"Mary, dear Mary, what grieves you?" she said. "Tell me. It"s I, dear--your cousin Emily. There"s a good girl--what has happened to vex you?"
Mary raised her head, and looked in her cousin"s face. Her eye was wild--she was pale as marble, and in her beautiful face was an expression so utterly woeful and piteous, that Emily was almost moved.
"Oh! I have lost him--for ever and ever I have lost him," said she, despairingly. "Oh! cousin, dear cousin, he is gone from me. G.o.d pity me--I am forsaken."
"Nay, cousin, do not say so--be cheerful--it cannot be--there, there,"
and Emily Copland kissed the poor girl"s pale lips.
"Forsaken--forsaken," continued Mary, for she heard not and heeded not the voice of vain consolation. "He has thrown me off for ever--for ever--quite--quite. G.o.d pity me, where shall I look for hope?"
"Mary, dear Mary," said her cousin, "you are ill--do not give way thus.
Be a.s.sured it is not as you think. You must be in error."
"In error! Oh! that I could think so. G.o.d knows how gladly I would give my poor life to think so. No, no--it is real--all real. Oh! cousin, he has forsaken me."
"I cannot believe it--I _can_ not," said Emily Copland. "Such folly can hardly exist. I will not believe it. What reason have you for thinking him changed?"
"Read--oh, read it, cousin," replied the girl, motioning toward the letter, which lay open on the table--"read it once, and you will not bid me hope any more. Oh! cousin, dear cousin, there is no more joy for me in this world, turn where I will, do what I may--I am heart-broken."
Emily Copland glanced through the letter, shook her head, and dropped the note again where it had been lying.
"You know, cousin Emily, how I loved him," continued Mary, while for the first time the tears flowed fast--"you know that day after day, among all that happened to grieve me, my heart found rest in his love--in the hope and trust that he would never grow cold; and--and--oh! G.o.d pity me--_now_ where is it all? You see--you know his love is gone from me--for evermore--gone from me. Oh! how I used to count the days and hours till the time would come round when I could see him and speak to him--but this has all gone. Hereafter all days are to be the same--morning or evening, summer time or winter--no change of seasons or of hours can bring to me any more hope or gladness, but ever the same--sorrow and desolate loneliness--for oh! cousin, I am very desolate, and hopeless, and heart-broken."
The poor girl threw her arms round her cousin"s neck, and sobbed and wept, and wept and sobbed again, as though her heart would break. Long and bitterly she wept upon her cousin"s neck in silence, unbroken, except by her sobs. After a time, however, Emily Copland exclaimed,--
"Well, Mary, to say the truth, I never much liked the matter; and as he is a fool, and an _ungrateful_ fool to boot, I am not sorry that he has shown his character as he has done. Believe me, painful as such discoveries are when made thus early, they are incomparably more agonizing when made too late. A little--a very little--time will enable you quite to forget him."
"No, cousin," replied Mary--"no, I never will forget him. He is changed indeed--greatly changed from what he was--bitterly has he disappointed and betrayed me; but I cannot forget him. There shall indeed never more pa.s.s word or look between us; he shall be to me as one that is dead, whom I shall hear and see no more; but the memory of what he was--the memory of what I vainly thought him--shall remain with me while my poor heart beats."
"Well, Mary, time will show," said Emily.
"Yes, time will show--time will show," replied she, mournfully; "be the time long or short, it will show."
"You _must_ forget him--you _will_ forget him; a few weeks, and you will thank your stars you found him out so soon."
"Ah, cousin," replied Mary, "you do not know how all my thoughts, and hopes, and recollections--everything I liked to remember, and to look forward to; you cannot know how all that was happy in my life--but what boots it, I will keep my troth with him; I will love no other, and wed with no other; and while this sorrowful life remains I will never--never--forget him."
"I can only say, that were the case my own," rejoined Emily, "I would show the fellow how lightly I held him and his worthless heart, and marry within a month; but every one has her own way of doing things.
Remember it is nearly time to start for the theatre; the coach will be at the door in half-an-hour. Surely you will come; it would seem so very strange were you to change your mind thus suddenly; and you may be very sure that, by some means or other, the impudent fellow--about whom, I cannot see why, you care so much--would hear of all your grieving, and pining, and love-sickness. Pah! I"d rather die than please the hollow, worthless creature by letting him think he had caused me a moment"s uneasiness; and then, above all, Sir Richard would be so outrageously angry--why, you would never hear the end of it.
Come, come, be a good girl. After all, it is only holding up your head, and looking pretty, which you can"t help, for an hour or two. You must come to silence gossip abroad, as well as for the sake of peace at home--you _must_ come."
"I would fain stay here at home," said the poor girl; "heart and head are sick: but if you think my father would be angry with me for staying at home, I will go. It is indeed, as you say, a small matter to me where I pa.s.s an hour or two; all times, all places--crowds or solitudes--are henceforward indifferent to me. What care I where they bring me! Cousin Emily, I will do whatever you think best."
The poor girl spoke with a voice and look of such utter wretchedness, that even her light-hearted, worldly, selfish cousin was touched with pity.
"Come, then; I will a.s.sist you," said she, kissing the pale cheek of the heart-stricken girl. "Come, Mary, cheer up, you must call up your good looks it would never do to be seen thus." And so talking on, she a.s.sisted her to dress.
Gaily and richly arrayed in the gorgeous and by no means unbecoming style of the times, and sparkling with brilliant jewels, poor Mary Ashwoode--a changed and stricken creature, scarcely conscious of what was going on around her--took her place in her father"s carriage, and was borne rapidly toward the theatre.
The party consisted of the two young ladies, who were respectively under the protection of Lord Aspenly, who sate beside Mary Ashwoode, happily too much pleased with his own voluble frivolity to require anything more from her than her appearing to hear it, and young Ashwoode, who chatted gaily with his pretty cousin.
"What has become of my venerable true-love, Major O"Leary?" inquired Miss Copland.
"He will follow on horseback," replied Ashwoode. "I beheld him, as I pa.s.sed downstairs, admiring himself before the looking-gla.s.s in his new regimentals. He designs tremendous havoc to-night. His coat is a perfect phenomenon--the investment of a year"s pay at least--with more gold about it than I thought the country could afford, and scarlet enough to make a whole wardrobe for the lady of Babylon--a coat which, if left to itself, would storm the hearts of nine girls out of ten, and which, even with an officer in it, will enthral half the s.e.x."
"And here comes the coat itself," exclaimed the young lady, as the major rode up to the coach-window--"I"m half in love with it myself already."
"Ladies, your devoted slave: gentlemen, your most obedient," said the major, raising his three-cornered hat. "I hope to see you before half-an-hour, under circ.u.mstances more favourable to conversation. Miss Copland, depend upon it, with your permission, I"ll pay my homage to you before half-an-hour, the more especially as I have a scandalous story to tell you. Meanwhile, I wish you all a safe journey, and a pleasant one." So saying, the major rode on, at a brisk pace, to the "c.o.c.k and Anchor," there intending to put up his horse, and to exchange a few words with young O"Connor.
In the meantime the huge old coach, which contained the rest of the party, jolted and rumbled on, until at length, amid the confusion and clatter of crowded vehicles, restive horses, and vociferous coachmen, with all their accompaniments of swearing and whipping, the clank of scrambling hoofs, the b.u.mping and hustling of carriages, and the desperate rushing of chairmen, bolting this way or that, with their living loads of foppery and fashion--the coach-door was thrown open at the box-entrance of the Theatre Royal, in Smock Alley.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE THEATRE--THE RUFFIAN--THE a.s.sAULT, AND THE RENCONTRE.
Major O"Leary had hardly dismounted in the quadrangle of the "c.o.c.k and Anchor," when O"Connor rode slowly into the inn-yard.
"How are you, my dear fellow?" exclaimed the man of scarlet and gold; "I was just asking where you were. Come down off that beast, I want to have a word in your ear--a bit of news--some fun. Descend, I say, descend."
O"Connor accordingly dismounted.
"Now then--a hearty shake--so. I have great news, and only a minute to tell it. Jack, run like a shot, and get me a chair. Here, Tim, take a napkin and an oyster-knife, and do not leave a bit of mud, or the sign of it, upon my back: take a general survey of the coat and breeches, and a particular review of the wig. And, Jem, do you give my boots a harum-scarum shot of a superficial scrub, and touch up the hat--gently, do you mind--and take care of the lace. So while the fellows are finishing my toilet, I may as well tell you my morsel of news. Do you know who is to be at the playhouse to-night?"
O"Connor expressed his ignorance.
"Well, then, I"ll tell you, and make what use you like of it," resumed the major. "Miss Mary Ashwoode! There"s for you. Take my advice, get into a decent coat and breeches, and run down to the theatre--it is not five minutes" walk from this; you"ll easily find us, and I"ll take care to make room for you. Why, you do not seem half pleased: what more can you wish for, unless you expect the girl to put up for the evening at the "c.o.c.k and Anchor"? Rouse yourself. If you feel modest, there is nothing like a pint or two of Madeira: don"t try brandy--it"s the father and mother of all sorts of indiscretions. Now, mind, you have the hint; it is an opportunity you ought to improve. By the powers, if I was in your place--but no matter. You may not have an opportunity of seeing her again these six months; and unless I"m completely mistaken, you are as much in love with the girl as I am with--several that shall be nameless. Heigho! next after Burgundy, and the c.o.c.k-pit, and the fox-hounds, and two or three more frailties of the kind, there is nothing in the world I prefer to flirtation, without much minding whether I"m the princ.i.p.al or the second in the affair. But here comes the vehicle."
Accordingly, without waiting to say any more, the major took his seat in the chair, and was borne by the l.u.s.ty chairmen, at a swinging pace, through the narrow streets, and, without let or accident, safely deposited within the princ.i.p.al entrance of the theatre.
The theatre of Smock Alley (or, as it was then called, Orange Street) was not quite what theatres are nowadays. It was a large building of the kind, as theatres were then rated, and contained three galleries, one above the other, supported by heavy wooden caryatides, and richly gilded and painted. The curtain, instead of rising and falling, opened, according to the old fashion, in the middle, and was drawn sideways apart, disclosing no triumphs of illusive colouring and perspective, but a succession of plain tapestry-covered screens, which, from early habit, the audience accommodatingly accepted for town or country, dry land or sea, or, in short, for any locality whatsoever, according to the manager"s good will and pleasure. This docility and good faith on the part of the audience were, perhaps, the more praiseworthy, inasmuch as a very considerable number of the aristocratic spectators actually sate in long lines down either side of the stage--a circ.u.mstance involving, by the continuous presence of the same perukes, and the same embroidered waistcoats, the same set of countenances, and the same set of legs, in every variety of clime and situation through which the wayward invention of the playwright hurried his action, a very severe additional tax upon the imaginative faculties of the audience. But perhaps the most striking peculiarities of the place were exhibited in the grim persons of two _bona fide_ sentries, in genuine c.o.c.ked hats and scarlet coats, with their enormous muskets shouldered, and the ball-cartridges dangling in ostentatious rows from their bandoleers, planted at the front, and facing the audience, one at each side of the stage--a vivid evidence of the stern vicissitudes and insecurity of the times. For the rest, the audience of those days, in the brilliant colours, and glittering lace, and profuse ornament, which the gorgeous fashion of the time allowed, presented a spectacle of rich and dazzling magnificence, such as no modern a.s.sembly of the kind can even faintly approach.
The major had hardly made his way to the box where his party were seated, when his attention was caught by an object which had for him all but irresistible attractions: this was the buxom person of Mistress Jannet Rumble, a plump, good-looking, young widow of five-and-forty, with a jolly smile, a hearty laugh, and a killing acquaintance with the language of the eyes. These perfections--for of course her jointure, which, by the way, was very considerable, could have had nothing to do with it--were too much for Major O"Leary. He met the widow accidentally, made a few careless inquiries about her finances, and fell over head and ears in love with her upon the shortest possible notice. Our friend had, therefore, hardly caught a glimpse of her, when Miss Copland, beside whom he was seated, observed that he became unusually meditative, and at length, after two or three attempts to enter again into conversation--all resulting in total and incoherent failure, the major made some blundering excuse, took his departure, and in a moment had planted himself beside the fascinating Mistress Rumble--where we shall allow him the protection of a generous concealment, and suffer him to read the lady"s eyes, and insinuate his soft nonsense, without intruding for a moment upon the sanct.i.ty of lovers" mutual confidences.
Emily Copland having watched and enjoyed the manoeuvres of her military friend till she was fairly tired of the amus.e.m.e.nt, and having in vain sought to engage Henry Ashwoode, who was unusually moody and absent, in conversation, at length, as a last desperate resource, turned her attention to what was pa.s.sing upon the stage.
While all this was going forward, young Ashwoode was a good deal disconcerted at observing among the crowd in the pit a personage with whom, in the vicious haunts which he frequented, he had made a sort of ambiguous acquaintance. The man was a bulky, broad-shouldered, ill-looking fellow, with a large, vulgar, red face, and a coa.r.s.e, sensual mouth, whose blue, swollen lips indicated habitual intemperance, and the nauseous ugliness of which was further enhanced by the loss of two front teeth, probably by some violent agency, as was testified by a deep scar across the mouth; the eyes of the man carried that uncertain expression, half of shame and half of defiance, which belongs to the coward, bully, and ruffian. The blackness of habitually-indulged and ferocious pa.s.sion was upon his countenance; and the revolting character of the face was the more unequivocally marked by a sort of smile, or rather sneer, which had in it neither intellectuality nor gladness--an odious libel on the human smile, with nothing but brute insolence and scorn, and a sardonic glee in its baleful light--a smile from which every human sympathy recoiled abashed and affrighted. Let not the reader imagine that the man and the character are but the dreams of fiction; the wretch, whose outward seeming we have imperfectly sketched, lived and moved in the scenes where we have fixed our narrative--there grew rich--there rioted in the indulgence of every pa.s.sion which h.e.l.l can inspire or to which wealth can pander--there ministered to his insatiate avarice, by the destruction and beggary of thousands of the young and thoughtless--and there at length, in the fulness of his time, died--in the midst of splendour and infamy: with malignant and triumphant perseverance having persisted to his latest hour in the prosecution of his Satanic mission; luring the unwary into the toils of crime and inextricable madness, and thence into the pit of temporal and eternal ruin. This man, Nicholas Blarden, Esquire, was the proprietor of one of those places where fortunes are squandered, time sunk, habits, temper, character, morals, all, corrupted, blasted, destroyed--one of those places which are set apart as the especial temples of avarice, in which, year after year, are for ever recurring the same perennial scenes of mad excess, of calculating, merciless fraud, of bleak, brain-stricken despair--places to which has been a.s.signed, in a spirit of fearful truth, the appellative of "h.e.l.l."
The man whom we have mentioned, it had never been young Ashwoode"s misfortune to meet, except in those scenes where his acquaintance was useful, without being actually discreditable; for it was the fellow"s habit, with the instinctive caution which marks such gentlemen, to court public observation as little as possible, and to skulk systematically from the eye of popular scrutiny--seldom embarra.s.sing his aristocratic acquaintances by claiming the privilege of recognition at unseasonable times; and confining himself, for the most part, exclusively to his own coterie. Independently of his unpleasant natural peculiarities there were other circ.u.mstances which tended to make him a conspicuous object in the crowd--the fellow was extravagantly over-dressed, and had planted himself in a standing posture upon a bench, and from this elevated position was, with steady effrontery, gazing into the box in which young Ashwoode"s party were seated, exchanging whispers and horse-laughs with three or four men who looked scarcely less villainous than himself, and, as soon became apparent, directing his marked and exclusive attention to Miss Ashwoode, who was too deeply absorbed in her own sorrowful reflections to heed what was pa.s.sing around her. The young man felt his choler mount, as he beheld the insolent conduct of the fellow--he saw, however, that Blarden was evidently not perfectly sober, and hesitated what course he should take. Strongly as he was tempted to spring at once into the pit, and put an end to the impertinence by caning the fellow within an inch of his life, he yet felt that a disreputable conflict of the kind had better be avoided, and could not well be justified except as a last resource; he, therefore, made up his mind to bear it as long as human endurance could.
Whatever hopes he entertained of escaping a collision with this man were, however, destined to be disappointed. Nicky Blarden (as his friends endearingly called him), to the great comfort of that part of the audience in his immediate neighbourhood, at length descended from his elevated stand, but not to conceal himself among the less obtrusive spectators. With an insolent swagger the fellow shouldered his way among the crowd towards the box where the object of his gaze was seated; and, having planted himself directly beneath it, he stared impudently up at young Ashwoode, exclaiming at the same time,--
"I say, Ashwoode, how does the world wag with you?--why ain"t you rattling the bones this evening? d----n me, you may as well be off, and let me take care of the dimber mot up there?"
"Do you speak to _me_, sir?" inquired young Ashwoode, turning almost livid with pa.s.sion, and speaking in that subdued tone, and with that constrained coolness, which precedes some ungovernable outburst of fury.