What a solemn conference I had with Sampson that evening! He knew my affairs, my expectations, my mother"s anger. Psha! that was far off, and he knew some excellent liberal people (of the order of Melchizedek) who would discount the other. The General would not give his consent? Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders and swore a great roaring oath. My mother would not relent? What then? A man was a man, and to make his own way in the world? he supposed. He is only a churl who won"t play for such a stake as that, and lose or win, by George! shouts the chaplain, over a bottle of Burgundy at the Bedford Head, where he dined. I need not put down our conversation. We were two of us, and I think there was only one mind between us. Our talk was of a Sat.u.r.day night....
I did not tell Theo, nor any relative of hers, what was being done. But when the dear child faltered and talked, trembling, of the coming departure, I bade her bear up, and vowed all would be well, so confidently, that she, who ever has taken her alarms and joys from my face (I wish, my dear, it were sometimes not so gloomy), could not but feel confidence; and placed (with many fond words that need not here be repeated) her entire trust in me-murmuring those sweet words of Ruth that must have comforted myriads of tender hearts in my dearest maiden"s plight; that whither I would go she would go, and that my people should be hers. At last, one day, the General"s preparations being made, the trunks enc.u.mbering the pa.s.sages of the dear old Dean Street lodging, which I shall love as long as I shall remember at all-one day, almost the last of his stay, when the good man (his Excellency we called him now) came home to his dinner-a comfortless meal enough it was in the present condition of the family-he looked round the table at the place where I had used to sit in happy old days, and sighed out: "I wish, Molly, George was here."
"Do you, Martin?" says Aunt Lambert, flinging into his arms.
"Yes, I do; but I don"t wish you to choke me, Molly," he says. "I love him dearly. I may go away and never see him again, and take his foolish little sweetheart along with me. I suppose you will write to each other, children? I can"t prevent that, you know; and until he changes his mind, I suppose Miss Theo won"t obey papa"s orders, and get him out of her foolish little head. Wilt thou, Theo?"
"No, dearest, dearest, best papa!"
"What! more embraces and kisses! What does all this mean?"
"It means that-that George is in the drawing-room," says mamma.
"Is he! My dearest boy!" cries the General. "Come to me-come in!" And when I entered he held me to his heart, and kissed me.
I confess at this I was so overcome that I fell down on my knees before the dear, good man, and sobbed on his own.
"G.o.d bless you, my dearest boy!" he mutters hurriedly. "Always loved you as a son-haven"t I, Molly? Broke my heart nearly when I quarrelled with you about this little-What!-odds marrowbones!-all down on your knees! Mrs. Lambert, pray what is the meaning of all this?"
"Dearest, dearest papa! I will go with you all the same!" whimpers one of the kneeling party. "And I will wait-oh!-as long as ever my dearest father wants me!"
"In Heaven"s name!" roars the General, "tell me what has happened?"
What had happened was, that George Esmond Warrington and Theodosia Lambert had been married in Southwark that morning, their banns having been duly called in the church of a certain friend of the Reverend Mr. Sampson.
CHAPTER LXXIX. Containing both Comedy and Tragedy
We, who had been active in the guilty scene of the morning, felt trebly guilty when we saw the effect which our conduct had produced upon him, who, of all others, we loved and respected. The shock to the good man was strange, and pitiful to us to witness who had administered it. The child of his heart had deceived and disobeyed him-I declare I think, my dear, now, we would not or could not do it over again; his whole family had entered into a league against him. Dear, kind friend and father! We know thou hast pardoned our wrong-in the Heaven where thou dwellest amongst purified spirits who learned on earth how to love and pardon! To love and forgive were easy duties with that man. Beneficence was natural to him, and a sweet, smiling humility; and to wound either was to be savage and brutal, as to torture a child, or strike blows at a nursing woman. The deed done, all we guilty ones grovelled in the earth, before the man we had injured. I pa.s.s over the scenes of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of common worship together, of final separation when the good man departed to his government, and the ship sailed away before us, leaving me and Theo on the sh.o.r.e. We stood there hand in hand, horribly abashed, silent, and guilty. My wife did not come to me till her father went: in the interval between the ceremony of our marriage and his departure, she had remained at home, occupying her old place by her father, and bed by her sister"s side: he as kind as ever, but the women almost speechless among themselves; Aunt Lambert, for once, unkind and fretful in her temper; and little Hetty feverish and strange, and saying, "I wish we were gone. I wish we were gone." Though admitted to the house, and forgiven, I slunk away during those last days, and only saw my wife for a minute or two in the street, or with her family. She was not mine till they were gone. We went to Winchester and Hampton for what may be called our wedding. It was but a dismal business. For a while we felt utterly lonely: and of our dear father as if we had buried him, or drove him to the grave by our undutifulness.
I made Sampson announce our marriage in the papers. (My wife used to hang down her head before the poor fellow afterwards.) I took Mrs. Warrington back to my old lodgings in Bloomsbury, where there was plenty of room for us, and our modest married life began. I wrote home a letter to my mother in Virginia, informing her of no particulars, but only that Mr. Lambert being about to depart for his government, I considered myself bound in honour to fulfil my promise towards his dearest daughter; and stated that I intended to carry out my intention of completing my studies for the Bar, and qualifying myself for employment at home, or in our own or any other colony. My good Mrs. Mountain answered this letter, by desire of Madam Esmond, she said, who thought that for the sake of peace my communications had best be conducted that way. I found my relatives in a fury which was perfectly amusing to witness. The butler"s face, as he said, "Not at home," at my uncle"s house in Hill Street, was a blank tragedy that might have been studied by Garrick when he sees Banque. My poor little wife was on my arm, and we were tripping away, laughing at the fellow"s accueil, when we came upon my lady in a street stoppage in her chair. I took off my hat and made her the lowest possible bow. I affectionately asked after my dear cousins. "I-I wonder you dare look me in the face!" Lady Warrington gasped out. "Nay, don"t deprive me of that precious privilege!" says I. "Move on, Peter," she screams to her chairman. "Your ladyship would not impale your own husband"s flesh and blood!" says I. She rattles up the gla.s.s of her chair in a fury. I kiss my hand, take off my hat, and perform another of my very finest bows.
Walking shortly afterwards in Hyde Park with my dearest companion, I met my little cousin exercising on horseback with a groom behind him. As soon as he sees us, he gallops up to us, the groom powdering afterwards and bawling out, "Stop, Master Miles, stop!"
"I am not to speak to my cousin," says Miles, "but telling you to send my love to Harry is not speaking to you, is it? Is that my new cousin? I"m not told not to speak to her. I"m Miles, cousin, Sir Miles Warrington Baronet"s son, and you are very pretty!" "Now, duee now, Master Miles," says the groom, touching his hat to us; and the boy trots away laughing and looking at us over his shoulder. "You see how my relations have determined to treat me," I say to my partner. "As if I married you for your relations!" says Theo, her eyes beaming joy and love into mine. Ah, how happy we were! how brisk and pleasant the winter! How snug the kettle by the fire (where the abashed Sampson sometimes came and made the punch); how delightful the night at the theatre, for which our friends brought us tickets of admission, and where we daily expected our new play of Pocahontas would rival the successes of all former tragedies.
The fickle old aunt of Clarges Street, who received me, on my first coming to London with my wife, with a burst of scorn, mollified presently, and as soon as she came to know Theo (who she had p.r.o.nounced to be an insignificant little country-faced chit), fell utterly in love with her, and would have her to tea and supper every day when there was no other company. "As for company, my dears," she would say, "I don"t ask you. You are no longer du monde. Your marriage has put that entirely out of the question." So she would have had us come to amuse her, and go in and out by the back-stairs. My wife was fine lady enough to feel only amused at this reception; and, I must do the Baroness"s domestics the justice to say that, had we been duke and d.u.c.h.ess, we could not have been received with more respect. Madame de Bernstein was very much tickled and amused with my story of Lady Warrington and the chair. I acted it for her, and gave her anecdotes of the pious Baronet"s lady and her daughters, which pleased the mischievous, lively old woman.
The Dowager Countess of Castlewood, now established in her house at Kensington, gave us that kind of welcome which genteel ladies extend to their poorer relatives. We went once or twice to her ladyship"s drums at Kensington; but, losing more money at cards, and spending more money in coach-hire than I liked to afford, we speedily gave up those entertainments, and, I dare say, were no more missed or regretted than other people in the fashionable world, who are carried by death, debt, or other accident out of the polite sphere. My Theo did not in the least regret this exclusion. She had made her appearance at one of these drums, attired in some little ornaments which her mother left behind her, and by which the good lady set some store; but I thought her own white neck was a great deal prettier than these poor twinkling stones; and there were dowagers, whose wrinkled old bones blazed with rubies and diamonds, which, I am sure, they would gladly have exchanged for her modest parure of beauty and freshness. Not a soul spoke to her-except, to be sure, Beau Lothair, a friend of Mr. Will"s, who prowled about Bloomsbury afterwards, and even sent my wife a billet. I met him in Covent Garden shortly after, and promised to break his ugly face if ever I saw it in the neighbourhood of my lodgings, and Madam Theo was molested no further.
The only one of our relatives who came to see us (Madame de Bernstein never came; she sent her coach for us sometimes, or made inquiries regarding us by her woman or her major-domo) was our poor Maria, who, with her husband, Mr. Hagan, often took a share of our homely dinner. Then we had friend Spencer from the Temple, who admired our Arcadian felicity, and gently asked our sympathy for his less fortunate loves; and twice or thrice the famous Doctor Johnson came in for a dish of Theo"s tea. A dish? a pailful! "And a pail the best thing to feed him, sar!" says Mr. Gumbo, indignantly: for the Doctor"s appearance was not pleasant, nor his linen particularly white. He snorted, he grew red, and sputtered in feeding; he flung his meat about, and bawled out in contradicting people: and annoyed my Theo, whom he professed to admire greatly, by saying, every time he saw her, "Madam, you do not love me; I see by your manner you do not love me; though I admire you, and come here for your sake. Here is my friend Mr. Reynolds that shall paint you: he has no ceruse in his paint-box that is as brilliant as your complexion." And so Mr. Reynolds, a most perfect and agreeable gentleman, would have painted my wife; but I knew what his price was, and did not choose to incur that expense. I wish I had now, for the sake of the children, that they might see what yonder face was like some five-and-thirty years ago. To me, madam, "tis the same now as ever; and your ladyship is always young!
What annoyed Mrs. Warrington with Dr. Johnson more than his contradictions, his sputterings, and his dirty nails, was, I think, an unfavourable opinion which he formed of my new tragedy. Hagan once proposed that he should read some scenes from it after tea.
"Nay, sir, conversation is better," says the Doctor. "I can read for myself, or hear you at the theatre. I had rather hear Mrs. Warrington"s artless prattle than your declamation of Mr. Warrington"s decasyllables. Tell us about your household affairs, madam, and whether his Excellency your father is well, and whether you made the pudden and the b.u.t.ter sauce. The b.u.t.ter sauce was delicious!" (He loved it so well that he had kept a large quant.i.ty in the bosom of a very dingy shirt.) "You made it as though you loved me. You helped me as though you loved me, though you don"t."
"Faith, sir, you are taking some of the present away with you in your waistcoat," says Hagan, with much spirit.
"Sir, you are rude!" bawls the Doctor. "You are unacquainted with the first principles of politeness, which is courtesy before ladies. Having received an university education, I am surprised that you have not learned the rudiments of politeness. I respect Mrs. Warrington. I should never think of making personal remarks about her guests before her!"
"Then, sir," says Hagan, fiercely, "why did you speak of my theatre?"
"Sir, you are saucy!" roars the Doctor.
"De te fabula," says the actor. "I think it is your waistcoat that is saucy. Madam, shall I make some punch in the way we make it in Ireland?"
The Doctor, puffing, and purple in the face, was wiping the dingy shirt with a still more dubious pocket-handkerchief, which he then applied to his forehead. After this exercise, he blew a hyperborean whistle, as if to blow his wrath away. "It is de me, sir-though, as a young man, perhaps you need not have told me so."
"I drop my point, sir! If you have been wrong, I am sure I am bound to ask your pardon for setting you so!" says Mr. Hagan, with a fine bow.
"Doesn"t he look like a G.o.d?" says Maria, clutching my wife"s hand: and indeed Mr. Hagan did look like a handsome young gentleman. His colour had risen; he had put his hand to his breast with a n.o.ble air: Chamont or Castalio could not present himself better.
"Let me make you some lemonade, sir; my papa has sent us a box of fresh limes. May we send you some to the Temple?"
"Madam, if they stay in your house, they will lose their quality and turn sweet," says the Doctor. "Mr. Hagan, you are a young sauce-box, that"s what you are! Ho! ho! It is I have been wrong."
"Oh, my lord, my Polidore!" bleats Lady Maria, when she was alone in my wife"s drawing-room: ""Oh, I could hear thee talk for ever thus, Eternally admiring,-fix and gaze On those dear eyes, for every glance they send Darts through my soul, and fills my heart with rapture!"
"Thou knowest not, my Theo, what a pearl and paragon of a man my Castalio is; my Chamont, my-oh, dear me, child, what a pity it is that in your husband"s tragedy he should have to take the horrid name of Captain Smith!"
Upon this tragedy not only my literary hopes, but much of my financial prospects were founded. My brother"s debts discharged, my mother"s drafts from home duly honoured, my own expenses paid, which, though moderate, were not inconsiderable,-pretty nearly the whole of my patrimony had been spent, and this auspicious moment I must choose for my marriage! I could raise money on my inheritance: that was not impossible, though certainly costly. My mother could not leave her eldest son without a maintenance, whatever our quarrels might be. I had health, strength, good wits, some friends, and reputation-above all, my famous tragedy, which the manager had promised to perform, and upon the proceeds of this I counted for my present support. What becomes of the arithmetic of youth? How do we then calculate that a hundred pounds is a maintenance, and a thousand a fortune? How did I dare play against Fortune with such odds? I succeeded, I remember, in convincing my dear General, and he left home convinced that his son-in-law had for the present necessity at least a score of hundred pounds at his command. He and his dear Molly had begun life with less, and the ravens had somehow always fed them. As for the women, the question of poverty was one of pleasure to those sentimental souls, and Aunt Lambert, for her part, declared it would be wicked and irreligious to doubt of a provision being made for her children. Was the righteous ever forsaken? Did the just man ever have to beg his bread? She knew better than that! "No, no, my dears! I am not going to be afraid on that account, I warrant you! Look at me and my General!"
Theo believed all I said and wished to believe myself. So we actually began life upon a capital of Five Acts, and about three hundred pounds of ready money in hand!
Well, the time of the appearance of the famous tragedy drew near, and my friends canva.s.sed the town to get a body of supporters for the opening night. I am ill at asking favours from the great; but when my Lord Wrotham came to London, I went, with Theo in my hand, to wait on his lordship, who received us kindly, out of regard for his old friend, her father-though he good-naturedly shook a finger at me (at which my little wife hung down her head), for having stole a march on the good General. However, he would do his best for her father"s daughter; hoped for a success; said he had heard great things of the piece; and engaged a number of places for himself and his friends. But this patron secured, I had no other. "Mon cher, at my age," says the Baroness, "I should bore myself to death at a tragedy: but I will do my best; and I will certainly send my people to the boxes. Yes! Case in his best black looks like a n.o.bleman; and Brett in one of my gowns has a faux air de moi which is quite distinguished. Put down my name for two in the front boxes. Good-bye, my dear. Bonne chance!" The Dowager Countess presented compliments (on the back of the nine of clubs), had a card-party that night, and was quite sorry she and f.a.n.n.y could not go to my tragedy. As for my uncle and Lady Warrington, they were out of the question. After the affair of the sedan-chair I might as well have asked Queen Elizabeth to go to Drury Lane. These were all my friends-that host of aristocratic connexions about whom poor Sampson had bragged; and on the strength of whom, the manager, as he said, had given Mr. Hagan his engagement! "Where was my Lord Bute? Had I not promised his lordship should come?" he asks, snappishly, taking snuff (how different from the brisk, and engaging, and obsequious little manager of six months ago!)-"I promised Lord Bute should come?"
"Yes," says Mr. Garrick, "and her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, and his Majesty too."
Poor Sampson owned that he, buoyed up by vain hopes, had promised the appearance of these august personages.
The next day, at rehearsal, matters were worse still, and the manager in a fury.
"Great heavens, sir!" says he, "into what a pretty guet-a-pens have you led me! Look at that letter, sir!-read that letter!" And he hands me one: "MY DEAR SIR" (said the letter)-"I have seen his lordship, and conveyed to him Mr. Warrington"s request that he would honour the tragedy of Pocahontas by his presence. His lordship is a patron of the drama, and a magnificent friend of all the liberal arts; but he desires me to say that he cannot think of attending himself, much less of asking his Gracious Master to witness the performance of a play, a princ.i.p.al part in which is given to an actor who has made a clandestine marriage with a daughter of one of his Majesty"s n.o.bility.-Your well-wisher, SAUNDERS MCDUFF."
"Mr. D. Garrick, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane."
My poor Theo had a nice dinner waiting for me after the rehearsal. I pleaded fatigue as the reason for looking so pale: I did not dare to convey to her this dreadful news.
CHAPTER Lx.x.x. Pocahontas
The English public not being so well acquainted with the history of Pocahontas as we of Virginia, who still love the memory of that simple and kindly creature, Mr. Warrington, at the suggestion of his friends, made a little ballad about this Indian princess, which was printed in the magazines a few days before the appearance of the tragedy. This proceeding Sampson and I considered to be very artful and ingenious. "It is like ground-bait, sir," says the enthusiastic parson, "and you will see the fish rise in mult.i.tudes, on the great day!" He and Spencer declared that the poem was discussed and admired at several coffee-houses in their hearing, and that it had been attributed to Mr. Mason, Mr. Cowper of the Temple, and even to the famous Mr. Gray. I believe poor Sam had himself set abroad these reports; and, if Shakspeare had been named as the author of the tragedy, would have declared Pocahontas to be one of the poet"s best performances. I made acquaintance with brave Captain Smith, as a boy in my grandfather"s library at home, where I remember how I would sit at the good old man"s knees, with my favourite volume on my own, spelling out the exploits of our Virginian hero. I loved to read of Smith"s travels, sufferings, captivities, escapes, not only in America but Europe. I become a child again almost as I take from the shelf before me in England the familiar volume, and all sorts of recollections of my early home come crowding over my mind. The old grandfather would make pictures for me of Smith doing battle with the Turks on the Danube, or led out by our Indian savages to death. Ah, what a terrific fight was that in which he was engaged with the three Turkish champions, and how I used to delight over the story of his combat with Bonny Molgro, the last and most dreadful of the three! What a name Bonny Molgro was, and with what a prodigious turban, scimitar, and whiskers we represented him! Having slain and taken off the heads of his first two enemies, Smith and Bonny Molgro met, falling to (says my favourite old book) "with their battle-axes, whose piercing bills made sometimes the one, sometimes the other, to have scarce sense to keep their saddles: especially the Christian received such a wound that he lost his battle-axe, whereat the supposed conquering Turke had a great shout from the rampires. Yet, by the readinesse of his horse, and his great judgment and dexteritie, he not only avoided the Turke"s blows, but, having drawn his falchion, so pierced the Turke under the cutlets, through back and body, that though hee alighted from his horse, he stood not long ere hee lost his head as the rest had done. In reward for which deed, Duke Segismundus gave him 3 Turke"s head in a shield for armes and 300 Duckats yeerely for a pension." Disdaining time and place (with that daring which is the privilege of poets) in my tragedy, Smith is made to perform similar exploits on the banks of our Potomac and James"s river. Our "ground-bait" verses, ran thus:- "POCAHONTAS
"Wearied arm and broken sword Wage in vain the desperate fight Round him press the countless horde, He is but a single knight.
Hark! a cry of triumph shrill Through the wilderness resounds, As, with twenty bleeding wounds, Sinks the warrior, fighting still.
"Now they heap the fatal pyre, And the torch of death they light Ah! "tis hard to die of fire!
Who will shield the captive knight?
Round the stake with fiendish cry Wheel and dance the savage crowd, Cold the victim"s mien and proud, And his breast is bared to die.
"Who will shield the fearless heart?
Who avert the murderous blade?
From the throng, with sudden start, See, there springs an Indian maid.
Quick she stands before the knight, "Loose the chain, unbind the ring, I am daughter of the king, And I claim the Indian right!"
"Dauntlessly aside she flings Lifted axe and thirsty knife; Fondly to his heart she clings, And her bosom guards his life!
In the woods of Powhattan, Still "tis told, by Indian fires, How a daughter of their sires Saved the captive Englishman."
I need not describe at length the plot of my tragedy, as my children can take it down from the shelves any day and peruse it for themselves. Nor shall I, let me add, be in a hurry to offer to read it again to my young folks, since Captain Miles and the parson both chose to fall asleep last Christmas, when, at mamma"s request, I read aloud a couple of acts. But any person having a moderate acquaintance with plays and novels can soon, out of the above sketch, fill out a picture to his liking. An Indian king; a loving princess, and her attendant, in love with the British captain"s servant; a traitor in the English fort; a brave Indian warrior, himself entertaining an unhappy pa.s.sion for Pocahontas; a medicine-man and priest of the Indians (very well played by Palmer), capable of every treason, stratagem, and crime, and bent upon the torture and death of the English prisoner;-these, with the accidents of the wilderness, the war-dances and cries (which Gumbo had learned to mimic very accurately from the red people at home), and the arrival of the English fleet, with allusions to the late glorious victories in Canada, and the determination of Britons ever to rule and conquer in America, some of us not unnaturally thought might contribute to the success of our tragedy.
But I have mentioned the ill omens which preceded the day: the difficulties which a peevish, and jealous, and timid management threw in the way of the piece, and the violent prejudice which was felt against it in certain high quarters. What wonder then, I ask, that Pocahontas should have turned out not to be a victory? I laugh to scorn the malignity of the critics who found fault with the performance. Pretty critics, forsooth, who said that Carpezan was a masterpiece, whilst a far superior and more elaborate work received only their sneers! I insist on it that Hagan acted his part so admirably that a certain actor and manager of the theatre might well be jealous of him; and that, but for the cabal made outside, the piece would have succeeded. The order had been given that the play should not succeed; so at least Sampson declared to me. "The house swarmed with Macs, by George, and they should have the galleries washed with brimstone," the honest fellow swore, and always vowed that Mr. Garrick himself would not have had the piece succeed for the world; and was never in such a rage as during that grand scene in the second act, where Smith (poor Hagan) being bound to the stake, Pocahontas comes and saves him, and when the whole house was thrilling with applause and sympathy.
Anybody who has curiosity sufficient, may refer to the published tragedy (in the octavo form, or in the subsequent splendid quarto edition of my Collected Works, and Poems Original and Translated), and say whether the scene is without merit, whether the verses are not elegant, the language rich and n.o.ble? One of the causes of the failure was my actual fidelity to history. I had copied myself at the Museum, and tinted neatly, a figure of Sir Walter Raleigh in a frill and beard; and (my dear Theo giving some of her mother"s best lace for the ruff) we dressed Hagan accurately after this drawing, and no man could look better. Miss Pritchard as Pocahontas, I dressed too as a Red Indian, having seen enough of that costume in my own experience at home. Will it be believed the house t.i.ttered when she first appeared? They got used to her, however, but just at the moment when she rushes into the prisoner"s arms, and a number of people were actually in tears, a fellow in the pit bawls out, "Bedad! here"s the Belle Savage kissing the Saracen"s Head;" on which an impertinent roar of laughter sprang up in the pit, breaking out with fitful explosions during the remainder of the performance. As the wag in Mr. Sheridan"s amusing Critic admirably says about the morning guns, the playwrights were not content with one of them, but must fire two or three; so with this wretched pothouse joke of the Belle Savage (the ignorant people not knowing that Pocahontas herself was the very Belle Sauvage from whom the tavern took its name!). My friend of the pit repeated it ad nauseam during the performance, and as each new character appeared, saluted him by the name of some tavern-for instance, the English governor (with a long beard) he called the Goat and Boots; his lieutenant (Barker), whose face certainly was broad, the Bull and Mouth, and so on! And the curtain descended amidst a shrill storm of whistles and hisses, which especially a.s.sailed poor Hagan every time he opened his lips. Sampson saw Master Will in the green boxes, with some pretty acquaintances of his, and has no doubt that the treacherous scoundrel was one of the ringleaders in the conspiracy. "I would have flung him over into the pit," the faithful fellow said (and Sampson was man enough to execute his threat), "but I saw a couple of Mr. Nadab"s followers prowling about the lobby, and was obliged to sheer off." And so the eggs we had counted on selling at market were broken, and our poor hopes lay shattered before us!
I looked in at the house from the stage before the curtain was lifted, and saw it pretty well filled, especially remarking Mr. Johnson in the front boxes, in a laced waistcoat, having his friend Mr. Reynolds by his side; the latter could not hear, and the former could not see, and so they came good-naturedly A deux to form an opinion of my poor tragedy. I could see Lady Maria (I knew the hood she wore) in the lower gallery, where she once more had the opportunity of sitting and looking at her beloved actor performing a princ.i.p.al character in a piece. As for Theo, she fairly owned that, unless I ordered her, she had rather not be present, nor had I any such command to give, for, if things went wrong, I knew that to see her suffer would be intolerable pain to myself, and so acquiesced in her desire to keep away.
Being of a pretty equanimous disposition, and, as I flatter myself, able to bear good or evil fortune without disturbance, I myself, after taking a light dinner at the Bedford, went to the theatre a short while before the commencement of the play, and proposed to remain there, until the defeat or victory was decided. I own now, I could not help seeing which way the fate of the day was likely to turn. There was something gloomy and disastrous in the general aspect of all things around. Miss Pritchard had the headache: the barber who brought home Hagan"s wig had powdered it like a wretch: amongst the gentlemen and ladies in the greenroom, I saw none but doubtful faces: and the manager (a very flippant, not to say impertinent gentleman, in my opinion, and who himself on that night looked as dismal as a mute at a funeral) had the insolence to say to me, "For Heaven"s sake, Mr. Warrington, go and get a gla.s.s of punch at the Bedford, and don"t frighten us all here by your dismal countenance!"
"Sir," says I, "I have a right, for five shillings, to comment upon your face, but I never gave you any authority to make remarks upon mine." "Sir," says he in a pet, "I most heartily wish I had never seen your face at all!" "Yours, sir!" said I, "has often amused me greatly; and when painted for Abel Drugger is exceedingly comic"-and indeed I have always done Mr. G. the justice to think that in low comedy he was unrivalled. I made him a bow, and walked off to the coffee-house, and for five years after never spoke a word to the gentleman, when he apologised to me, at a n.o.bleman"s house where we chanced to meet. I said I had utterly forgotten the circ.u.mstance to which he alluded, and that, on the first night of a play, no doubt author and manager were flurried alike. And added, "After all, there is no shame in not being made for the theatre. Mr. Garrick-you were." A compliment with which he appeared to be as well pleased as I intended he should.
Fidus Achates ran over to me at the end of the first act to say that all things were going pretty well; though he confessed to the t.i.tter in the house upon Miss Pritchard"s first appearance, dressed exactly like an Indian princess.
"I cannot help it, Sampson," said I (filling him a b.u.mper of good punch), "if Indians are dressed so."
"Why," says he, "would you have had Caractacus painted blue like an ancient Briton, or Bonduca with nothing but a cow-skin?" And indeed it may be that the fidelity to history was the cause of the ridicule cast on my tragedy, in which case I, for one, am not ashamed of its defeat.
After the second act, my aide-de-camp came from the field with dismal news indeed. I don"t know how it is that, nervous before action, in disaster I become pretty cool and cheerful. [The writer seems to contradict himself here, having just boasted of possessing a pretty equanimous disposition. He was probably mistaken in his own estimate of himself, as other folks have been besides.-ED.] "Are things going ill?" says I. I call for my reckoning, put on my hat, and march to the theatre as calmly as if I was going to dine at the Temple; fidus Achates walking by my side, pressing my elbow, kicking the link-boys out of the way, and crying, "By George, Mr. Warrington, you are a man of spirit-a Trojan, sir!" So, there were men of spirit in Troy; but alas! fate was too strong for them.
At any rate, no man can say that I did not bear my misfortune with calmness: I could no more help the clamour and noise of the audience than a captain can help the howling and hissing of the storm in which his ship goes down. But I was determined that the rushing waves and broken masts should impavidum ferient, and flatter myself that I bore my calamity without flinching. "Not Regulus, my dear madam, could step into his barrel more coolly," Sampson said to my wife. "Tis unjust to say of men of the parasitic nature that they are unfaithful in misfortune. Whether I was prosperous or poor, the wild parson was equally true and friendly, and shared our crust as eagerly as ever he had partaken of our better fortune.
I took my place on the stage, whence I could see the actors of my poor piece, and a portion of the audience who condemned me. I suppose the performers gave me a wide berth out of pity for me. I must say that I think I was as little moved as any spectator; and that no one would have judged from my mien that I was the unlucky hero of the night.
But my dearest Theo, when I went home, looked so pale and white, that I saw from the dear creature"s countenance that the knowledge of my disaster had preceded my return. Spencer, Sampson, cousin Hagan, and Lady Maria were to come after the play, and congratulate the author, G.o.d wot! (Poor Miss Pritchard was engaged to us likewise, but sent word that I must understand that she was a great deal too unwell to sup that night.) My friend the gardener of Bedford House had given my wife his best flowers to decorate her little table. There they were; the poor little painted standards-and the battle lost! I had borne the defeat well enough, but as I looked at the sweet pale face of the wife across the table, and those artless trophies of welcome which she had set up for her hero, I confess my courage gave way, and my heart felt a pang almost as keen as any that ever has smitten it.
Our meal, it may be imagined, was dismal enough, nor was it rendered much gayer by the talk we strove to carry on. Old Mrs. Hagan was, luckily, very ill at this time; and her disease, and the incidents connected with it, a great blessing to us. Then we had his Majesty"s approaching marriage, about which there was a talk. (How well I remember the most futile incidents of the day down to a tune which a carpenter was whistling by my side at the playhouse, just before the dreary curtain fell!) Then we talked about the death of good Mr. Richardson, the author of Pamela and Clarissa, whose works we all admired exceedingly. And as we talked about Clarissa, my wife took on herself to wipe her eyes once or twice, and say, faintly, "You know, my love, mamma and I could never help crying over that dear book. Oh, my dearest, dearest mother" (she adds), "how I wish she could be with me now!" This was an occasion for more open tears, for of course a young lady may naturally weep for her absent mother. And then we mixed a gloomy bowl with Jamaica limes, and drank to the health of his Excellency the Governor: and then, for a second toast, I filled a b.u.mper, and, with a smiling face, drank to "our better fortune!"
This was too much. The two women flung themselves into each other"s arms, and irrigated each other"s neck-handkerchiefs with tears. "Oh, Maria! Is not-is not my George good and kind?" sobs Theo. "Look at my Hagan-how great, how G.o.dlike he was in his part!" gasps Maria. "It was a beastly cabal which threw him over-and I could plunge this knife into Mr. Garrick"s black heart-the odious little wretch!" and she grasps a weapon at her side. But throwing it presently down, the enthusiastic creature rushes up to her lord and master, flings her arms round him, and embraces him in the presence of the little company.
I am not sure whether some one else did not do likewise. We were all in a state of extreme excitement and enthusiasm. In the midst of grief, Love the consoler appears amongst us, and soothes us with such fond blandishments and tender caresses, that one scarce wishes the calamity away. Two or three days afterwards, on our birthday, a letter was brought me in my study, which contained the following lines:- "FROM POCAHONTAS
"Returning from the cruel fight How pale and faint appears my knight!
He sees me anxious at his side; "Why seek, my love, your wounds to hide?
Or deem your English girl afraid To emulate the Indian maid?"
"Be mine my husband"s grief to cheer, In peril to be ever near; Whate"er of ill or woe betide, To bear it clinging at his side; The poisoned stroke of fate to ward, His bosom with my own to guard; Ah! could it spare a pang to his, It could not know a purer bliss!
"Twould gladden as it felt the smart, And thank the hand that flung the dart!"
I do not say the verses are very good, but that I like them as well as if they were-and that the face of the writer (whose sweet young voice I fancy I can hear as I hum the lines), when I went into her drawing-room after getting the letter, and when I saw her blushing and blessing me-seemed to me more beautiful than any I can fancy out of Heaven.
CHAPTER Lx.x.xI. Res Angusta Domi