Books: Peg Woffington
C >>
Charles Reade >> Peg Woffington
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13
_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.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13