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