingly. Failure, +which is certain, madam, will cover us with disgrace." + +"Nothing is certain in this life, sir, except that you are a goose. +It succeeded in France; and England can match all Europe for fools. +Besides, it will be well done. They say Davy Garrick can turn his eyes +into bottled gooseberries. Well, Peg Woffington will turn hers into +black currants. Haven't you done? I wonder they have not come. Make +haste!" + +"They will know by its beauty I never did it." + +"That is a sensible remark, Trip. But I think they will rather argue +backward; that, as you did it, it cannot be beautiful, and so cannot be +me. Your reputation will be our shield." + +"Well, madam, now you mention it, they are like enough to take that +ground. They despise all I do; if they did not--" + +"You would despise them." + +At this moment the pair were startled by the sound of a coach. Triplet +turned as pale as ashes. Mrs. Woffington had her misgivings; but, not +choosing to increase the difficulty, she would not let Triplet, whose +self-possession she doubted, see any sign of emotion in her. + +"Lock the door," said she, firmly, "and don't be silly. Now hold up my +green baize petticoat, and let me be in a half-light. Now put that table +and those chairs before me, so that they can't come right up to me; and, +Triplet, don't let them come within six yards, if you can help it. Say +it is unfinished, and so must be seen from a focus." + +"A focus! I don't know what you mean." + +"No more do I; no more will they, perhaps; and if they don't they will +swallow it directly. Unlock the door. Are they coming?" + +"They are only at the first stair." + +"Mr. Triplet, your face is a book, where one may read strange matters. +For Heaven's sake, compose yourself. Let all the risk lie in one +countenance. Look at me, sir. Make your face like the Book of Daniel in +a Jew's back parlor. Volto Sciolto is your cue." + +"Madam, madam, how your tongue goes! I hear them on the stairs. Pray +don't speak!" + +"Do you know what we are going to do?" continued the tormenting Peggy. +"We are going to weigh goose's feathers! to criticise criticism, Trip--" + +"Hush! hush!" + +A grampus was heard outside the door, and Triplet opened it. There was +Quin leading the band. + +"Have a care, sir," cried Triplet; "there is a hiatus the third step +from the door." + +"A _gradus ad Parnassum_ a wanting," said Mr. Cibber. + +Triplet's heart sank. The hole had been there six months, and he had +found nothing witty to say about it, and at first sight Mr. Cibber had +done its business. And on such men he and his portrait were to attempt +a preposterous delusion. Then there was Snarl, who wrote critiques on +painting, and guided the national taste. The unlucky exhibitor was in a +cold sweat. He led the way, like a thief going to the gallows. + +"The picture being unfinished, gentlemen," said he, "must, if you would +do me justice, be seen from a--a focus; must be judged from here, I +mean." + +"Where, sir?" said Mr. Cibber. + +"About here, sir, if you please," said poor Triplet faintly. + +"It looks like a finished picture from here," said Mrs. Clive. + +"Yes, madam," groaned Triplet. + +They all took up a position, and Triplet timidly raised his eyes along +with the rest. He was a little surprised. The actress had flattened +her face! She had done all that could be done, and more than he had +conceived possible, in the way of extracting life and the atmosphere of +expression from her countenance. She was "dead still!" + +There was a pause. Triplet fluttered. At last some of them spoke as +follows: + +_Soaper._ "Ah!" + +_Quin._ "Ho!" + +_Clive._ "Eh!" + +_Cibber._ "Humph!" + +These interjections are small on paper, but as the good creatures +uttered them they were eloquent; there was a cheerful variety of +dispraise skillfully thrown into each of them. + +"Well," continued Soaper, with his everlasting smile. + +Then the fun began. + +"May I be permitted to ask whose portrait this is?" said Mr. Cibber +slyly. + +"I distinctly told you, it was to be Peg Woffington's," said Mrs. Clive. +"I think you might take my word." + +"Do you act as truly as you paint?" said Quin. + +"Your fame runs no risk from me, sir!" replied Triplet. + +"It is not like Peggy's beauty! Eh?" rejoined Quin. + +"I can't agree with you," cried Kitty Clive. "I think it a very pretty +face; and not at all like Peg Woffington's." + +"Compare paint with paint," said Quin. "Are you sure you ever saw down +to Peggy's real face?" + +Triplet had seen with alarm that Mr. Snarl spoke not; many satirical +expressions crossed his face, but he said nothing. Triplet gathered from +this that he had at once detected the trick. "Ah!" thought Triplet, "he +means to quiz them, as well as expose me. He is hanging back; and, in +point of fact, a mighty satirist like Snarl would naturally choose to +quiz six people rather than two." + +"Now I call it beautiful!" said the traitor Soaper. "So calm and +reposeful; no particular expression." + +"None whatever," said Snarl. + +"Gentlemen," said Triplet, "does it never occur to you that the fine +arts are tender violets, and cannot blow when the north winds--" + +"Blow!" inserted Quin. + +"Are so cursed cutting?" continued Triplet. + +"My good sir, I am never cutting!" smirked Soaper. "My dear Snarl," +whined he, "give us the benefit of your practiced judgment. Do justice +to this ad-mirable work of art," drawled the traitor. + +"I will!" said Mr. Snarl; and placed himself before the picture. + +"What on earth will he say?" thought Triplet. "I can see by his face he +has found us out." + +Mr. Snarl delivered a short critique. Mr. Snarl's intelligence was +not confined to his phrases; all critics use intelligent phrases and +philosophical truths. But this gentleman's manner was very intelligent; +it was pleasant, quiet, assured, and very convincing. Had the reader or +I been there, he would have carried us with him, as he did his hearers; +and as his successors carry the public with them now. + +"Your brush is by no means destitute of talent, Mr. Triplet," said +Mr. Snarl. "But you are somewhat deficient, at present, in the great +principles of your art; the first of which is a loyal adherence to +truth. Beauty itself is but one of the forms of truth, and nature is our +finite exponent of infinite truth." + +His auditors gave him a marked attention. They could not but acknowledge +that men who go to the bottom of things like this should be the best +instructors. + +"Now, in nature, a woman's face at this distance--ay, even at this short +distance--melts into the air. There is none of that sharpness; but, on +the contrary, a softness of outline." He made a lorgnette of his two +hands; the others did so too, and found they saw much better--oh, ever +so much better! "Whereas yours," resumed Snarl, "is hard; and, forgive +me, rather tea-board like. Then your _chiaro scuro,_ my good sir, is +very defective; for instance, in nature, the nose, intercepting the +light on one side the face, throws, of necessity, a shadow under the +eye. Caravaggio, Venetians generally, and the Bolognese masters, do +particular justice to this. No such shade appears in this portrait." + +"'Tis so, stop my vitals!" observed Colley Cibber. And they all looked, +and, having looked, wagged their heads in assent--as the fat, white +lords at Christie's waggle fifty pounds more out for a copy of +Rembrandt, a brown levitical Dutchman, visible in the pitch-dark by some +sleight of sun Newton had not wit to discover. + +Soaper dissented from the mass. + +"But, my dear Snarl, if there are no shades, there are lights, loads of +lights." + +"There are," replied Snarl; "only they are impossible, that is all. +You have, however," concluded he, with a manner slightly supercilious, +"succeeded in the mechanical parts; the hair and the dress are well, Mr. +Triplet; but your Woffington is not a woman, not nature." + +They all nodded and waggled assent; but this sagacious motion was +arrested as by an earthquake. + +The picture rang out, in the voice of a clarion, an answer that outlived +the speaker: "She's a woman! for she has taken four men in! She's +nature! for a fluent dunce doesn't know her when he sees her!" + +Imagine the tableau! It was charming! Such opening of eyes and mouths! +Cibber fell by second nature into an attitude of the old comedy. And all +were rooted where they stood, with surprise and incipient mortification, +except Quin, who slapped his knee, and took the trick at its value. + +Peg Woffington slipped out of the green baize, and, coming round from +the back of the late picture, stood in person before them; while they +looked alternately at her and at the hole in the canvas. She then came +at each of them in turn, _more dramatico._ + +"A pretty face, and not like Woffington. I owe you two, Kate Clive." + +"Who ever saw Peggy's real face? Look at it now if you can without +blushing, Mr. Quin." + +Quin, a good-humored fellow, took the wisest view of his predicament, +and burst into a hearty laugh. + +"For all this," said Mr. Snarl, peevishly, "I maintain, upon the +unalterable principles of art--" At this they all burst into a roar, +not sorry to shift the ridicule. "Goths!" cried Snarl, fiercely. +"Good-morning, ladies and gentlemen," cried Mr. Snarl, _avec intention,_ +"I have a criticism to write of last night's performance." The laugh +died away to a quaver. "I shall sit on your pictures one day, Mr. +Brush." + +"Don't sit on them with your head downward, or you'll addle them," said +Mr. Brush, fiercely. This was the first time Triplet had ever answered +a foe. Mrs. Woffington gave him an eloquent glance of encouragement. He +nodded his head in infantine exultation at what he had done. + +"Come, Soaper," said Mr. Snarl. + +Mr. Soaper lingered one moment to say: "You shall always have my good +word, Mr. Triplet." + +"I will try--and not deserve it, Mr. Soaper," was the prompt reply. + +"Serve 'em right," said Mr. Cibber, as soon as the door had closed upon +them; "for a couple of serpents, or rather one boa-constrictor. Soaper +slavers, for Snarl to crush. But we were all a little too hard on +Triplet here; and, if he will accept my apology--" + +"Why, sir," said Triplet, half trembling, but driven on by looks from +Mrs. Woffington, "'Cibber's Apology' is found to be a trifle wearisome." + +"Confound his impertinence!" cried the astounded laureate. "Come along, +Jemmy." + +"Oh, sir," said Quin, good-humoredly, "we must give a joke and take a +joke. And when he paints my portrait--which he shall do--" + +"The bear from Hockley Hole shall sit for the head!" + +"Curse his impudence!" roared Quin. "I'm at your service, Mr. Cibber," +added he, in huge dudgeon. + +Away went the two old boys. + +"Mighty well!" said waspish Mrs. Clive. "I did intend you should have +painted Mrs. Clive. But after this impertinence--" + +"You will continue to do it yourself, ma'am!" + +This was Triplet's hour of triumph. His exultation was undignified, +and such as is said to precede a fall. He inquired gravely of Mrs. +Woffington, whether he had or had not shown a spirit. Whether he had or +had not fired into each a parting shot, as they sheered off. To repair +which, it might be advisable for them to put into friendly ports. + +"Tremendous!" was the reply. "And when Snarl and Soaper sit on your next +play, they won't forget the lesson you have given them." + +"I'll be sworn they won't!" chuckled Triplet. But, reconsidering her +words, he looked blank, and muttered: "Then perhaps it would have been +more prudent to let them alone!" + +"Incalculably more prudent!" was the reply. + +"Then why did you set me on, madam?" said Triplet, reproachfully. + +"Because I wanted amusement, and my head ached," was the cool answer, +somewhat languidly given. + +"I defy the coxcombs!" cried Triplet, with reviving spirit. "But real +criticism I respect, honor, and bow to. Such as yours, madam; or such as +that sweet lady's at Mr. Vane's would have been; or, in fact, anybody's +who appreciates me. Oh, madam, I wanted to ask you, was it not strange +your not being at Mr. Vane's, after all, to-day?" + +"I was at Mr. Vane's, Triplet." + +"You were? Why, I came with my verses, and she said you were not there! +I will go fetch the verses." + +"No, no! Who said I was not there?" + +"Did I not tell you? The charming young lady who helped me with her own +hand to everything on the table. What wine that gentleman possesses!" + +"Was it a young lady, Triplet?" + +"Not more than two-and-twenty, I should say. + +"In a traveling-dress?" + +"I could not see her dress, madam, for her beauty--brown hair, blue +eyes, charming in conversation--" + +"Ah! What did she tell you?" + +"She told me, madam--Ahem!" + +"Well, what did you tell her? And what did she answer?" + +"I told her that I came with verses for you, ordered by Mr. Vane. That +he admired you. I descanted, madam, on your virtues, which had made him +your slave." + +"Go on," said Mrs. Woffington, encouraging him with a deceitful smile. +"Tell me all you told her." + +"That you were sitting to me for your portrait, the destination of which +was not doubtful. That I lived at 10, Hercules Buildings." + +"You told that lady all this?" + +"I give my honor. She was so kind, I opened my heart to her. But tell +me now, madam," said Triplet, joyously dancing round the Woffington +volcano, "do you know this charming lady?" + +"Yes." + +"I congratulate you, madam. An acquaintance worthy even of you; and +there are not many such. Who is she, madam?" continued Triplet, lively +with curiosity. + +"Mrs. Vane," was the quiet, grim answer. + +"Mrs. Vane? His mother? No--am I mad? His sister! Oh, I see, his--" + +"His wife!" + +"His wife! Why, then, Mr. Vane's married?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, look there!--Oh, look here now! Well, but, good Heavens! she wasn't +to know you were there, perhaps?" + +"No." + +"But then I let the cat out of the bag?" + +"Yes." + +"But, good gracious! there will be some serious mischief!" + +"No doubt of it." + +"And it is all my fault?" + +"Yes." + +"I've played the deuce with their married happiness?" + +"Probably." + +"And ten to one if you are not incensed against me too?" + +Mrs. Woffington replied by looking him in the face, and turning her back +upon him. She walked hastily to the window, threw it open, and looked +out of it, leaving poor Triplet to very unpleasant reflections. She was +so angry with him she dared not trust herself to speak. + +"Just my luck," thought he. "I had a patron and a benefactress; I have +betrayed them both." Suddenly an idea struck him. "Madam," said he, +timorously, "see what these fine gentlemen are! What business had he, +with a wife at home, to come and fall in love with you? I do it forever +in my plays--I am obliged--they would be so dull else; but in _real_ +life to do it is abominable." + +"You forget, sir," replied Mrs. Woffington, without moving, "that I +am an actress--a plaything for the impertinence of puppies and the +treachery of hypocrites. Fool! to think there was an honest man in the +world, and that he had shone on me!" + +With these words she turned, and Triplet was shocked to see the change +in her face. She was pale, and her black, lowering brows were gloomy and +terrible. She walked like a tigress to and fro, and Triplet dared not +speak to her. Indeed she seemed but half conscious of his presence. He +went for nobody with her. How little we know the people we eat and go to +church and flirt with! Triplet had imagined this creature an incarnation +of gayety, a sportive being, the daughter of smiles, the bride of mirth; +needed but a look at her now to see that her heart was a volcano, her +bosom a boiling gulf of fiery lava. She walked like some wild creature; +she flung her hands up to heaven with a passionate despair, before +which the feeble spirit of her companion shrank and cowered; and, with +quivering lips and blazing eyes, she burst into a torrent of passionate +bitterness. + +"But who is Margaret Woffington," she cried, "that she should pretend +to honest love, or feel insulted by the proffer of a stolen regard? And +what have we to do with homes, or hearts, or firesides? Have we not the +playhouse, its paste diamonds, its paste feelings, and the loud applause +of fops and sots--hearts?--beneath loads of tinsel and paint? Nonsense! +The love that can go with souls to heaven--such love for us? Nonsense! +These men applaud us, cajole us, swear to us, flatter us; and yet, +forsooth, we would have them respect us too." + +"My dear benefactress," said Triplet, "they are not worthy of you." + +"I thought this man was not all dross; from the first I never felt his +passion an insult. Oh, Triplet! I could have loved this man--really +loved him! and I longed so to be good. Oh, God! oh, God!" + +"Thank Heaven, you don't love him!" cried Triplet, hastily. "Thank +Heaven for that!" + +"Love him? Love a man who comes to me with a silly second-hand affection +from his insipid baby-face, and offers me half, or two-thirds, or a +third of his worthless heart? I hate him! and her! and all the world!" + +"That is what I call a very proper feeling," said poor Triplet, with a +weak attempt to soothe her. "Then break with him at once, and all will +be well." + +"Break with him? Are you mad? No! Since he plays with the tools of my +trade I shall fool him worse than he has me. I will feed his passion +full, tempt him, torture him, play with him, as the angler plays a fish +upon his hook. And, when his very life depends on me, then by degrees +he shall see me cool, and cool, and freeze into bitter aversion. Then he +shall rue the hour he fought with the Devil against my soul, and played +false with a brain and heart like mine!" + +"But his poor wife? You will have pity on her?" + +"His wife! Are wives' hearts the only hearts that throb, and burn, and +break? His wife must defend herself. It is not from me that mercy can +come to her, nor from her to me. I loathe her, and I shall not forget +that you took her part. Only, if you are her friend, take my advice, +don't you assist her. I shall defeat her without that. Let her fight +_her_ battle, and _I_ mine. + +"Ah, madam! she cannot fight; she is a dove." + +"You are a fool! What do you know about women? You were with her five +minutes, and she turned you inside out. My life on it, while I have been +fooling my time here, she is in the field, with all the arts of our sex, +simplicity at the head of them." + +Triplet was making a futile endeavor to convert her to his view of her +rival, when a knock suddenly came to his door. A slovenly girl, one of +his own neighbors, brought him a bit of paper, with a line written in +pencil. + +"'Tis from a lady, who waits below," said the girl. + +Mrs. Woffington went again to the window, and there she saw getting out +of a coach, and attended by James Burdock, Mabel Vane, who had sent up +her name on the back of an old letter. + +"What shall I do?" said Triplet, as soon as he recovered the first +stunning effects of this _contretemps._ To his astonishment, Mrs. +Woffington bade the girl show the lady upstairs. The girl went down on +this errand. + +"But _you_ are here," remonstrated Triplet. "Oh, to be sure, you can +go into the other room. There is plenty of time to avoid her," said +Triplet, in a very natural tremor. "This way, madam!" + +Mrs. Woffington stood in the middle of the room like a statue. + +"What does she come here for?" said she, sternly. "You have not told me +all." + +"I don't know," cried poor Triplet, in dismay; "and I think the Devil +brings her here to confound me. For Heaven's sake, retire! What will +become of us all? There will be murder, I know there will!" + +To his horror, Mrs. Woffington would not move. "You are on her side," +said she slowly, with a concentration of spite and suspicion. She looked +frightful at this moment. "All the better for me," added she, with a +world of female malignity. + +Triplet could not make head against this blow; he gasped, and pointed +piteously to the inner door. "No; I will know two things: the course she +means to take, and the terms you two are upon." + +By this time Mrs. Vane's light foot was heard on the stair, and Triplet +sank into a chair. "They will tear one another to pieces," said he. + +A tap came to the door. + +He looked fearfully round for the woman whom jealousy had so speedily +turned from an angel to a fiend; and saw with dismay that she had +actually had the hardihood to slip round and enter the picture again. +She had not quite arranged herself when her rival knocked. + +Triplet dragged himself to the door. Before he opened it, he looked +fearfully over his shoulder, and received a glance of cool, bitter, +deadly hostility, that boded ill both for him and his visitor. Triplet's +apprehensions were not unreasonable. His benefactress and this sweet +lady were rivals! + +Jealousy is a dreadful passion, it makes us tigers. The jealous always +thirst for blood. At any moment when reason is a little weaker than +usual, they are ready to kill the thing they hate, or the thing they +love. + +Any open collision between these ladies would scatter ill consequences +all round. Under such circumstances, we are pretty sure to say or do +something wicked, silly, or unreasonable. But what tortured Triplet +more than anything was his own particular notion that fate doomed him +to witness a formal encounter between these two women, and of course +an encounter of such a nature as we in our day illustrate by "Kilkenny +cats." + +To be sure Mrs. Vane had appeared a dove, but doves can peck on certain +occasions, and no doubt she had a spirit at bottom. Her coming to +him proved it. And had not the other been a dove all the morning and +afternoon? Yet, jealousy had turned her to a fiend before his eyes. Then +if (which was not probable) no collision took place, what a situation +was his! Mrs. Woffington (his buckler from starvation) suspected him, +and would distort every word that came from Mrs. Vane's lips. + +Triplet's situation was, in fact, that of AEneas in the storm. + +"Olim et haec meminisse juvabit--" "But, while present, such things +don't please any one a bit." + +It was the sort of situation we can laugh at, and see the fun of it six +months after, if not shipwrecked on it at the time. + +With a ghastly smile the poor quaking hypocrite welcomed Mrs. Vane, and +professed a world of innocent delight that she had so honored his humble +roof. + +She interrupted his compliments, and begged him to see whether she was +followed by a gentleman in a cloak. + +Triplet looked out of the window. + +"Sir Charles Pomander!" gasped he. + +Sir Charles was at the very door. If, however, he had intended to mount +the stairs he changed his mind, for he suddenly went off round the +corner with a businesslike air, real or fictitious. + +"He is gone, madam," said Triplet. + +Mrs. Vane, the better to escape detection or observation, wore a +thick mantle and a hood that concealed her features. Of these Triplet +debarrassed her. + +"Sit down, madam;" and he hastily drew a chair so that her back was to +the picture. + +She was pale, and trembled a little. She hid her face in her hands a +moment, then, recovering her courage, "she begged Mr. Triplet to pardon +her for coming to him. He had inspired her with confidence," she said; +"he had offered her his services, and so she had come to him, for she +had no other friend to aid her in her sore distress." She might have +added, that with the tact of her sex she had read Triplet to the bottom, +and came to him, as she would to a benevolent, muscular old woman. + +Triplet's natural impulse was to repeat most warmly his offers of +service. He did so; and then, conscious of the picture, had a misgiving. + +"Dear Mr. Triplet," began Mrs. Vane, "you know this person, Mrs. +Woffington?" + +"Yes, madam," replied Triplet, lowering his eyes, "I am honored by her +acquaintance." + +"You will take me to the theater where she acts?" + +"Yes, madam; to the boxes, I presume?" + +"No! oh, no! How could I bear that? To the place where the actors and +actresses are." + +Triplet demurred. This would be courting that very collision, the dread +of which even now oppressed him. + +At the first faint sign of resistance she began to supplicate him, as if +he was some great, stern tyrant. + +"Oh, you must not, you cannot refuse me. You do not know what I risk +to obtain this. I have risen from my bed to come to you. I have a fire +here!" She pressed her hand to her brow. "Oh, take me to her!" + +"Madam, I will do anything for you. But be advised; trust to my +knowledge of human nature. What you require is madness. Gracious +Heavens! you two are rivals, and when rivals meet there's murder or +deadly mischief." + +"Ah! if you knew my sorrow, you would not thwart me. Oh, Mr. Triplet! +little did I think you were as cruel as the rest." So then this cruel +monster whimpered out that he should do any folly she insisted upon. +"Good, kind Mr. Triplet!" said Mrs. Vane. "Let me look in your face? +Yes, I see you are honest and true. I will tell you all." Then she +poured in his ear her simple tale, unadorned and touching as Judah's +speech to Joseph. She told him how she loved her husband; how he had +loved her; how happy they were for the first six months; how her heart +sank when he left her; how he had promised she should join him, and on +that hope she lived. "But for two months he had ceased to speak of this, +and I grew heart-sick waiting for the summons that never came. At last +I felt I should die if I did not see him; so I plucked up courage and +wrote that I must come to him. He did not forbid me, so I left our +country home. Oh, sir! I cannot make you know how my heart burned to be +by his side. I counted the hours of the journey; I counted the miles. +At last I reached his house; I found a gay company there. I was a little +sorry, but I said: 'His friends shall be welcome, right welcome. He has +asked them to welcome his wife.'" + +"Poor thing!" muttered Triplet. + +"Oh, Mr. Triplet! they were there to do honor to ----, and the wife +was neither expected nor desired. There lay my letters with their seals +unbroken. I know all _his_ letters by heart, Mr. Triplet. The seals +unbroken--unbroken! Mr. Triplet." + +"It is abominable!" cried Triplet fiercely. "And she who sat in my +seat--in his house, and in his heart--was this lady, the actress you so +praised to me?" + +"That lady, ma'am," said Triplet, "has been deceived as well as you." + +"I am convinced of it," said Mabel. + +"And it is my painful duty to tell you, madam, that, with all her +talents and sweetness, she has a fiery temper; yes, a very fiery +temper," continued Triplet, stoutly, though with an uneasy glance in +a certain direction; "and I have reason to believe she is angry, and +thinks more of her own ill-usage than yours. Don't you go near her. +Trust to my knowledge of the sex, madam; I am a dramatic writer. Did you +ever read the 'Rival Queens'?" + +"No." + +"I thought not. Well, madam, one stabs the other, and the one that is +stabbed says things to the other that are more biting than steel. The +prudent course for you is to keep apart, and be always cheerful, and +welcome him with a smile--and--have you read 'The Way to keep him'?" + +"No, Mr. Triplet," said Mabel, firmly, "I cannot feign. Were I to +attempt talent and deceit, I should be weaker than I am now. Honesty and +right are all my strength. I will cry to her for justice and mercy. And +if I cry in vain, I shall die, Mr. Triplet, that is all." + +"Don't cry, dear lady," said Triplet, in a broken voice. + +"It is impossible!" cried she, suddenly. "I am not learned, but I can +read faces. I always could, and so could my Aunt Deborah before me. I +read you right, Mr. Triplet, and I have read her too. Did not my heart +warm to her among them all? There is a heart at the bottom of all her +acting, and that heart is good and noble." + +"She is, madam! she is! and charitable too. I know a family she saved +from starvation and despair. Oh, yes! she has a heart--to feel for the +_poor,_ at all events." + +"And am I not the poorest of the poor?" cried Mrs. Vane. "I have +no father nor mother, Mr. Triplet; my husband is all I have in the +world--all I _had,_ I mean." + +Triplet, deeply affected himself, stole a look at Mrs. Woffington. She +was pale; but her face was composed into a sort of dogged obstinacy. +He was disgusted with her. "Madam," said he, sternly, "there is a wild +beast more cruel and savage than wolves and bears; it is called 'a +rival,' and don't you get in its way." + +At this moment, in spite of Triplet's precaution, Mrs. Vane, casting +her eye accidentally round, caught sight of the picture, and instantly +started up, crying, "She is there!" Triplet was thunderstruck. "What +likeness!" cried she, and moved toward the supposed picture. + +"Don't go to it!" cried Triplet, aghast; "the color is wet." + +She stopped; but her eye and her very soul dwelt upon the supposed +picture; and Triplet stood quaking. "How like! It seems to breathe. You +are a great painter, sir. A glass is not truer." + +Triplet, hardly knowing what he said, muttered something about "critics +and lights and shades." + +"Then they are blind!" cried Mabel, never for a moment removing her eye +from the object. "Tell me not of lights and shades. The pictures I see +have a look of paint; but yours looks like life. Oh, that she were here, +as this _wonderful_ image of hers is. I would speak to her. I am not +wise or learned; but orators never pleaded as I would plead to her +for my Ernest's heart." Still her eye glanced upon the picture; and I +suppose her heart realized an actual presence, though her judgment did +not; for by some irresistible impulse she sank slowly down and stretched +her clasped hands toward it, while sobs and words seemed to break direct +from her bursting heart. "Oh, yes! you are beautiful, you are gifted, +and the eyes of thousands wait upon your very word and look. What wonder +that he, ardent, refined, and genial, should lay his heart at your feet? +And I have nothing but my love to make him love me. I cannot take him +from you. Oh, be generous to the weak! Oh, give him back to me! What is +one heart more to you? You are so rich, and I am so poor, that without +his love I have nothing, and can do nothing but sit me down and cry till +my heart breaks. Give him back to me, beautiful, terrible woman! for, +with all your gifts, you cannot love him as his poor Mabel does; and I +will love you longer perhaps than men can love. I will kiss your feet, +and Heaven above will bless you; and I will bless you and pray for you +to my dying day. Ah! it is alive! I am frightened! I am frightened!" She +ran to Triplet and seized his arm. "No!" cried she, quivering close to +him; "I'm not frightened, for it was for me she--Oh, Mrs. Woffington!" +and, hiding her face on Mr. Triplet's shoulder, she blushed, and wept, +and trembled. + +What was it had betrayed Mrs. Woffington? _A tear!_ + +During the whole of this interview (which had taken a turn so unlooked +for by the listener) she might have said with Beatrice, "What fire is in +mine ears?" and what self-reproach and chill misgiving in her heart too. +She had passed through a hundred emotions, as the young innocent wife +told her sad and simple story. But, anxious now above all things to +escape without being recognized--for she had long repented having +listened at all, or placed herself in her present position--she fiercely +mastered her countenance; but, though she ruled her features, she could +not rule her heart. And when the young wife, instead of inveighing +against her, came to her as a supplicant, with faith in her goodness, +and sobbed to her for pity, a big tear rolled down her cheek, and proved +her something more than a picture or an actress. + +Mrs. Vane, as we have related, screamed and ran to Triplet. + +Mrs. Woffington came instantly from her frame, and stood before them in +a despairing attitude, with one hand upon her brow. For a single moment +her impulse was to fly from the apartment, so ashamed was she of having +listened, and of meeting her rival in this way; but she conquered +this feeling, and, as soon as she saw Mrs. Vane too had recovered some +composure, she said to Triplet, in a low but firm voice: + +"Leave us, sir. No living creature must hear what I say to this lady!" + +Triplet remonstrated, but Mrs. Vane said, faintly: + +"Oh, yes, good Mr. Triplet, I would rather you left me." + +Triplet, full of misgivings, was obliged to retire. + +"Be composed, ladies," said he piteously. "Neither of you could help +it;" and so he entered his inner room, where he sat and listened +nervously, for he could not shake off all apprehension of a personal +encounter. + +In the room he had left there was a long, uneasy silence. Both ladies +were greatly embarrassed. It was the actress who spoke first. All trace +of emotion, except a certain pallor, was driven from her face. She spoke +with very marked courtesy, but in tones that seemed to freeze as they +dropped one by one from her mouth. + +"I trust, madam, you will do me the justice to believe I did not know +Mr. Vane was married?" + +"I am sure of it!" said Mabel, warmly. "I feel you are as good as you +are gifted." + +"Mrs. Vane, I am not!" said the other, almost sternly. "You are +deceived!" + +"Then Heaven have mercy on me! No! I am not deceived, you pitied me. You +speak coldly now; but I know your face and your heart--you pity me!" + +"I do respect, admire, and pity you," said Mrs. Woffington, sadly; "and +I could consent nevermore to communicate with your--with Mr. Vane." + +"Ah!" cried Mabel; "Heaven will bless you! But will you give me back his +heart?" + +"How can I do that?" said Mrs. Woffington, uneasily; she had not +bargained for this. + +"The magnet can repel as well as attract. Can you not break your own +spell? What will his presence be to me, if his heart remain behind?" + +"You ask much of me." + +"Alas! I do." + +"But I could do even this." She paused for breath. "And perhaps if you, +who have not only touched my heart, but won my respect, were to say +to me, 'Do so,' I should do it." Again she paused, and spoke with +difficulty; for the bitter struggle took away her breath. "Mr. Vane +thinks better of me than I deserve. I have--only--to make him believe +me--worthless--worse than I am--and he will drop me like an adder--and +love you better, far better--for having known--admired--and despised +Margaret Woffington." + +"Oh!" cried Mabel, "I shall bless you every hour of my life." +Her countenance brightened into rapture at the picture, and Mrs. +Woffington's darkened with bitterness as she watched her. + +But Mabel reflected. "Rob you of your good name?" said this pure +creature. "Ah, Mabel Vane! you think but of yourself." + +"I thank you, madam," said Mrs. Woffington, a little touched by this +unexpected trait; "but some one must suffer here, and--" + +Mabel Vane interrupted her. "This would be cruel and base," said she +firmly. "No woman's forehead shall be soiled by me. Oh, madam! beauty is +admired, talent is adored; but virtue is a woman's crown. With it, the +poor are rich; without it, the rich are poor. It walks through life +upright, and never hides its head for high or low." + +Her face was as the face of an angel now; and the actress, conquered by +her beauty and her goodness, actually bowed her head and gently kissed +the hand of the country wife whom she had quizzed a few hours ago. + +Frailty paid this homage to virtue! + +Mabel Vane hardly noticed it; her eye was lifted to heaven, and her +heart was gone there for help in a sore struggle. + +"This would be to assassinate you; no less. And so, madam," she sighed, +"with God's help, I do refuse your offer; choosing rather, if needs be, +to live desolate, but innocent--many a better than I hath lived so--ay! +if God wills it, to die, with my hopes and my heart crushed, but my +hands unstained; for so my humble life has passed." + +How beautiful, great, and pure goodness is! It paints heaven on the face +that has it; it wakens the sleeping souls that meet it. + +At the bottom of Margaret Woffington's heart lay a soul, unknown to the +world, scarce known to herself--a heavenly harp, on which ill airs of +passion had been played--but still it was there, in tune with all that +is true, pure, really great and good. And now the flush that a great +heart sends to the brow, to herald great actions, came to her cheek and +brow. + +"Humble!" she cried. "Such as you are the diamonds of our race. You +angel of truth and goodness, you have conquered!" + +"Oh, yes! yes! Thank God, yes!" + +"What a fiend I must be could I injure you! The poor heart we have both +overrated shall be yours again, and yours for ever. In my hands it +is painted glass; in the luster of a love like yours it may become a +priceless jewel." She turned her head away and pondered a moment, then +suddenly offered to Mrs. Vane her hand with nobleness and majesty; "Can +you trust me?" The actress too was divinely beautiful now, for her good +angel shone through her. + +"I could trust you with my life!" was the reply. + + "Ah! if I might call you friend, dear lady, what would I not +do--suffer--resign--to be worthy that title!" + +"No, not friend!" cried the warm, innocent Mabel; "sister! I will call +you sister. I have no sister." + + "Sister!" said Mrs. Woffington. "Oh, do not mock me! Alas! you do not +know what you say. That sacred name to me, from lips so pure as yours. +Mrs. Vane," said she, timidly, "would you think me presumptuous if I +begged you to--to let me kiss you?" + + The words were scarce spoken before Mrs. Vane's arms were wreathed round +her neck, and that innocent cheek laid sweetly to hers. + +Mrs. Woffington strained her to her bosom, and two great hearts, whose +grandeur the world, worshiper of charlatans, never discovered, had found +each other out and beat against each other. A great heart is as quick to +find another out as the world is slow. + +Mrs. Woffington burst into a passion of tears and clasped Mabel tighter +and tighter in a half-despairing way. Mabel mistook the cause, but she +kissed her tears away. + +"Dear sister," said she, "be comforted. I love you. My heart warmed +to you the first moment I saw you. A woman's love and gratitude are +something. Ah! you will never find me change. This is for life, look +you." + +"God grant it!" cried the other poor woman. "Oh, it is not that, it is +not that; it is because I am so little worthy of this. It is a sin to +deceive you. I am not good like you. You do not know me!" + +"You do not know yourself if you say so!" cried Mabel; and to her hearer +the words seemed to come from heaven. "I read faces," said Mabel. "I +read yours at sight, and you are what I set you down; and nobody must +breathe a word against you, not even yourself. Do you think I am blind? +You are beautiful, you are good, you are my sister, and I love you!" + +"Heaven forgive me!" thought the other. "How can I resign this angel's +good opinion? Surely Heaven sends this blessed dew to my parched heart!" +And now she burned to make good her promise and earn this virtuous +wife's love. She folded her once more in her arms, and then, taking her +by the hand, led her tenderly into Triplet's inner room. She made her +lie down on the bed, and placed pillows high for her like a mother, and +leaned over her as she lay, and pressed her lips gently to her forehead. +Her fertile brain had already digested a plan, but she had resolved that +this pure and candid soul should take no lessons of deceit. "Lie there," +said she, "till I open the door: then join us. Do you know what I am +going to do? I am not going to restore you your husband's heart, but +to show you it never really left you. You read faces; well, I read +circumstances. Matters are not as you thought," said she, with all a +woman's tact. "I cannot explain, but you will see." She then gave Mrs. +Triplet peremptory orders not to let her charge rise from the bed until +the preconcerted signal. + +Mrs. Vane was, in fact, so exhausted by all she had gone through +that she was in no condition to resist. She cast a look of childlike +confidence upon her rival, and then closed her eyes, and tried not to +tremble all over and listen like a frightened hare. + +***** + +It is one great characteristic of genius to do great things with little +things. Paxton could see that so small a matter as a greenhouse could be +dilated into a crystal palace, and with two common materials--glass +and iron--he raised the palace of the genii; the brightest idea and the +noblest ornament added to Europe in this century--the koh-i-noor of the +west. Livy's definition of Archimedes goes on the same ground. + +***** + +Peg Woffington was a genius in her way. On entering Triplet's studio her +eye fell upon three trifles--Mrs. Vane's hood and mantle, the back of +an old letter, and Mr. Triplet. (It will be seen how she worked these +slight materials.) On the letter was written in pencil simply these two +words, "Mabel Vane." Mrs. Woffington wrote above these words two more, +"Alone and unprotected." She put this into Mr. Triplet's hand, and bade +him take it down stairs and give it Sir Charles Pomander, whose retreat, +she knew, must have been fictitious. "You will find him round the +corner," said she, "or in some shop that looks this way." While uttering +these words she had put on Mrs. Vane's hood and mantle. + +No answer was returned, and no Triplet went out of the door. + +She turned, and there he was kneeling on both knees close under her. + +"Bid me jump out of that window, madam; bid me kill those two gentlemen, +and I will not rebel. You are a great lady, a talented lady; you have +been insulted, and no doubt blood will flow. It ought--it is your due; +but that innocent lady, do not compromise her!" + +"Oh, Mr. Triplet, you need not kneel to me. I do not wish to force you +to render me a service. I have no right to dictate to you." + +"Oh, dear!" cried Triplet, "don't talk in that way. I owe you my life, +but I think of your own peace of mind, for you are not one to be happy +if you injure the innocent!" He rose suddenly, and cried: "Madam, +promise me not to stir till I come back!" + +"Where are you going?" + +"To bring the husband to his wife's feet, and so save one angel from +despair, and another angel from a great crime." + +"Well, I suppose you are wiser than I," said she. "But, if you are in +earnest, you had better be quick, for somehow I am rather changeable +about these people." + +"You can't help that, madam, it is your sex; you are an angel. May I +be permitted to kiss your hand? you are all goodness and gentleness at +bottom. I fly to Mr. Vane, and we will be back before you have time to +repent, and give the Devil the upper hand again, my dear, good, sweet +lady!" + +Away flew Triplet, all unconscious that he was not Mrs. Woffington's +opponent, but puppet. He ran, he tore, animated by a good action, and +spurred by the notion that he was in direct competition with the fiend +for the possession of his benefactress. He had no sooner turned the +corner than Mrs. Woffington, looking out of the window, observed Sir +Charles Pomander on the watch, as she had expected. She remained at +the window with Mrs. Vane's hood on, until Sir Charles's eye in its +wanderings lighted on her, and then, dropping Mrs. Vane's letter from +the window, she hastily withdrew. + +Sir Charles eagerly picked it up. His eye brightened when he read the +short contents. With a self-satisfied smile he mounted the stair. +He found in Triplet's house a lady who seemed startled at her late +hardihood. She sat with her back to the door, her hood drawn tightly +down, and wore an air of trembling consciousness. Sir Charles smiled +again. He knew the sex, at least he said so. (It is an assertion often +ventured upon.) Accordingly Sir Charles determined to come down from +his height, and court nature and innocence in their own tones. This he +rightly judged must be the proper course to take with Mrs. Vane. He fell +down with mock ardor upon one knee. + +The supposed Mrs. Vane gave a little squeak. + +"Dear Mrs. Vane," cried he, "be not alarmed; loveliness neglected, and +simplicity deceived, insure respect as well as adoration. Ah!" (A sigh.) + +"Oh, get up, sir; do, please. Ah!" (A sigh.) + +"You sigh, sweetest of human creatures. Ah! why did not a nature like +yours fall into hands that would have cherished it as it deserves? Had +Heaven bestowed on me this hand, which I take--" + +"Oh, please, sir--" + +"With the profoundest respect, would I have abandoned such a treasure +for an actress?--a Woffington! as artificial and hollow a jade as ever +winked at a side box!" + +"Is she, sir?" + +"Notorious, madam. Your husband is the only man in London who does not +see through her. How different are you! Even I, who have no taste for +actresses, found myself revived, refreshed, ameliorated by that engaging +picture of innocence and virtue you drew this morning; yourself +the bright and central figure. Ah, dear angel! I remember all your +favorites, and envy them their place in your recollections. Your Barbary +mare--" + +"Hen, sir! + +"Of course I meant hen; and Gray Gillian, his old nurse--" + +"No, no, no! she is the mare, sir. He! he! he!" + +"So she is. And Dame--Dame--" + +"Best!" + +"Ah! I knew it. You see how I remember them all. And all carry me back +to those innocent days which fleet too soon--days when an angel like +you might have weaned me from the wicked pleasures of the town, to the +placid delights of a rural existence!" + +"Alas, sir!" + +"You sigh. It is not yet too late. I am a convert to you; I swear it +on this white hand. Ah! how can I relinquish it, pretty fluttering +prisoner?" + +"Oh, please--" + +"Stay a while." + +"No! please, sir--" + +"While I fetter thee with a worthy manacle." Sir Charles slipped a +diamond ring of great value upon his pretty prisoner. + +"La, sir, how pretty!" cried innocence. + +Sir Charles then undertook to prove that the luster of the ring was +faint, compared with that of the present wearer's eyes. This did not +suit innocence; she hung her head and fluttered, and showed a bashful +repugnance to look her admirer in the face. Sir Charles playfully +insisted, and Mrs. Woffington was beginning to be a little at a loss, +when suddenly voices were heard upon the stairs. + +_"My husband!"_ cried the false Mrs. Vane, and in a moment she rose and +darted into Triplet's inner apartment. + +Mr. Vane and Mr. Triplet were talking earnestly as they came up the +stair. It seems the wise Triplet had prepared a little dramatic scene +for his own refreshment, as well as for the ultimate benefit of all +parties. He had persuaded Mr. Vane to accompany him by warm, mysterious +promises of a happy _denouement;_ and now, having conducted that +gentleman as far as his door, he was heard to say: + +"And now, sir, you shall see one who waits to forget grief, +suspicion--all, in your arms. Behold!" and here he flung the door open. + +"The devil!" + +"You flatter me!" said Pomander, who had had time to recover his +_aplomb,_ somewhat shaken, at first, by Mr. Vane's inopportune arrival. + +Now it is to be observed that Mr. Vane had not long ago seen his wife +lying on her bed, to all appearance incapable of motion. + +Mr. Vane, before Triplet could recover his surprise, inquired of +Pomander why he had sent for him. "And what," added he, "is the grief, +suspicion, I am, according to Mr. Triplet, to forget in your arms?" + +Mr. Vane added this last sentence in rather a testy manner. + +"Why, the fact is--" began Sir Charles, without the remotest idea of +what the fact was going to be. + +"That Sir Charles Pomander--" interrupted Triplet. + +"But Mr. Triplet is going to explain," said Sir Charles, keenly. + +"Nay, sir; be yours the pleasing duty. But, now I think of it," resumed +Triplet, "why not tell the simple truth? it is not a play! She I brought +you here to see was not Sir Charles Pomander; but--" + +"I forbid you to complete the name!" cried Pomander. + +"I command you to complete the name!" cried Vane. + +"Gentlemen, gentlemen! how can I do both?" remonstrated Triplet. + +"Enough, sir!" cried Pomander. "It is a lady's secret. I am the guardian +of that lady's honor." + +"She has chosen a strange guardian of her honor!" said Vane bitterly. + +"Gentlemen!" cried poor Triplet, who did not at all like the turn +things were taking, "I give you my word, she does not even know of Sir +Charies's presence here!" + +"Who?" cried Vane, furiously. "Man alive! who are you speaking of?" + +"Mrs. Vane." + +"My wife!" cried Vane, trembling with anger and jealousy. "She here! and +with this man?" + +"No!" cried Triplet. "With me, with me! Not with him, of course." + +"Boaster!" cried Vane, contemptuously. "But that is a part of your +profession!" + +Pomander, irritated, scornfully drew from his pocket the ladies' joint +production, which had fallen at his feet from Mrs. Woffington's hand. +He presented this to Mr. Vane, who took it very uneasily; a mist swam +before his eyes as he read the words: "Alone and unprotected--Mabel +Vane." He had no sooner read these words, than he found he loved his +wife; when he tampered with his treasure, he did not calculate on +another seeking it. + +This was Pomander's hour of triumph! He proceeded coolly to explain to +Mr. Vane, that, Mrs. Woffington having deserted him for Mr. Vane, +and Mr. Vane his wife for Mrs. Woffington, the bereaved parties had, +according to custom, agreed to console each other. + +This soothing little speech was interrupted by Mr. Vane's sword flashing +suddenly out of its sheath; while that gentleman, white with rage and +jealousy, bade him instantly take to his guard, or be run through the +body like some noxious animal. + +Sir Charles drew his sword, and, in spite of Triplet's weak +interference, half a dozen passes were rapidly exchanged, when suddenly +the door of the inner room opened, and a lady in a hood pronounced, in +a voice which was an excellent imitation of Mrs. Vane's, the word, +"False!" + +The combatants lowered their points. + +"You hear, sir!" cried Triplet. + +"You see, sir!" said Pomander. + +"Mabel!--wife!" cried Mr. Vane, in agony. "Oh, say this is not true! Oh, +say that letter is a forgery! Say, at least, it was by some treachery +you were lured to this den of iniquity! Oh, speak!" + +The lady silently beckoned to some person inside. + +"You know I loved you--you know how bitterly I repent the infatuation +that brought me to the feet of another!" + +The lady replied not, though Vane's soul appeared to hang upon her +answer. But she threw the door open and there appeared another lady, +the real Mrs. Vane. Mrs. Woffington then threw off her hood, and, to +Sir Charles Pomander's consternation, revealed the features of that +ingenious person, who seemed born to outwit him. + +"You heard that fervent declaration, madam?" said she to Mrs. Vane. "I +present to you, madam, a gentleman who regrets that he mistook the real +direction of his feelings. And to you, sir," continued she, with great +dignity, "I present a lady who will never mistake either her feelings or +her duty." + +"Ernest! dear Ernest!" cried Mrs. Vane, blushing as if she was the +culprit. And she came forward all love and tenderness. + +Her truant husband kneeled at her feet of course. No! he said, rather +sternly, "How came you here, Mabel?" + +"Mrs. Vane," said the actress, "fancied you had mislaid that +weathercock, your heart, in Covent Garden, and that an actress had seen +in it a fit companion for her own, and had feloniously appropriated it. +She came to me to inquire after it." + +"But this letter, signed by you?" said Vane, still addressing Mabel. + +"Was written by me on a paper which accidentally contained Mrs. Vane's +name. The fact is, Mr. Vane--I can hardly look you in the face--I had a +little wager with Sir Charles here; his diamond ring--which you may +see has become my diamond ring"--a horrible wry face from Sir +Charles--"against my left glove that I could bewitch a country +gentleman's imagination, and make him think me an angel. Unfortunately +the owner of his heart appeared, and, like poor Mr. Vane, took our play +for earnest. It became necessary to disabuse her and to open your eyes. +Have I done so?" + +"You have, madam," said Vane, wincing at each word she said. But at +last, by a mighty effort, he mastered himself, and, coming to Mrs. +Woffington with a quivering lip, he held out his hand suddenly in a +very manly way. "I have been the dupe of my own vanity," said he, "and +I thank you for this lesson." Poor Mrs. Woffington's fortitude had +well-nigh left her at this. + +"Mabel," he cried, "is this humiliation any punishment for my folly? any +guaranty for my repentance? Can you forgive me?" + +"It is all forgiven, Ernest. But, oh, you are mistaken." She glided to +Mrs. Woffington. "What do we not owe you, sister?" whispered she. + +"Nothing! that word pays all," was the reply. She then slipped her +address into Mrs. Vane's hand, and, courtesying to all the company, she +hastily left the room. + +Sir Charles Pomander followed; but he was not quick enough. She got a +start, and purposely avoided him, and for three days neither the public +nor private friends saw this poor woman's face. + +Mr. and Mrs. Vane prepared to go also; but Mrs. Vane would thank good +Mr. Triplet and Mrs. Triplet for their kindness to her. + +Triplet the benevolent blushed, was confused and delighted; but +suddenly, turning somewhat sorrowful, he said: "Mr. Vane, madam, made +use of an expression which caused a momentary pang. He called this a den +of iniquity. Now this is my studio! But never mind." + +Mr. Vane asked his pardon for so absurd an error, and the pair left +Triplet in all the enjoyment which does come now and then to an honest +man, whether this dirty little world will or not. + +A coach was called and they went home to Bloomsbury. Few words were +said; but the repentant husband often silently pressed this angel to his +bosom, and the tears which found their way to her beautiful eyelashes +were tears of joy. + +This weakish, and consequently villainous, though not ill-disposed +person would have gone down to Willoughby that night; but his wife had +great good sense. She would not take her husband off, like a school-boy +caught out of bounds. She begged him to stay while she made certain +purchases; but, for all that, her heart burned to be at home. So in less +than a week after the events we have related they left London. + +Meantime, every day Mrs. Vane paid a quiet visit to Mrs. Woffington (for +some days the actress admitted no other visitor), and was with her but +two hours before she left London. On that occasion she found her very +sad. + +"I shall never see you again in this world," said she; "but I beg of you +to write to me, that my mind may be in contact with yours." + +She then asked Mabel, in her half-sorrowful, half-bitter way, how many +months it would be ere she was forgotten. + +Mabel answered by quietly crying. So then they embraced; and Mabel +assured her friend she was not one of those who change their minds. "It +is for life, dear sister; it is for life," cried she. + +"Swear this to me," said the other, almost sternly. "But no. I have more +confidence in that candid face and pure nature than in a human being's +oath. If you are happy, remember you owe me something. If you are +unhappy, come to me, and I will love you as men cannot love." + +Then vows passed between them, for a singular tie bound these two women; +and then the actress showed a part at least of her sore heart to her new +sister; and that sister was surprised and grieved, and pitied her truly +and deeply, and they wept on each other's neck; and at last they were +fain to part. They parted; and true it was, they never met again in this +world. They parted in sorrow; but when they meet again, it shall be with +joy. + +Women are generally such faithless, unscrupulous and pitiless humbugs +in their dealings with their own sex--which, whatever they may say, they +despise at heart--that I am happy to be able to say, Mrs. Vane proved +true as steel. She was a noble-minded, simple-minded creature; she was +also a constant creature. Constancy is a rare, a beautiful, a godlike +virtue. + +Four times every year she wrote a long letter to Mrs. Woffington; and +twice a year, in the cold weather, she sent her a hamper of country +delicacies that would have victualed a small garrison. And when +her sister left this earthly scene--a humble, pious, long-repentant +Christian--Mrs. Vane wore mourning for her, and sorrowed over her; but +not as those who cannot hope to meet again. + +***** + +My story as a work of art--good, bad or indifferent--ends with that last +sentence. If a reader accompanies me further, I shall feel flattered, +and he does so at his own risk. + +My reader knows that all this befell long ago. That Woffington is gay, +and Triplet sad, no more. That Mabel's, and all the bright eyes of that +day, have long been dim, and all its cunning voices hushed. Judge +then whether I am one of those happy story-tellers who can end with +a wedding. No! this story must wind up, as yours and mine +must--to-morrow--or to-morrow--or to-morrow! when our little sand is +run. + +Sir Charles Pomander lived a man of pleasure until sixty. He then +became a man of pain; he dragged the chain about eight years, and died +miserably. + +Mr. Cibber not so much died as "slipped his wind"--a nautical expression +that conveys the idea of an easy exit. He went off, quiet and genteel. +He was past eighty, and had lived fast. His servant called him at seven +in the morning. "I will shave at eight," said Mr. Cibber. John brought +the hot water at eight; but his master had taken advantage of this +interval in his toilet to die!--to avoid shaving? + +Snarl and Soaper conducted the criticism of their day with credit and +respectability until a good old age, and died placidly a natural death, +like twaddle, sweet or sour. + +The Triplets, while their patroness lived, did pretty well. She got a +tragedy of his accepted at her theater. She made him send her a copy, +and with her scissors cut out about half; sometimes thinning, sometimes +cutting bodily away. But, lo! the inherent vanity of Mr. Triplet came +out strong. Submissively, but obstinately, he fought for the discarded +beauties. Unluckily, he did this one day that his patroness was in one +of her bitter humors. So she instantly gave him back his manuscript, +with a sweet smile owned herself inferior in judgment to him, and left +him unmolested. + +Triplet breathed freely; a weight was taken off him. The savage steel +(he applied this title to the actress's scissors) had spared his +_purpurei panni._ He was played, pure and intact, a calamity the rest of +us grumbling escape. + +But it did so happen that the audience were of the actress's mind, and +found the words too exuberant, and the business of the play too scanty +in proportion. At last their patience was so sorely tried that they +supplied one striking incident to a piece deficient in facts. They gave +the manager the usual broad hint, and in the middle of Triplet's third +act a huge veil of green baize descended upon "The Jealous Spaniard." + +Failing here, Mrs. Woffington contrived often to befriend him in his +other arts, and moreover she often sent Mr. Triplet what she called a +snug investment, a loan of ten pounds, to be repaid at Doomsday, with +interest and compound interest, according to the Scriptures; and, +although she laughed, she secretly believed she was to get her ten +pounds back, double and treble. And I believe so too. + +Some years later Mrs. Triplet became eventful. She fell ill, and lay +a dying; but one fine morning, after all hope had been given up, she +suddenly rose and dressed herself. She was quite well in body now, but +insane. + +She continued in this state a month, and then, by God's mercy, she +recovered her reason; but now the disease fell another step, and lighted +upon her temper--a more athletic vixen was not to be found. She had +spoiled Triplet for this by being too tame, so when the dispensation +came they sparred daily. They were now thoroughly unhappy. They were +poor as ever, and their benefactress was dead, and they had learned to +snap. A speculative tour had taken this pair to Bristol, then the second +city in England. They sojourned in the suburbs. + +One morning the postman brought a letter for Triplet, who was showing +his landlord's boy how to plant onions. (N. B.--Triplet had never +planted an onion, but he was one of your _a priori_ gentlemen, and could +show anybody how to do anything.) Triplet held out his hand for the +letter, but the postman held out his hand for a half crown first. Trip's +profession had transpired, and his clothes inspired diffidence. Triplet +appealed to his good feeling. + +He replied with exultation, "That he had none left." (A middle-aged +postman, no doubt.) + +Triplet then suddenly started from entreaty to King Cambyses' vein. In +vain! + +Mrs. Triplet came down, and essayed the blandishments of the softer sex. +In vain! And, as there were no assets, the postman marched off down the +road. + +Mrs. Triplet glided after him like an assassin, beckoning on Triplet, +who followed, doubtful of her designs. Suddenly (truth compels me to +relate this) she seized the obdurate official from behind, pinned +both his arms to his side, and with her nose furiously telegraphed her +husband. + +He, animated by her example, plunged upon the man and tore the letter +from his hand and opened it before his eyes. + +It happened to be a very windy morning, and when he opened the letter an +inclosure, printed on much finer paper, was caught into the air and went +down the wind. Triplet followed in kangaroo leaps, like a dancer making +a flying exit. + +The postman cried on all good citizens for help. Some collected and +laughed at him; Mrs. Triplet explaining that they were poor, and could +not pay half a crown for the freight of half an ounce of paper. She held +him convulsively until Triplet reappeared. + +That gentleman on his return was ostentatiously calm and dignified. "You +are, or were, in perturbation about half a crown," said he. "There, +sir, is a twenty-pound note, oblige me with nineteen pounds seventeen +shillings and sixpence. Should your resources be unequal to such a +demand, meet me at the 'Green Cat and Brown Frogs,' after dinner, when +you shall receive your half-crown, and drink another upon the occasion +of my sudden accession to unbounded affluence." + +The postman was staggered by the sentence and overawed by the note, and +chose the "Cat and Frogs," and liquid half-crown. + +Triplet took his wife down the road and showed her the letter and +inclosure. The letter ran thus: + +"SIR--We beg respectfully to inform you that our late friend and client, +James Triplet, Merchant, of the Minories, died last August, without a +will, and that you are his heir. + +"His property amounts to about twenty thousand pounds, besides some +reversions. Having possessed the confidence of your late uncle we +should feel honored and gratified if you should think us worthy to act +professionally for yourself. + +"We inclose twenty pounds, and beg you will draw upon us as far as five +thousand pounds, should you have immediate occasion. + +"We are, sir, + +"Your humble servants, + +"JAMES AND JOHN ALLMITT." + +It was some time before these children of misfortune could realize this +enormous stroke of compensation; but at last it worked its way into +their spirits, and they began to sing, to triumph, and dance upon the +king's highway. + +Mrs. Triplet was the first to pause, and take better views. "Oh, James!" +she cried, "we have suffered much! we have been poor, but honest, and +the Almighty has looked upon us at last!" + +Then they began to reproach themselves. + +"Oh, James! I have been a peevish woman--an ill wife to you, this many +years!" + +"No, no!" cried Triplet, with tears in his eyes. "It is I who have been +rough and brutal. Poverty tried us too hard; but we were not like the +rest of them--we were always faithful to the altar. And the Almighty has +seen us, though we often doubted it." + +"I never doubted that, James." + +So then the poor things fell on their knees upon the public road, and +thanked God. If any man had seen them, he would have said they were mad. +Yet madder things are done every day by gentlemen with faces as grave as +the parish bull's. And then they rose and formed their little plans. + +Triplet was for devoting four-fifths to charity, and living like a +prince on the remainder. But Mrs. Triplet thought the poor were entitled +to no more than two-thirds, and they themselves ought to bask in a +third, to make up for what they had gone through; and then suddenly she +sighed, and burst into tears. "Lucy! Lucy!" sobbed she. + +Yes, reader, God had taken little Lucy! And her mother cried to think +all this wealth and comfort had come too late for her darling child. + +"Do not cry. Lucy is richer, a thousand times, than you are, with your +twenty thousand pounds." + +Their good resolutions were carried out, for a wonder. Triplet lived +for years, the benefactor of all the loose fish that swim in and round +theaters; and, indeed, the unfortunate seldom appealed to him in vain. +He now predominated over the arts, instead of climbing them. In his +latter day he became an oracle, as far as the science of acting was +concerned; and, what is far more rare, he really got to know _something_ +about it. This was owing to two circumstances: first, he ceased to run +blindfold in a groove behind the scenes; second, he became a frequenter +of the first row of the pit, and that is where the whole critic, and +two-thirds of the true actor, is made. + +On one point, to his dying day, his feelings guided his judgment. He +never could see an actress equal to his Woffington. Mrs. Abington +was grace personified, but so was Woffington, said the old man: and +Abington's voice is thin, Woffington's was sweet and mellow. When Jordan +rose, with her voice of honey, her dewy freshness, and her heavenly +laugh, that melted in along with her words, like the gold in the quartz, +Triplet was obliged to own her the goddess of beautiful gayety; but +still he had the last word: "Woffington was all _she_ is, except her +figure. Woffington was a Hebe; your Nell Jordan is little better than a +dowdy." + +Triplet almost reached the present century. He passed through great +events, but they did not excite him; his eye was upon the arts. When +Napoleon drew his conquering sword on England, Triplet's remark was: +"Now we shall be driven upon native talent, thank Heaven!" The storms +of Europe shook not Triplet. The fact is, nothing that happened on the +great stage of the world seemed real to him. He believed in nothing +where there was no curtain visible. But even the grotesque are not good +in vain. Many an eye was wet round his dying bed, and many a tear fell +upon his grave. He made his final exit in the year of grace 1799. And I, +who laugh at him, would leave this world to-day to be with him; for I am +tossing at sea--he is in port. + +***** + +A straightforward character like Mabel's becomes a firm character +with years. Long ere she was forty, her hand gently but steadily ruled +Willoughby House, and all in it. She and Mr. Vane lived very happily; he +gave her no fresh cause for uneasiness. Six months after their return, +she told him what burned in that honest heart of hers, the truth about +Mrs. Woffington. The water rushed to his eyes, but his heart was now +wholly his wife's; and gratitude to Mrs. Woffington for her noble +conduct was the only sentiment awakened. + +"You must repay her, dearest," said he. "I know you love her, and until +to-day it gave me pain; now it gives me pleasure. We owe her much." + +The happy, innocent life of Mabel Vane is soon summed up. Frank as the +day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew, she passed the golden years +preparing herself and others for a still brighter eternity. At home, it +was she who warmed and cheered the house, and the hearth, more than all +Christmas fires. Abroad, she shone upon the poor like the sun. She led +her beloved husband by the hand to Heaven. She led her children the same +road; and she was leading her grandchildren when the angel of death came +for her; and she slept in peace. + +Many remember her. For she alone, of all our tale, lived in this present +century; but they speak of her as "old Madam Vane"--her whom we knew so +young and fresh. + +She lies in Willoughby Church--her mortal part; her spirit is with the +spirits of our mothers and sisters, reader, that are gone before us; +with the tender mothers, the chaste wives, the loyal friends, and the +just women of all ages. + +RESURGET. + +I come to her last, who went first; but I could not have stayed by the +others, when once I had laid my darling asleep. It seemed for a while as +if the events of our tale did her harm; but it was not so in the end. + +Not many years afterward, she was engaged by Mr. Sheridan, at a very +heavy salary, and went to Dublin. Here the little girl, who had often +carried a pitcher on her head down to the Liffey, and had played Polly +Peachum in a booth, became a lion; dramatic, political and literary, and +the center of the wit of that wittiest of cities. + +But the Dublin ladies and she did not coalesce. They said she was a +naughty woman, and not fit for them morally. She said they had but two +topics, "silks and scandal," and were unfit for her intellectually. + +This was the saddest part of her history. But it is darkest just before +sunrise. She returned to London. Not long after, it so happened that she +went to a small church in the city one Sunday afternoon. The preacher +was such as we have often heard; but not so this poor woman, in her day +of sapless theology, ere John Wesley waked the snoring church. Instead +of sending a dry clatter of morality about their ears, or evaporating +the Bible in the thin generalities of the pulpit, this man drove God's +truths home to the hearts of men and women. In his hands the divine +virtues were thunderbolts, not swans' down. With good sense, plain +speaking, and a heart yearning for the souls of his brethren and his +sisters, he stormed the bosoms of many; and this afternoon, as he +reasoned like Paul of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, +sinners trembled--and Margaret Woffington was of those who trembled. + +After this day, she came ever to the narrow street where shone this +house of God; and still new light burst upon her heart and conscience. +Here she learned why she was unhappy; here she learned how alone she +could be happy; here she learned to know herself; and, the moment she +knew herself, she abhorred herself, and repented in dust and ashes. + +This strong and straightforward character made no attempt to reconcile +two things that an average Christian would have continued to reconcile. +Her interest fell in a moment before her new sense of right. She flung +her profession from her like a poisonous weed. + +Long before this, Mrs. Vane had begged her to leave the stage. She had +replied, that it was to her what wine is to weak stomachs. "But," added +she, "do not fear that I will ever crawl down hill, and unravel my own +reputation; nor will I ever do as I have seen others--stand groaning at +the wing, to go on giggling and come off gasping. No! the first night +the boards do not spring beneath my feet, and the pulse of the public +beat under my hand, I am gone! Next day, at rehearsal, instead +of Woffington, a note will come, to tell the manager that +henceforth Woffington is herself--at Twickenham, or Richmond, or +Harrow-on-the-Hill, far from his dust, his din, and his glare--quiet, +till God takes her. Amid grass, and flowers, and charitable deeds." + +This day had not come. It was in the zenith of her charms and her fame +that she went home one night after a play, and never entered a theater, +by the front door or back door, again. She declined all leave-taking and +ceremony. + +"When a publican shuts up shop and ceases to diffuse liquid poison, he +does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I. +Actors overrate themselves ridiculously," added she; "I am not of that +importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old +glove instead of soiling my fingers filling it with more guineas, and +the world loses in me, what? another old glove, full of words; half +of them idle, the rest wicked, untrue, silly, or impure. _Rougissons, +taisons-nous, et partons."_ + +She now changed her residence, and withdrew politely from her old +associates, courting two classes only, the good and the poor. She had +always supported her mother and sister; but now charity became her +system. The following is characteristic: + +A gentleman who had greatly admired this dashing actress met one day, in +the suburbs, a lady in an old black silk gown and a gray shawl, with a +large basket on her arm. She showed him its contents--worsted stockings +of prodigious thickness--which she was carrying to some of her +_proteges._ + +"But surely that is a waste of your valuable time," remonstrated her +admirer. "Much better buy them." + +"But, my good soul," replied the representative of Sir Harry Wildair, +"you can't buy them. Nobody in this wretched town can knit worsted hose +except Woffington." + +Conversions like this are open to just suspicion, and some did not fail +to confound her with certain great sinners, who have turned austere +self-deceivers when sin smiled no more. But this was mere conjecture. +The facts were clear, and speaking to the contrary. This woman left +folly at its brightest, and did not become austere. On the contrary, +though she laughed less, she was observed to smile far oftener than +before. She was a humble and penitent, but cheerful, hopeful Christian. + +Another class of detractors took a somewhat opposite ground. They +accused her of bigotry for advising a young female friend against the +stage as a business. But let us hear herself. This is what she said to +the girl: + +"At the bottom of my heart, I always loved and honored virtue. Yet the +tendencies of the stage so completely overcame my good sentiments that +I was for years a worthless woman. It is a situation of uncommon and +incessant temptation. Ask yourself, my child, whether there is nothing +else you can do, but this. It is, I think, our duty and our wisdom to +fly temptation whenever we can, as it is to resist it when we cannot +escape it." + +Was this the tone of bigotry? + +Easy in fortune, penitent, but cheerful, Mrs. Woffington had now but one +care--to efface the memory of her former self, and to give as many years +to purity and piety as had gone to folly and frailty. This was not +to be! The Almighty did not permit, or perhaps I should say, did not +require this. + +Some unpleasant symptoms had long attracted her notice, but in the +bustle of her profession had received little attention. She was now +persuaded by her own medical attendant to consult Dr. Bowdler, who had a +great reputation, and had been years ago an acquaintance and an admirer. +He visited her, he examined her by means little used in that day, and he +saw at once that her days were numbered. + +Dr. Bowdler's profession and experience had not steeled his heart as +they generally do and must do. He could not tell her this sad news, so +he asked her for pen and paper, and said, I will write a prescription +to Mr. ----. He then wrote, not a prescription, but a few lines, begging +Mr. ---- to convey the cruel intelligence by degrees, and with care and +tenderness. "It is all we can do for her," said he. + +He looked so grave while writing the supposed prescription, that it +unluckily occurred to Mrs. Woffington to look over him. She stole archly +behind him, and, with a smile on her face--read her death warrant. + +It was a cruel stroke! A gasping sigh broke from her. At this Dr. +Bowdler looked up, and to his horror saw the sweet face he had doomed +to the tomb looking earnestly and anxiously at him, and very pale and +grave. He was shocked, and, strange to say, she, whose death-warrant +he had signed, ran and brought him a glass of wine, for he was quite +overcome. Then she gave him her hand in her own sweet way, and bade him +not grieve for her, for she was not afraid to die, and had long learned +that "life is a walking shadow, a poor, poor player, who frets and +struts his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more." + +But no sooner was the doctor gone than she wept bitterly. Poor soul! +she had set her heart upon living as many years to God as she had to the +world, and she had hoped to wipe out her former self. + +"Alas!" she said to her sister, "I have done more harm than I can ever +hope to good now; and my long life of folly and wickedness will be +remembered--will be what they call famous; my short life of repentance +who will know, or heed, or take to profit?" + +But she soon ceased to repine. She bowed to the will of Heaven, and set +her house in order, and awaited her summons. The tranquillity of her +life and her courageous spirit were unfavorable to the progress of +disease, and I am glad to say she was permitted to live nearly three +years after this, and these three years were the happiest period of her +whole life. Works of piety and love made the days eventful. She was at +home now--she had never been at home in folly and loose living. All her +bitterness was gone now, with its cause. + +Reader, it was with her as it is with many an autumn day; clouds darken +the sun, rain and wind sweep over all--till day declines. But then comes +one heavenly hour, when all ill things seem spent. There is no more +wind, no more rain. The great sun comes forth--not fiery bright indeed, +but full of tranquil glory, and warms the sky with ruby waves, and the +hearts of men with hope, as, parting with us for a little space, he +glides slowly and peacefully to rest. + +So fared it with this humble, penitent, and now happy Christian. + +A part of her desire was given her. She lived long enough to read a firm +recantation of her former self, to show the world a great repentance, +and to leave upon indelible record one more proof, what alone is true +wisdom, and where alone true joys are to be found. + +She endured some physical pain, as all must who die in their prime. But +this never wrung a sigh from her great heart; and within she had the +peace of God, which passes all understanding. + +I am not strong enough to follow her to her last hour; nor is it needed. +Enough that her own words came true. When the great summons came, it +found her full of hope, and peace, and joy; sojourning, not dwelling, +upon earth; far from dust and din and vice; the Bible in her hand, +the Cross in her heart; quiet; amid grass, and flowers, and charitable +deeds. + +"NON OMNEM MORITURAM." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peg Woffington, by Charles Reade + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEG WOFFINGTON *** + +***** This file should be named 3670.txt or 3670.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/3670/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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