Books: Peg Woffington
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Charles Reade >> Peg Woffington
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"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."
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