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