Her face was as the face of an angel now; and the actress, conquered by her beauty and her goodness, actually bowed her head and gently kissed the hand of the country wife whom she had quizzed a few hours ago.
Frailty paid this homage to virtue!
Mabel Vane hardly noticed it; her eye was lifted to heaven, and her heart was gone there for help in a sore struggle.
“This would be to assassinate you; no less. And so, madam,” she sighed, “with God's help, I do refuse your offer; choosing rather, if needs be, to live desolate, but innocent—many a better than I hath lived so—ay! if God wills it, to die, with my hopes and my heart crushed, but my hands unstained; for so my humble life has passed.”
How beautiful, great, and pure goodness is! It paints heaven on the face that has it; it wakens the sleeping souls that meet it.
At the bottom of Margaret Woffington's heart lay a soul, unknown to the world, scarce known to herself—a heavenly harp, on which ill airs of passion had been played—but still it was there, in tune with all that is true, pure, really great and good. And now the flush that a great heart sends to the brow, to herald great actions, came to her cheek and brow.
“Humble!” she cried. “Such as you are the diamonds of our race. You angel of truth and goodness, you have conquered!”
“Oh, yes! yes! Thank God, yes!”
“What a fiend I must be could I injure you! The poor heart we have both overrated shall be yours again, and yours for ever. In my hands it is painted glass; in the luster of a love like yours it may become a priceless jewel.” She turned her head away and pondered a moment, then suddenly offered to Mrs. Vane her hand with nobleness and majesty; “Can you trust me?” The actress too was divinely beautiful now, for her good angel shone through her.
“I could trust you with my life!” was the reply.
“Ah! if I might call you friend, dear lady, what would I notdo—suffer—resign—to be worthy that title!”
“No, not friend!” cried the warm, innocent Mabel; “sister! I will callyou sister. I have no sister.”“Sister!” said Mrs. Woffington. “Oh, do not mock me! Alas! you do notknow what you say. That sacred name to me, from lips so pure as yours.Mrs. Vane,” said she, timidly, “would you think me presumptuous if Ibegged you to—to let me kiss you?”The words were scarce spoken before Mrs. Vane's arms were wreathed roundher neck, and that innocent cheek laid sweetly to hers.
Mrs. Woffington strained her to her bosom, and two great hearts, whose grandeur the world, worshiper of charlatans, never discovered, had found each other out and beat against each other. A great heart is as quick to find another out as the world is slow.
Mrs. Woffington burst into a passion of tears and clasped Mabel tighter and tighter in a half-despairing way. Mabel mistook the cause, but she kissed her tears away.
“Dear sister,” said she, “be comforted. I love you. My heart warmed to you the first moment I saw you. A woman's love and gratitude are something. Ah! you will never find me change. This is for life, look you.”
“God grant it!” cried the other poor woman. “Oh, it is not that, it is not that; it is because I am so little worthy of this. It is a sin to deceive you. I am not good like you. You do not know me!”
“You do not know yourself if you say so!” cried Mabel; and to her hearer the words seemed to come from heaven. “I read faces,” said Mabel. “I read yours at sight, and you are what I set you down; and nobody must breathe a word against you, not even yourself. Do you think I am blind? You are beautiful, you are good, you are my sister, and I love you!”
“Heaven forgive me!” thought the other. “How can I resign this angel's good opinion? Surely Heaven sends this blessed dew to my parched heart!” And now she burned to make good her promise and earn this virtuous wife's love. She folded her once more in her arms, and then, taking her by the hand, led her tenderly into Triplet's inner room. She made her lie down on the bed, and placed pillows high for her like a mother, and leaned over her as she lay, and pressed her lips gently to her forehead. Her fertile brain had already digested a plan, but she had resolved that this pure and candid soul should take no lessons of deceit. “Lie there,” said she, “till I open the door: then join us. Do you know what I am going to do? I am not going to restore you your husband's heart, but to show you it never really left you. You read faces; well, I read circumstances. Matters are not as you thought,” said she, with all a woman's tact. “I cannot explain, but you will see.” She then gave Mrs. Triplet peremptory orders not to let her charge rise from the bed until the preconcerted signal.
Mrs. Vane was, in fact, so exhausted by all she had gone through that she was in no condition to resist. She cast a look of childlike confidence upon her rival, and then closed her eyes, and tried not to tremble all over and listen like a frightened hare.
It is one great characteristic of genius to do great things with little things. Paxton could see that so small a matter as a greenhouse could be dilated into a crystal palace, and with two common materials—glass and iron—he raised the palace of the genii; the brightest idea and the noblest ornament added to Europe in this century—the koh-i-noor of the west. Livy's definition of Archimedes goes on the same ground.
Peg Woffington was a genius in her way. On entering Triplet's studio her eye fell upon three trifles—Mrs. Vane's hood and mantle, the back of an old letter, and Mr. Triplet. (It will be seen how she worked these slight materials.) On the letter was written in pencil simply these two words, “Mabel Vane.” Mrs. Woffington wrote above these words two more, “Alone and unprotected.” She put this into Mr. Triplet's hand, and bade him take it down stairs and give it Sir Charles Pomander, whose retreat, she knew, must have been fictitious. “You will find him round the corner,” said she, “or in some shop that looks this way.” While uttering these words she had put on Mrs. Vane's hood and mantle.
No answer was returned, and no Triplet went out of the door.
She turned, and there he was kneeling on both knees close under her.
“Bid me jump out of that window, madam; bid me kill those two gentlemen, and I will not rebel. You are a great lady, a talented lady; you have been insulted, and no doubt blood will flow. It ought—it is your due; but that innocent lady, do not compromise her!”
“Oh, Mr. Triplet, you need not kneel to me. I do not wish to force you to render me a service. I have no right to dictate to you.”
“Oh, dear!” cried Triplet, “don't talk in that way. I owe you my life, but I think of your own peace of mind, for you are not one to be happy if you injure the innocent!” He rose suddenly, and cried: “Madam, promise me not to stir till I come back!”
“Where are you going?”
“To bring the husband to his wife's feet, and so save one angel from despair, and another angel from a great crime.”
“Well, I suppose you are wiser than I,” said she. “But, if you are in earnest, you had better be quick, for somehow I am rather changeable about these people.”
“You can't help that, madam, it is your sex; you are an angel. May I be permitted to kiss your hand? you are all goodness and gentleness at bottom. I fly to Mr. Vane, and we will be back before you have time to repent, and give the Devil the upper hand again, my dear, good, sweet lady!”
Away flew Triplet, all unconscious that he was not Mrs. Woffington's opponent, but puppet. He ran, he tore, animated by a good action, and spurred by the notion that he was in direct competition with the fiend for the possession of his benefactress. He had no sooner turned the corner than Mrs. Woffington, looking out of the window, observed Sir Charles Pomander on the watch, as she had expected. She remained at the window with Mrs. Vane's hood on, until Sir Charles's eye in its wanderings lighted on her, and then, dropping Mrs. Vane's letter from the window, she hastily withdrew.
Sir Charles eagerly picked it up. His eye brightened when he read the short contents. With a self-satisfied smile he mounted the stair. He found in Triplet's house a lady who seemed startled at her late hardihood. She sat with her back to the door, her hood drawn tightly down, and wore an air of trembling consciousness. Sir Charles smiled again. He knew the sex, at least he said so. (It is an assertion often ventured upon.) Accordingly Sir Charles determined to come down from his height, and court nature and innocence in their own tones. This he rightly judged must be the proper course to take with Mrs. Vane. He fell down with mock ardor upon one knee.
The supposed Mrs. Vane gave a little squeak.
“Dear Mrs. Vane,” cried he, “be not alarmed; loveliness neglected, and simplicity deceived, insure respect as well as adoration. Ah!” (A sigh.)
“Oh, get up, sir; do, please. Ah!” (A sigh.)
“You sigh, sweetest of human creatures. Ah! why did not a nature like yours fall into hands that would have cherished it as it deserves? Had Heaven bestowed on me this hand, which I take—”
“Oh, please, sir—”
“With the profoundest respect, would I have abandoned such a treasure for an actress?—a Woffington! as artificial and hollow a jade as ever winked at a side box!”
“Is she, sir?”
“Notorious, madam. Your husband is the only man in London who does not see through her. How different are you! Even I, who have no taste for actresses, found myself revived, refreshed, ameliorated by that engaging picture of innocence and virtue you drew this morning; yourself the bright and central figure. Ah, dear angel! I remember all your favorites, and envy them their place in your recollections. Your Barbary mare—”
“Hen, sir!
“Of course I meant hen; and Gray Gillian, his old nurse—”
“No, no, no! she is the mare, sir. He! he! he!”
“So she is. And Dame—Dame—”
“Best!”
“Ah! I knew it. You see how I remember them all. And all carry me back to those innocent days which fleet too soon—days when an angel like you might have weaned me from the wicked pleasures of the town, to the placid delights of a rural existence!”
“Alas, sir!”
“You sigh. It is not yet too late. I am a convert to you; I swear it on this white hand. Ah! how can I relinquish it, pretty fluttering prisoner?”
“Oh, please—”
“Stay a while.”
“No! please, sir—”
“While I fetter thee with a worthy manacle.” Sir Charles slipped a diamond ring of great value upon his pretty prisoner.
“La, sir, how pretty!” cried innocence.
Sir Charles then undertook to prove that the luster of the ring was faint, compared with that of the present wearer's eyes. This did not suit innocence; she hung her head and fluttered, and showed a bashful repugnance to look her admirer in the face. Sir Charles playfully insisted, and Mrs. Woffington was beginning to be a little at a loss, when suddenly voices were heard upon the stairs.
“My husband!”cried the false Mrs. Vane, and in a moment she rose and darted into Triplet's inner apartment.
Mr. Vane and Mr. Triplet were talking earnestly as they came up the stair. It seems the wise Triplet had prepared a little dramatic scene for his own refreshment, as well as for the ultimate benefit of all parties. He had persuaded Mr. Vane to accompany him by warm, mysterious promises of a happydenouement;and now, having conducted that gentleman as far as his door, he was heard to say:
“And now, sir, you shall see one who waits to forget grief, suspicion—all, in your arms. Behold!” and here he flung the door open.
“The devil!”
“You flatter me!” said Pomander, who had had time to recover hisaplomb,somewhat shaken, at first, by Mr. Vane's inopportune arrival.
Now it is to be observed that Mr. Vane had not long ago seen his wife lying on her bed, to all appearance incapable of motion.
Mr. Vane, before Triplet could recover his surprise, inquired of Pomander why he had sent for him. “And what,” added he, “is the grief, suspicion, I am, according to Mr. Triplet, to forget in your arms?”
Mr. Vane added this last sentence in rather a testy manner.
“Why, the fact is—” began Sir Charles, without the remotest idea of what the fact was going to be.
“That Sir Charles Pomander—” interrupted Triplet.
“But Mr. Triplet is going to explain,” said Sir Charles, keenly.
“Nay, sir; be yours the pleasing duty. But, now I think of it,” resumed Triplet, “why not tell the simple truth? it is not a play! She I brought you here to see was not Sir Charles Pomander; but—”
“I forbid you to complete the name!” cried Pomander.
“I command you to complete the name!” cried Vane.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen! how can I do both?” remonstrated Triplet.
“Enough, sir!” cried Pomander. “It is a lady's secret. I am the guardian of that lady's honor.”
“She has chosen a strange guardian of her honor!” said Vane bitterly.
“Gentlemen!” cried poor Triplet, who did not at all like the turn things were taking, “I give you my word, she does not even know of Sir Charies's presence here!”
“Who?” cried Vane, furiously. “Man alive! who are you speaking of?”
“Mrs. Vane.”
“My wife!” cried Vane, trembling with anger and jealousy. “She here! and with this man?”
“No!” cried Triplet. “With me, with me! Not with him, of course.”
“Boaster!” cried Vane, contemptuously. “But that is a part of your profession!”
Pomander, irritated, scornfully drew from his pocket the ladies' joint production, which had fallen at his feet from Mrs. Woffington's hand. He presented this to Mr. Vane, who took it very uneasily; a mist swam before his eyes as he read the words: “Alone and unprotected—Mabel Vane.” He had no sooner read these words, than he found he loved his wife; when he tampered with his treasure, he did not calculate on another seeking it.
This was Pomander's hour of triumph! He proceeded coolly to explain to Mr. Vane, that, Mrs. Woffington having deserted him for Mr. Vane, and Mr. Vane his wife for Mrs. Woffington, the bereaved parties had, according to custom, agreed to console each other.
This soothing little speech was interrupted by Mr. Vane's sword flashing suddenly out of its sheath; while that gentleman, white with rage and jealousy, bade him instantly take to his guard, or be run through the body like some noxious animal.
Sir Charles drew his sword, and, in spite of Triplet's weak interference, half a dozen passes were rapidly exchanged, when suddenly the door of the inner room opened, and a lady in a hood pronounced, in a voice which was an excellent imitation of Mrs. Vane's, the word, “False!”
The combatants lowered their points.
“You hear, sir!” cried Triplet.
“You see, sir!” said Pomander.
“Mabel!—wife!” cried Mr. Vane, in agony. “Oh, say this is not true! Oh, say that letter is a forgery! Say, at least, it was by some treachery you were lured to this den of iniquity! Oh, speak!”
The lady silently beckoned to some person inside.
“You know I loved you—you know how bitterly I repent the infatuation that brought me to the feet of another!”
The lady replied not, though Vane's soul appeared to hang upon her answer. But she threw the door open and there appeared another lady, the real Mrs. Vane. Mrs. Woffington then threw off her hood, and, to Sir Charles Pomander's consternation, revealed the features of that ingenious person, who seemed born to outwit him.
“You heard that fervent declaration, madam?” said she to Mrs. Vane. “I present to you, madam, a gentleman who regrets that he mistook the real direction of his feelings. And to you, sir,” continued she, with great dignity, “I present a lady who will never mistake either her feelings or her duty.”
“Ernest! dear Ernest!” cried Mrs. Vane, blushing as if she was the culprit. And she came forward all love and tenderness.
Her truant husband kneeled at her feet of course. No! he said, rather sternly, “How came you here, Mabel?”
“Mrs. Vane,” said the actress, “fancied you had mislaid that weathercock, your heart, in Covent Garden, and that an actress had seen in it a fit companion for her own, and had feloniously appropriated it. She came to me to inquire after it.”
“But this letter, signed by you?” said Vane, still addressing Mabel.
“Was written by me on a paper which accidentally contained Mrs. Vane's name. The fact is, Mr. Vane—I can hardly look you in the face—I had a little wager with Sir Charles here; his diamond ring—which you may see has become my diamond ring”—a horrible wry face from Sir Charles—“against my left glove that I could bewitch a country gentleman's imagination, and make him think me an angel. Unfortunately the owner of his heart appeared, and, like poor Mr. Vane, took our play for earnest. It became necessary to disabuse her and to open your eyes. Have I done so?”
“You have, madam,” said Vane, wincing at each word she said. But at last, by a mighty effort, he mastered himself, and, coming to Mrs. Woffington with a quivering lip, he held out his hand suddenly in a very manly way. “I have been the dupe of my own vanity,” said he, “and I thank you for this lesson.” Poor Mrs. Woffington's fortitude had well-nigh left her at this.
“Mabel,” he cried, “is this humiliation any punishment for my folly? any guaranty for my repentance? Can you forgive me?”
“It is all forgiven, Ernest. But, oh, you are mistaken.” She glided to Mrs. Woffington. “What do we not owe you, sister?” whispered she.
“Nothing! that word pays all,” was the reply. She then slipped her address into Mrs. Vane's hand, and, courtesying to all the company, she hastily left the room.
Sir Charles Pomander followed; but he was not quick enough. She got a start, and purposely avoided him, and for three days neither the public nor private friends saw this poor woman's face.
Mr. and Mrs. Vane prepared to go also; but Mrs. Vane would thank good Mr. Triplet and Mrs. Triplet for their kindness to her.
Triplet the benevolent blushed, was confused and delighted; but suddenly, turning somewhat sorrowful, he said: “Mr. Vane, madam, made use of an expression which caused a momentary pang. He called this a den of iniquity. Now this is my studio! But never mind.”
Mr. Vane asked his pardon for so absurd an error, and the pair left Triplet in all the enjoyment which does come now and then to an honest man, whether this dirty little world will or not.
A coach was called and they went home to Bloomsbury. Few words were said; but the repentant husband often silently pressed this angel to his bosom, and the tears which found their way to her beautiful eyelashes were tears of joy.
This weakish, and consequently villainous, though not ill-disposed person would have gone down to Willoughby that night; but his wife had great good sense. She would not take her husband off, like a school-boy caught out of bounds. She begged him to stay while she made certain purchases; but, for all that, her heart burned to be at home. So in less than a week after the events we have related they left London.
Meantime, every day Mrs. Vane paid a quiet visit to Mrs. Woffington (for some days the actress admitted no other visitor), and was with her but two hours before she left London. On that occasion she found her very sad.
“I shall never see you again in this world,” said she; “but I beg of you to write to me, that my mind may be in contact with yours.”
She then asked Mabel, in her half-sorrowful, half-bitter way, how many months it would be ere she was forgotten.
Mabel answered by quietly crying. So then they embraced; and Mabel assured her friend she was not one of those who change their minds. “It is for life, dear sister; it is for life,” cried she.
“Swear this to me,” said the other, almost sternly. “But no. I have more confidence in that candid face and pure nature than in a human being's oath. If you are happy, remember you owe me something. If you are unhappy, come to me, and I will love you as men cannot love.”
Then vows passed between them, for a singular tie bound these two women; and then the actress showed a part at least of her sore heart to her new sister; and that sister was surprised and grieved, and pitied her truly and deeply, and they wept on each other's neck; and at last they were fain to part. They parted; and true it was, they never met again in this world. They parted in sorrow; but when they meet again, it shall be with joy.
Women are generally such faithless, unscrupulous and pitiless humbugs in their dealings with their own sex—which, whatever they may say, they despise at heart—that I am happy to be able to say, Mrs. Vane proved true as steel. She was a noble-minded, simple-minded creature; she was also a constant creature. Constancy is a rare, a beautiful, a godlike virtue.
Four times every year she wrote a long letter to Mrs. Woffington; and twice a year, in the cold weather, she sent her a hamper of country delicacies that would have victualed a small garrison. And when her sister left this earthly scene—a humble, pious, long-repentant Christian—Mrs. Vane wore mourning for her, and sorrowed over her; but not as those who cannot hope to meet again.
My story as a work of art—good, bad or indifferent—ends with that last sentence. If a reader accompanies me further, I shall feel flattered, and he does so at his own risk.
My reader knows that all this befell long ago. That Woffington is gay, and Triplet sad, no more. That Mabel's, and all the bright eyes of that day, have long been dim, and all its cunning voices hushed. Judge then whether I am one of those happy story-tellers who can end with a wedding. No! this story must wind up, as yours and mine must—to-morrow—or to-morrow—or to-morrow! when our little sand is run.
Sir Charles Pomander lived a man of pleasure until sixty. He then became a man of pain; he dragged the chain about eight years, and died miserably.
Mr. Cibber not so much died as “slipped his wind”—a nautical expression that conveys the idea of an easy exit. He went off, quiet and genteel. He was past eighty, and had lived fast. His servant called him at seven in the morning. “I will shave at eight,” said Mr. Cibber. John brought the hot water at eight; but his master had taken advantage of this interval in his toilet to die!—to avoid shaving?
Snarl and Soaper conducted the criticism of their day with credit and respectability until a good old age, and died placidly a natural death, like twaddle, sweet or sour.
The Triplets, while their patroness lived, did pretty well. She got a tragedy of his accepted at her theater. She made him send her a copy, and with her scissors cut out about half; sometimes thinning, sometimes cutting bodily away. But, lo! the inherent vanity of Mr. Triplet came out strong. Submissively, but obstinately, he fought for the discarded beauties. Unluckily, he did this one day that his patroness was in one of her bitter humors. So she instantly gave him back his manuscript, with a sweet smile owned herself inferior in judgment to him, and left him unmolested.
Triplet breathed freely; a weight was taken off him. The savage steel (he applied this title to the actress's scissors) had spared hispurpurei panni.He was played, pure and intact, a calamity the rest of us grumbling escape.
But it did so happen that the audience were of the actress's mind, and found the words too exuberant, and the business of the play too scanty in proportion. At last their patience was so sorely tried that they supplied one striking incident to a piece deficient in facts. They gave the manager the usual broad hint, and in the middle of Triplet's third act a huge veil of green baize descended upon “The Jealous Spaniard.”
Failing here, Mrs. Woffington contrived often to befriend him in his other arts, and moreover she often sent Mr. Triplet what she called a snug investment, a loan of ten pounds, to be repaid at Doomsday, with interest and compound interest, according to the Scriptures; and, although she laughed, she secretly believed she was to get her ten pounds back, double and treble. And I believe so too.
Some years later Mrs. Triplet became eventful. She fell ill, and lay a dying; but one fine morning, after all hope had been given up, she suddenly rose and dressed herself. She was quite well in body now, but insane.
She continued in this state a month, and then, by God's mercy, she recovered her reason; but now the disease fell another step, and lighted upon her temper—a more athletic vixen was not to be found. She had spoiled Triplet for this by being too tame, so when the dispensation came they sparred daily. They were now thoroughly unhappy. They were poor as ever, and their benefactress was dead, and they had learned to snap. A speculative tour had taken this pair to Bristol, then the second city in England. They sojourned in the suburbs.
One morning the postman brought a letter for Triplet, who was showing his landlord's boy how to plant onions. (N. B.—Triplet had never planted an onion, but he was one of youra priorigentlemen, and could show anybody how to do anything.) Triplet held out his hand for the letter, but the postman held out his hand for a half crown first. Trip's profession had transpired, and his clothes inspired diffidence. Triplet appealed to his good feeling.
He replied with exultation, “That he had none left.” (A middle-aged postman, no doubt.)
Triplet then suddenly started from entreaty to King Cambyses' vein. In vain!
Mrs. Triplet came down, and essayed the blandishments of the softer sex. In vain! And, as there were no assets, the postman marched off down the road.
Mrs. Triplet glided after him like an assassin, beckoning on Triplet, who followed, doubtful of her designs. Suddenly (truth compels me to relate this) she seized the obdurate official from behind, pinned both his arms to his side, and with her nose furiously telegraphed her husband.
He, animated by her example, plunged upon the man and tore the letter from his hand and opened it before his eyes.
It happened to be a very windy morning, and when he opened the letter an inclosure, printed on much finer paper, was caught into the air and went down the wind. Triplet followed in kangaroo leaps, like a dancer making a flying exit.
The postman cried on all good citizens for help. Some collected and laughed at him; Mrs. Triplet explaining that they were poor, and could not pay half a crown for the freight of half an ounce of paper. She held him convulsively until Triplet reappeared.
That gentleman on his return was ostentatiously calm and dignified. “You are, or were, in perturbation about half a crown,” said he. “There, sir, is a twenty-pound note, oblige me with nineteen pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence. Should your resources be unequal to such a demand, meet me at the 'Green Cat and Brown Frogs,' after dinner, when you shall receive your half-crown, and drink another upon the occasion of my sudden accession to unbounded affluence.”
The postman was staggered by the sentence and overawed by the note, and chose the “Cat and Frogs,” and liquid half-crown.
Triplet took his wife down the road and showed her the letter and inclosure. The letter ran thus:
“SIR—We beg respectfully to inform you that our late friend and client, James Triplet, Merchant, of the Minories, died last August, without a will, and that you are his heir.
“His property amounts to about twenty thousand pounds, besides some reversions. Having possessed the confidence of your late uncle we should feel honored and gratified if you should think us worthy to act professionally for yourself.
“We inclose twenty pounds, and beg you will draw upon us as far as five thousand pounds, should you have immediate occasion.
“We are, sir,
“Your humble servants,
“JAMES AND JOHN ALLMITT.”
It was some time before these children of misfortune could realize this enormous stroke of compensation; but at last it worked its way into their spirits, and they began to sing, to triumph, and dance upon the king's highway.
Mrs. Triplet was the first to pause, and take better views. “Oh, James!” she cried, “we have suffered much! we have been poor, but honest, and the Almighty has looked upon us at last!”
Then they began to reproach themselves.
“Oh, James! I have been a peevish woman—an ill wife to you, this many years!”
“No, no!” cried Triplet, with tears in his eyes. “It is I who have been rough and brutal. Poverty tried us too hard; but we were not like the rest of them—we were always faithful to the altar. And the Almighty has seen us, though we often doubted it.”
“I never doubted that, James.”
So then the poor things fell on their knees upon the public road, and thanked God. If any man had seen them, he would have said they were mad. Yet madder things are done every day by gentlemen with faces as grave as the parish bull's. And then they rose and formed their little plans.
Triplet was for devoting four-fifths to charity, and living like a prince on the remainder. But Mrs. Triplet thought the poor were entitled to no more than two-thirds, and they themselves ought to bask in a third, to make up for what they had gone through; and then suddenly she sighed, and burst into tears. “Lucy! Lucy!” sobbed she.
Yes, reader, God had taken little Lucy! And her mother cried to think all this wealth and comfort had come too late for her darling child.
“Do not cry. Lucy is richer, a thousand times, than you are, with your twenty thousand pounds.”
Their good resolutions were carried out, for a wonder. Triplet lived for years, the benefactor of all the loose fish that swim in and round theaters; and, indeed, the unfortunate seldom appealed to him in vain. He now predominated over the arts, instead of climbing them. In his latter day he became an oracle, as far as the science of acting was concerned; and, what is far more rare, he really got to knowsomethingabout it. This was owing to two circumstances: first, he ceased to run blindfold in a groove behind the scenes; second, he became a frequenter of the first row of the pit, and that is where the whole critic, and two-thirds of the true actor, is made.
On one point, to his dying day, his feelings guided his judgment. He never could see an actress equal to his Woffington. Mrs. Abington was grace personified, but so was Woffington, said the old man: and Abington's voice is thin, Woffington's was sweet and mellow. When Jordan rose, with her voice of honey, her dewy freshness, and her heavenly laugh, that melted in along with her words, like the gold in the quartz, Triplet was obliged to own her the goddess of beautiful gayety; but still he had the last word: “Woffington was allsheis, except her figure. Woffington was a Hebe; your Nell Jordan is little better than a dowdy.”
Triplet almost reached the present century. He passed through great events, but they did not excite him; his eye was upon the arts. When Napoleon drew his conquering sword on England, Triplet's remark was: “Now we shall be driven upon native talent, thank Heaven!” The storms of Europe shook not Triplet. The fact is, nothing that happened on the great stage of the world seemed real to him. He believed in nothing where there was no curtain visible. But even the grotesque are not good in vain. Many an eye was wet round his dying bed, and many a tear fell upon his grave. He made his final exit in the year of grace 1799. And I, who laugh at him, would leave this world to-day to be with him; for I am tossing at sea—he is in port.
A straightforward character like Mabel's becomes a firm character with years. Long ere she was forty, her hand gently but steadily ruled Willoughby House, and all in it. She and Mr. Vane lived very happily; he gave her no fresh cause for uneasiness. Six months after their return, she told him what burned in that honest heart of hers, the truth about Mrs. Woffington. The water rushed to his eyes, but his heart was now wholly his wife's; and gratitude to Mrs. Woffington for her noble conduct was the only sentiment awakened.
“You must repay her, dearest,” said he. “I know you love her, and until to-day it gave me pain; now it gives me pleasure. We owe her much.”
The happy, innocent life of Mabel Vane is soon summed up. Frank as the day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew, she passed the golden years preparing herself and others for a still brighter eternity. At home, it was she who warmed and cheered the house, and the hearth, more than all Christmas fires. Abroad, she shone upon the poor like the sun. She led her beloved husband by the hand to Heaven. She led her children the same road; and she was leading her grandchildren when the angel of death came for her; and she slept in peace.
Many remember her. For she alone, of all our tale, lived in this present century; but they speak of her as “old Madam Vane”—her whom we knew so young and fresh.
She lies in Willoughby Church—her mortal part; her spirit is with the spirits of our mothers and sisters, reader, that are gone before us; with the tender mothers, the chaste wives, the loyal friends, and the just women of all ages.
RESURGET.
I come to her last, who went first; but I could not have stayed by the others, when once I had laid my darling asleep. It seemed for a while as if the events of our tale did her harm; but it was not so in the end.
Not many years afterward, she was engaged by Mr. Sheridan, at a very heavy salary, and went to Dublin. Here the little girl, who had often carried a pitcher on her head down to the Liffey, and had played Polly Peachum in a booth, became a lion; dramatic, political and literary, and the center of the wit of that wittiest of cities.
But the Dublin ladies and she did not coalesce. They said she was a naughty woman, and not fit for them morally. She said they had but two topics, “silks and scandal,” and were unfit for her intellectually.
This was the saddest part of her history. But it is darkest just before sunrise. She returned to London. Not long after, it so happened that she went to a small church in the city one Sunday afternoon. The preacher was such as we have often heard; but not so this poor woman, in her day of sapless theology, ere John Wesley waked the snoring church. Instead of sending a dry clatter of morality about their ears, or evaporating the Bible in the thin generalities of the pulpit, this man drove God's truths home to the hearts of men and women. In his hands the divine virtues were thunderbolts, not swans' down. With good sense, plain speaking, and a heart yearning for the souls of his brethren and his sisters, he stormed the bosoms of many; and this afternoon, as he reasoned like Paul of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, sinners trembled—and Margaret Woffington was of those who trembled.
After this day, she came ever to the narrow street where shone this house of God; and still new light burst upon her heart and conscience. Here she learned why she was unhappy; here she learned how alone she could be happy; here she learned to know herself; and, the moment she knew herself, she abhorred herself, and repented in dust and ashes.
This strong and straightforward character made no attempt to reconcile two things that an average Christian would have continued to reconcile. Her interest fell in a moment before her new sense of right. She flung her profession from her like a poisonous weed.
Long before this, Mrs. Vane had begged her to leave the stage. She had replied, that it was to her what wine is to weak stomachs. “But,” added she, “do not fear that I will ever crawl down hill, and unravel my own reputation; nor will I ever do as I have seen others—stand groaning at the wing, to go on giggling and come off gasping. No! the first night the boards do not spring beneath my feet, and the pulse of the public beat under my hand, I am gone! Next day, at rehearsal, instead of Woffington, a note will come, to tell the manager that henceforth Woffington is herself—at Twickenham, or Richmond, or Harrow-on-the-Hill, far from his dust, his din, and his glare—quiet, till God takes her. Amid grass, and flowers, and charitable deeds.”
This day had not come. It was in the zenith of her charms and her fame that she went home one night after a play, and never entered a theater, by the front door or back door, again. She declined all leave-taking and ceremony.
“When a publican shuts up shop and ceases to diffuse liquid poison, he does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I. Actors overrate themselves ridiculously,” added she; “I am not of that importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old glove instead of soiling my fingers filling it with more guineas, and the world loses in me, what? another old glove, full of words; half of them idle, the rest wicked, untrue, silly, or impure.Rougissons, taisons-nous, et partons.”
She now changed her residence, and withdrew politely from her old associates, courting two classes only, the good and the poor. She had always supported her mother and sister; but now charity became her system. The following is characteristic:
A gentleman who had greatly admired this dashing actress met one day, in the suburbs, a lady in an old black silk gown and a gray shawl, with a large basket on her arm. She showed him its contents—worsted stockings of prodigious thickness—which she was carrying to some of herproteges.
“But surely that is a waste of your valuable time,” remonstrated her admirer. “Much better buy them.”
“But, my good soul,” replied the representative of Sir Harry Wildair, “you can't buy them. Nobody in this wretched town can knit worsted hose except Woffington.”
Conversions like this are open to just suspicion, and some did not fail to confound her with certain great sinners, who have turned austere self-deceivers when sin smiled no more. But this was mere conjecture. The facts were clear, and speaking to the contrary. This woman left folly at its brightest, and did not become austere. On the contrary, though she laughed less, she was observed to smile far oftener than before. She was a humble and penitent, but cheerful, hopeful Christian.
Another class of detractors took a somewhat opposite ground. They accused her of bigotry for advising a young female friend against the stage as a business. But let us hear herself. This is what she said to the girl:
“At the bottom of my heart, I always loved and honored virtue. Yet the tendencies of the stage so completely overcame my good sentiments that I was for years a worthless woman. It is a situation of uncommon and incessant temptation. Ask yourself, my child, whether there is nothing else you can do, but this. It is, I think, our duty and our wisdom to fly temptation whenever we can, as it is to resist it when we cannot escape it.”
Was this the tone of bigotry?
Easy in fortune, penitent, but cheerful, Mrs. Woffington had now but one care—to efface the memory of her former self, and to give as many years to purity and piety as had gone to folly and frailty. This was not to be! The Almighty did not permit, or perhaps I should say, did not require this.
Some unpleasant symptoms had long attracted her notice, but in the bustle of her profession had received little attention. She was now persuaded by her own medical attendant to consult Dr. Bowdler, who had a great reputation, and had been years ago an acquaintance and an admirer. He visited her, he examined her by means little used in that day, and he saw at once that her days were numbered.
Dr. Bowdler's profession and experience had not steeled his heart as they generally do and must do. He could not tell her this sad news, so he asked her for pen and paper, and said, I will write a prescription to Mr. ——. He then wrote, not a prescription, but a few lines, begging Mr. —— to convey the cruel intelligence by degrees, and with care and tenderness. “It is all we can do for her,” said he.
He looked so grave while writing the supposed prescription, that it unluckily occurred to Mrs. Woffington to look over him. She stole archly behind him, and, with a smile on her face—read her death warrant.
It was a cruel stroke! A gasping sigh broke from her. At this Dr. Bowdler looked up, and to his horror saw the sweet face he had doomed to the tomb looking earnestly and anxiously at him, and very pale and grave. He was shocked, and, strange to say, she, whose death-warrant he had signed, ran and brought him a glass of wine, for he was quite overcome. Then she gave him her hand in her own sweet way, and bade him not grieve for her, for she was not afraid to die, and had long learned that “life is a walking shadow, a poor, poor player, who frets and struts his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.”
But no sooner was the doctor gone than she wept bitterly. Poor soul! she had set her heart upon living as many years to God as she had to the world, and she had hoped to wipe out her former self.
“Alas!” she said to her sister, “I have done more harm than I can ever hope to good now; and my long life of folly and wickedness will be remembered—will be what they call famous; my short life of repentance who will know, or heed, or take to profit?”
But she soon ceased to repine. She bowed to the will of Heaven, and set her house in order, and awaited her summons. The tranquillity of her life and her courageous spirit were unfavorable to the progress of disease, and I am glad to say she was permitted to live nearly three years after this, and these three years were the happiest period of her whole life. Works of piety and love made the days eventful. She was at home now—she had never been at home in folly and loose living. All her bitterness was gone now, with its cause.
Reader, it was with her as it is with many an autumn day; clouds darken the sun, rain and wind sweep over all—till day declines. But then comes one heavenly hour, when all ill things seem spent. There is no more wind, no more rain. The great sun comes forth—not fiery bright indeed, but full of tranquil glory, and warms the sky with ruby waves, and the hearts of men with hope, as, parting with us for a little space, he glides slowly and peacefully to rest.
So fared it with this humble, penitent, and now happy Christian.
A part of her desire was given her. She lived long enough to read a firm recantation of her former self, to show the world a great repentance, and to leave upon indelible record one more proof, what alone is true wisdom, and where alone true joys are to be found.
She endured some physical pain, as all must who die in their prime. But this never wrung a sigh from her great heart; and within she had the peace of God, which passes all understanding.
I am not strong enough to follow her to her last hour; nor is it needed. Enough that her own words came true. When the great summons came, it found her full of hope, and peace, and joy; sojourning, not dwelling, upon earth; far from dust and din and vice; the Bible in her hand, the Cross in her heart; quiet; amid grass, and flowers, and charitable deeds.
“NON OMNEM MORITURAM.”