0186
It need scarcely be said that this idea of his was not greatly discouraged by the undergraduates of Trinity College. It was not their fault if he did not receive every week a letter from some distinguished lady begging the favor of an interview with him. Upon many occasions the communications, which purported to come from married ladies, took the form of verses. These he exhibited with great pride, and only after extorting promises of profound secrecy, to his student friends.
It was immaterial that Dionysius found almost every week that he had been the victim of practical jokes; his belief in his own powers of captivating womankind was superior to every rebuff that he encountered. He exhibited his dapper little figure, crowned with the wig of a macaroni, to the promenaders in all the chief thoroughfares daily, and every evening he had some fresh story to tell of how he had been exerting himself to avoid an assignation that was being urged on him by a lady of quality sojourning not a hundred miles from the Castle.
The scheme which Mr. Blake had suggested to his fellow-students in the Smock Alley tavern found a willing agent for its realisation in Dionysius Hogan. Mrs. Siddons, her beauty and her powers, were, of course, the talk of the town during her first visit to Dublin. It only needed Jimmy Blake to drop a few dark hints in the hearing of Dionysius on the subject of a rumor that was current, to the effect that a certain well-known gentleman in Dublin had attracted the attention of the great actress, to make Dionysius believe that he had made a conquest of the Siddons.
For the remainder of the evening he took to dropping dark hints to this effect, and before he had slept that night there was no doubt on his mind that Sarah Sid-dons was another lady who had succumbed to his attractive exterior. To be sure, he had heard it said that she was as hard as marble; but then she had not seen him until she had come to Dublin. All women, he believed, had their weak moments, and there was no article of his creed more strongly impressed upon him than that the weak moment of many women was when they saw him for the first time.
When, on descending from his bedroom to his little sitting-room in his humble lodgings—for Mr. Hogan's income did not exceed eighty pounds a year—a letter was put into his hand bearing the signature “S. S.,” and when he found that above these initials there was a passionate avowal of affection and a strong appeal to him to be merciful as he was strong, and to pay the writer a visit at her lodgings before the hour of one, “when Mr. S. returns from the theatre, where he goes every forenoon,” poor Dionysius felt that the time had at last come for him to cast discretion to the winds. The beauty of Mrs. Siddons had had a powerful effect upon his susceptible heart when she had first come before his eyes on the stage of the Smock Alley theatre.
0192
On that night he believed that she had kept her eyes fixed upon him while repeating some of the beautiful soliloquies in “Isabella.” The artful suggestions of Jimmy Blake had had their effect upon him, and now he held in his hand a letter that left him no room to doubt—even if he had been inclined that way—the accuracy of the tale that his poor heart had originally told him.
He dressed himself with his accustomed care, and, having deluged his cambric with civet—it had been the favourite scent of thirty years before—he indulged in the unusual luxury of a chair to convey him to the lodgings of the great actress; for he felt that it might seriously jeopardise his prospects to appear in the presence of the lady with soiled shoes.
The house where Mrs. Siddons lodged was not an imposing one. She had arrived in Dublin from Holyhead at two o'clock in the morning, and she was compelled to walk about the streets in a downpour of rain for several hours before she could prevail upon any one to take her in. It is scarcely surprising that she conceived a strong and enduring prejudice against Dublin and its inhabitants.
On enquiring in a whisper and with a confidential smirk for Mrs. Siddons, he learned from the maid servant that the lady was in her room, and that Mr. Siddons had not returned from his morning visit to the theatre. The servant stated, however, that Mrs. Siddons had given the strictest orders to admit no one into her presence.
“Ah, discreet as one might have expected,” murmured Dionysius. “She does not mean to run the chance of disappointing me. Which is her parlour, child?”
“It's the first front, yer honour,” said the girl; “but, Lord save yer honour, she'd murther me if I let ye go up. Oh, it's joking ye are.”
“Hush,” whispered Dionysius, his finger on his lips. “Not so loud, I pray. She is waiting for me.”
“Holy Biddy! waiting for yer?” cried the maid. “Now do n't be afther getting a poor colleen into throuble, sir. I'm telling ye that it's killed entirely I'd be if I let ye go up.”
“Do n't be a fool, girl,” said Dionysius, still speaking in a whisper. “I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that Mrs. Siddons is awaiting me. Zounds! why do I waste time talking to a menial? Out of my way, girl.”
He pushed past the servant, leaving her somewhat awe-stricken at his grand manner and his finery, and when she recovered and made a grab for his coat tails, he was too quick for her. He plucked them out of her reach, and she perceived that he had got such a start of her that pursuit would be useless. In a few moments he was standing before the door of the room on the first floor that faced the street.
His heart was fluttering so that he had scarcely courage to tap upon the panel. He had tapped a second time before that grand contralto, that few persons could hear without emotion, bade him enter. He turned the handle, and stood facing Mrs. Siddons.
0197
She was sitting in a gracefully majestic attitude by the side of a small table on which a desk was placed. Mrs. Siddons never unbent for a moment in private life.
She assumed majestic attitudes in the presence of the lodging-house servant, and spoke in a tragic contralto to the linen-draper's apprentice. She turned her lovely eyes upon Dionysius Hogan as he stood smirking and bowing at the door. There was a vista of tragedy in the delivery of the two words—
“Well, sir?”
It took him some moments to recover from the effect the words produced upon him. He cleared his throat—it was somewhat husky—and with an artificial smirk he piped out:
“Madam—ah, my charmer, I have rushed to clasp my goddess to my bosom! Ah, fair creature, who could resist your appeal?”
He advanced in the mincing gait of the Macaronis. She sprang to her feet. She pointed an eloquent forefinger at a spot on the floor directly in front of him.
“Wretch,” she cried, “advance a step at your peril!” Her eyes were flashing, and her lips were apart.
His mincing ceased abruptly; and only the ghost of a smirk remained upon his patched and painted face. It was in a very fluty falsetto that he said:
“Ah, I see my charmer wants to be wooed. But why should Amanda reproach her Strephon for but obeying her behests? Wherefore so coy, dear nymph? Let these loving arms—”
“Madman—wretch—”
“Nay, chide me not, dear one. 'T is but the ardour of my passion that bids me clasp thee, the fairest of Hebe's train. We shall fly together to some retreat—far from the distractions—”
“Oh, the man is mad—mad!” cried the lady, retreating a step or two as he advanced.
“Only mad with the ardour of my passion,” whispered Dionysius.
“Oh, heaven! that I should live to hear such words spoken in my presence!” cried Mrs. Siddons, with her hands clasped in passionate appeal to a smiling portrait of the landlady's husband that hung over the fireplace. Then she turned upon Dionysius and looked at him.
Her eyes blazed. Their fire consumed the unfortunate man on whom they rested. He felt himself shrivelled up and become crisp as an autumn leaf. He certainly trembled like one, as a terrible voice, but no louder than a whisper, sounded in his ears: “Are you a human being or the monster of a dream, that you dare to speak such words in my hearing? What wretch are you that fancies that Sarah Siddons may be addressed by such as you, and in language that is an insult to a pure wife and mother. I am Sarah Siddons, sir! I am a wife who holds her husband's honour dearer than life itself—I am a mother who will never cause a blush of shame to mantle the brow of one of her children. Wretch, insulter, why are mine eyes not basilisks, with death in their glance to such as you?”
Down went Dionysius on his knees before that terrible figure that stretched out wild quivering hands above his head. Such gestures as hers would have fitted the stage of Drury Lane.
In the lodging-house parlour they were overwhelming.
“For God's sake, spare me, spare me!” he faltered, with his hands clasped and his head bent before that fury.
“Why should I spare such a wretch—why should I not trample such a worm into the dust?”
She took a frantic step toward him. With a short cry of abject terror he fell along the floor, and gasped. It seemed to him that she had trampled the life out of his body.
She stood above him with a heaving bosom beneath her folded arms.
There was a long pause before he heard the door open. A weight seemed lifted off him. He found that he could breathe. In a few moments he ventured to raise his head. He saw a beautiful figure sitting at the desk writing. Even in the scratching of her pen along the paper there was a tone of tragedy.
He crawled backward upon his hands and knees, with his eyes furtively fixed upon that figure at the desk. If, when he had looked up he had found her standing with an arm outstretched tin the direction of the door, he felt that he would have been able to rise to his feet and leave her presence; but Mrs. Siddons' dramatic instinct caused her to produce a deeper impression upon him by simply treating him as if he were dead at her feet—as if she had, indeed, trampled the life out of his body.
He crept away slowly and painfully backward, until he was actually in the lobby. Then by a great effort he sprang to his feet, rushed headlong down the stairs, picked himself up in the hall, and fled wildly through the door, that chanced to be open, into the street. He overthrew a chairman in his wild flight, and as he turned the corner he went with a rush into the arms of a young man, who, with a few others by his side, was sauntering along.
0205
“Zounds, sir! what do you mean by this mode of progression?” cried the young man, holding him fast.
Dionysius grasped him limply, looking at him with wild, staring eyes.
“For God's sake, Mr. Blake, save me from her—do n't let her get hold of me, for the love of all the saints.”
“What do you mean, you fool?” said Jimmy Blake. “Who is anxious to get hold of you?”
But no answer was returned by poor Dionysius. He lay with his head over Blake's shoulder, his arms swaying limply like two pendulums.
“By the powers, he has gone off in a swoon,” said young Blenerhassett. “Let us carry him to the nearest tavern.”
In less than half an hour Dionysius had recovered consciousness; but it required a longer space of time, and the administration of a considerable quantity of whisky, to enable him to tell all his story. He produced the letter signed “S. S.” which he had received in the morning, and explained that he had paid the visit to Mrs. Siddons only with a view of reasoning her out of her infatuation, which, he said with a shadowy simper, he could not encourage.
“I had hardly obtained access to her when she turned upon me in a fury,” said he. “Ah, boys, those eyes of hers!—I feel them still upon me. They made me feel like a poor wretch that's marched out in front of a platoon to be shot before breakfast. And her voice! well, it sounded like the voice of the officer giving the word of command to the platoon to fire. When I lay ready to expire at her feet, every word that she spoke had the effect of a bayonet prod upon my poor body. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! I'll leave it to yourself, Mr. Blake: was it generous of her to stab me with cold steel after I was riddled with red-hot bullets?”
“I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hogan,” replied Blake, “that I can't take a lenient view of your conduct. We all know what you are, sir. You seek to ingraft the gallantries of the reign of his late Majesty upon the present highly moral age. Mrs. Siddons, sir, is a true wife and mother, besides being a most estimable actress, and you deserved the rebuff from the effects of which you are now suffering. Sir, we leave you to the gnawings of that remorse which I trust you feel acutely.”
Mr. Blake, with his friends, left the tavern room as Dionysius was beginning to whimper.
In the street a roar of laughter burst from the students.
“Mother o' Moses!” cried Moriarty. “'T is a golden guinea I'd give to have been present when the Siddons turned upon the poor devil.”
“Then I 'll give you a chance of being present at a better scene than that,” said Blake.
“What do you mean, Jimmy?” asked Moriarty.
“I mean to bring you with me to pay a visit to Mrs. Siddons this very minute.”
“'T is joking you are, Jimmy?”
“Oh, the devil a joke, ma bouchai! Man alive, can't you see that the fun is only beginning? We'll go to her in a body and make it out that she has insulted a friend of ours by attributing false motives to him, and that her husband must come out to the Park in the morning.”
“That's carrying a joke a bit too far,” said Mr. Blenerhassett. “I'll not join in with you there.”
“Nobody axed ye, sir,” said Blake. “There are three of us here without you, and that's enough for our purpose.”
“If Mr. Siddons kicks you into the street, or if Sally treats you as she did that poor devil in the tavern, 't is served right that you'll be,” said Blenerhassett, walking off.
“We'll have a scene with Sarah Siddons for our trouble, at any rate,” laughed Blake.
The three young men who remained when the more scrupulous youth had departed, went together to Mrs. Siddons' lodgings. They understood more than Dionysius did about the art of obtaining admittance when only a portress stood in the way—a squeeze, a kiss, and a crown combined to make the maid take a lenient view of the consequences of permitting them to go up the stairs.
When, after politely rapping at the door of the parlour, the three entered the room, they found the great actress in precisely the same attitude she had assumed for her last visitor. The dignity of her posture was not without its effect upon the young men. They were not quite so self-confident as they had been outside the door. Each of them looked at the other, so to speak; but somehow none of the three appeared to be fluent. They stood bowing politely, keeping close to the door.
“Who are these persons?” said Mrs. Siddons, as if uttering her thoughts. “Am I in a civilised country or not?”
“Madam,” said Blake, finding his voice, at last, when a slur was cast upon his country. “Madam, Ireland was the home of civilisation when the inhabitants of England were prowling the woods naked, except for a coat of paint.”
Mrs. Siddons sprang to her feet.
“Sir,” she cried, “you are indelicate as well as impertinent. You have no right to intrude upon me without warning.”
“The urgency of our mission is our excuse, madam,” said Blake. “The fact is, madam, to come to the point, the gentleman who visited you just now is our friend.”
“Your friend, sir, is a scoundrel. He grossly insulted me,” said Mrs. Siddons.
“Ah, 't is sorry I am to find you do n't yet understand the impulses of a warmhearted nation, madam,” said Blake, shaking his head. “The gentleman came to compliment you on your acting, and yet you drove him from your door like a hound. That, according to our warmhearted Irish ways, constitutes an offence that must be washed out in blood—ay, blood, madam.”
“What can be your meaning, sir?”
“I only mean, madam, that your husband, whom we all honour on account of the genius—we do n't deny it—the genius and virtue of his wife, will have to meet the most expert swordsman in Ireland in the Phonix Park in the morning, and that Sarah Siddons will be a widow before breakfast time.”
There was a pause before there came a cry of anguish more pitiful than any expression of emotion that the three youths had ever heard.
“My husband!” were the words that sounded like a sob in their ears.
Mrs. Siddons had averted her head. Her face was buried in her hands. The wink in which Jimmy Blake indulged as he gave Moriarty a nudge was anything but natural.
“Why was I ever tempted to come to this country?” cried the lady wildly.
“Madam, we humbly sympathise with you, and with the country,” said Blake. He would not allow any reflection to be cast on his country.
She took a few steps toward the three young men, and faced them with clasped hands. She looked into the three faces in turn, with passionate intreaty in her eyes. “Have you no pity?” she faltered.
“Yes,” said Blake, “that we have; we do pity you heartily, madam.”
“Are you willing to take part in this act of murder—murder?” cried Mrs. Siddons, in a low voice that caused the flesh of at least two of her audience to creep. “Are you blind? Can 't you see the world pointing at you as I point at you, and call you murderers?” She stood before them with her eyes half closed, her right hand pointing to each of them in turn as she prolonged the word, suggesting a thousand voices whispering “murderers!” There was a long pause, during which the spell-bound youths, their jaws fallen, stared at that terrible figure—the awful form of the Muse of Tragedy. Drops of perspiration stood on the forehead of young Moriarty. Blake himself gave a gasp. “Have you no compassion?” Mrs. Sid-dons continued, but in another tone—a tone of such pathos as no human being could hear unmoved. Clasping her hands, she cried: “My poor husband! What harm has he done? Is he to be dragged from these arms—these arms that have cherished him with all the devotion that a too-loving wife can offer? Is he to be dragged away from this true heart to be butchered? Sirs, we have children—tender little blossoms. Oh, cannot you hear their cries? Listen, listen—the wailing of the babes over the mangled body of their father.”
Surely the sound of children's sobbing went around the room.
One of the young men dropped into a chair and burst into tears.
Blake's lips were quivering, as the streaming eyes of the woman were turned upon him.
“For heaven's sake, madam!” he faltered—“for heaven's sake—oh, my God! what have we done?—what have we done? Worse than Herod! the innocent children!—I hear them—I hear them! Oh, God forgive us! God forgive us for this cruel joke.”
He broke down utterly. The room now was certainly filled with wild sobbing and the sound of convulsive weeping.
0217
For several minutes the three emotional Irishmen sat weeping. They were in the power of the woman, who, at the confession of Blake, had become perfectly self-possessed in a moment. She stood watching them, a scornful smile upon her lips. She knew that the magic which she had at her command could enchain them so long as she wished. She was merciful, however.
“If you consider your jest sufficiently successful, gentlemen,” said she, “perhaps you will oblige me by withdrawing. I have letters to write.”
The spell that she had cast around them was withdrawn.
Blake sprang to his feet and drew his handkerchief across his eyes.
“Mrs. Siddons—madam,” said he, “we have behaved like fools—nay, worse, like scoundrels. We are not bold enough to ask your pardon, madam; but believe me, we feel deeply humiliated. You may forgive us, but we shall never forgive ourselves. Madam, you are the greatest actress in the world, and you may expect the finest benefit ever given to an actress in this city.”
But in spite of the fact that Mrs. Siddons' benefit the following night was all that Mr. Blake predicted it would be, she wrote some very hard words about Dublin to her friend, Mr. Whately, of Bath.
Nay, sir,” cried Mrs. Abington, with such a smile of infinite witchery as she wore when Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her as 'Miss Prue;' I would not have you make any stronger love to me than is absolutely necessary to keep yourself in training for the love scenes in Dr. Goldsmith's new comedy.”
“Ah, you talk glibly of measuring out the exact portion of one's love, as if love were a physic to be doled out to the precise grain,” cried Lee Lewis, impatiently turning away from the fascinating lady who was smiling archly at him over the back of her chair.
“By my faith, sir, you have e'en given the best description of love that I have heard; 't is beyond doubt a physic, given to mankind to cure many of the ills of life; but, la, sir! there are so many quacks about, 't is well-nigh impossible to obtain the genuine thing.”
And once more the actress smiled at her latest victim.
“I have often wondered if you ever knew what love means,” said he.
“Indeed the same thought has frequently occurred to me, sir,” said the actress. “When one has been offered the nostrums of quacks so often, one begins to lose faith in the true prescription.”
“You think that I am a quack, and therefore have no faith in me,” said Lewis.
“I know that you are an excellent actor, Mr. Lewis.”
“And therefore you suspect my truth?”
“Nay, I respect your art.”
“Perish my art, so long as I gain the favour of the most adorable woman who ever flitted like a vision of beauty—”
“Ah, sir, do not take advantage of my lack of memory; give me the title of the comedy from which you quote, so that I may know my cue, and have my reply ready.”
Lewis flung himself across the room with an exclamation of impatience.
“You are the most cruel woman that lives,” he cried. “I have often left this house vowing that I would never come nigh it again because of your cruelty.”
“What a terrible vengeance!” cried the actress, raising her hands, while a mock expression of terror came over her face. “You would fain prove yourself the most cruel of men because you account me the most cruel of women? Ah, sir, you are ungenerous; I am but a poor weak creature, while you—”
“I am weak enough to be your slave, but let me tell you, madam, I am quite strong enough to throw off your bonds should I fail to be treated with some consideration,” said Lewis.
“Oh, so far as I am concerned you may take your freedom to-morrow,” laughed Mrs. Abington. “The fetters that I weave are of silken thread.”
“I would rather wear your fetters, though they be of iron, than those of the next loveliest woman to you, though hers should be a chain of roses,” said the actor. “Come, now, my dear lady, listen to reason.”
“Gladly; 't will be a change from your usual discourse, which is of love—just the opposite, you know.”
“Why will you not consent to come with me to Vauxhall once more?”
“La, sir, think of the scandal? Have not we been seen there together half a dozen times?”
“Scandal! Do you think that the scandal-mongers can add anything to what they have already said regarding us?”
“I place no limits on the imagination of the scandal-monger, sir, but I desire to assign a limit to my own indiscretions, which, I fear, have set tongues wagging—”
“Pooh! my dear madam, cannot you see that tongues will wag all the faster if I appear at the Gardens with some one else?”
“Say, with your wife. Surely you are not afraid of the tongue of slander if you appear by the side of your wife, sir.”
“'T is for you I fear.”
“What! you fancy that people will slander me if you appear at Vauxhall with your lawful wedded wife?”
“Even so, for they will say that you were not strong enough to keep me faithful to you.”
Mrs. Abington sprang to her feet.
“The wretches!” she cried. “I will show them that———psha! let them say their worst. What care I what they say? I'll go or stay away, as the fancy seizes.”
“You may take your choice, my dear madam,” said Lewis: “Whether you would rather be slandered for coming with me or for staying at home!”
“The terms are not the same in both cases,” said she; “for if I go with you I know that I shall have an excellent supper.”
“So you 'll come! Ah, I knew that you would not forsake me!” he cried, catching her hand and kissing it.
“You foolish man! You take credit to yourself for a decision that is due to the prospect of a supper!” said Mrs. Abington.
“Ah, I know what I know, my dear,” cried he. “And so I will take my leave at once, lest you should change your mind.”
“I protest, sir,” said she, as he kissed her hand again. “I protest that 't was the thought of the supper decided me.”
He roared with laughter.
So did she when he had left her house.
“What fools these men are!” she cried, throwing herself back on her couch with a very capacious yawn. “What fools! The idea of a poor woman being influenced by the thought of minced chicken in a decision that involves being by their side seems preposterous to them! Oh, if they but knew all that such a woman as I am could tell them!”
She laughed softly—subtly—as certain recollections came to her, for Mrs. Abington was a lady of many recollections.
After a space, she resumed her study of the part of Miss Hardcastle, for which she had been cast by Colman in Dr. Goldsmith's new comedy, but which, the following week, to her everlasting regret, she relinquished in favor of Mrs. Bulkley.
Lee Lewis, who was studying the part of Young Marlow, had accompanied her home after rehearsal. He had, during the previous month, shown himself to be extremely polite in regard to her, for he had walked home with her several times, and more than once he had been seen by her side at Ranelagh and Vauxhall, as well as at the Pantheon in the Oxford Road. People about the theater were saying that the beautiful Mrs. Abington had added to the number of her conquests, and Miss Catley, the most imprudent of all the imprudent ladies in Colman's company, said some very spiteful things regarding her. (It was understood that Miss Catley had angled for Lee Lewis herself, but without success.)
Before Mrs. Abington had been alone for half an hour, her maid entered to tell her that a lady was inquiring for her at the hall door.
“Another of our stage-struck misses, Lucette?” said the actress, alluding to the three visits which she had had during the week from young women who were desirous of obtaining a footing on the stage.
“Nay, madam, this lady seems somewhat different,” replied the maid.
“Then let her be shown in at once, whoever she may be,” said Mrs. Abington. “There can surely be no scandal in receiving a lady visitor.”
She gave a glance at a mirror, and saw that her hair was in a proper condition for a visitor who was a lady. She knew that it did not matter so much when her visitors were of the other sex; and a moment afterwards there entered a graceful little woman, whom she could not recollect having ever seen before. She walked quickly to the centre of the room, and stood there, gazing with soft grey eyes at the actress, who had risen from her sofa, and was scrutinising her visitor.
There was a pause before Mrs. Abington, with a smile—the smile she reserved for women—quite different from that with which she was accustomed to greet men—said:
“Pray seat yourself, madam; and let me know to what I am indebted for the honour of this visit.”
But the lady made no move; she remained there, gazing at the actress without a word.
Mrs. Abington gave a laugh, saying, as she returned to her sofa:
“Do not let me hurry you, my dear lady; but I must ask your pardon if I seat myself.” Then the stranger spoke. “You are Mrs. Abington. I wish I had not come to you. Now that I find myself face to face with you, I perceive that I have no chance. You are overwhelmingly beautiful.”
“Did you come here only to tell me that? Faith, you might have saved yourself the trouble, my dear. I have known just how beautiful I am for the past twenty years,” laughed the actress.
“I did not come here to tell you that,” said the visitor; “on the contrary, I meant to call you an ugly harridan—a vile witch, who glories in seeing the ruin of good men; but now—well, now, I am dumb. I perceive you are so beautiful, it is only natural that all men—my husband among the number—should worship you.”
“You are so flattering, my dear madam, I can without difficulty perceive that you have not lived long in the world of fashion—ay, or in the world of play-houses,” said the actress.
“I am Mrs. Lewis, madam,” said the lady, and then dropping into a chair she burst into tears.
Mrs. Abington went beside the unhappy woman, and patted her on the shoulder.
“Dear child,” she said, “the thought that you are Mr. Lewis's wife should not cause you to shed a tear. You should be glad rather than sorry that you are married to a gentleman who is so highly esteemed. Your husband, Mrs. Lewis, is a great friend of mine, and I hope that his wife may become even a greater.”
“Ah—ah!” moaned the lady. “A friend? a friend? Oh, give me back my husband, woman—give me back my husband, whom you stole from me!”
She had sprung to her feet as she spoke her passionate words, and now stood with quivering, clenched hands in front of the actress.
“My good woman,” said Mrs. Abington, “you have need to calm yourself. I can assure you that I have not your husband in my keeping. Would you like to search the room? Look under the sofa—into all the cupboards.”
“I know that he left here half an hour ago—I watched him,” said Mrs. Lewis. “You watched him? Oh, fie!”
“You may make a mock of me, if you please; I expected that you would; but he is my husband, and I love him—I believe that he loved me until your witchery came over him and—oh, I am a most unhappy woman! But you will give him back to me; you have many admirers, madam; one poor man is nothing here or there to you.”
“Listen to me, my poor child.” Mrs. Abington had led her to the sofa, and sat down beside her, still holding her hand. “You have spoken some very foolish words since you came into this room. From whom have you heard that your husband was—well, was ensnared by me?”
“From whom? Why, every one knows it!” cried Mrs. Lewis. “And besides, I got a letter that told me—”
“A letter from whom?”
“From—I suppose she was a lady; at any rate she said that she sympathised with me, and I'm certain that she did.”
“Ah, the letter was not signed by her real name, and yet you believed the slanders that you knew came from a jealous woman? Oh, Mrs. Lewis, I'm ashamed of you.”
“Nay, I did not need to receive any letter; my husband's neglect of me made me aware of the truth—it is the truth, whether you deny it or not.”
“You are a silly goose, and I have half a mind to take your husband from you, as mothers deprive their children of a toy when they injure it. You do n't know how to treat a husband, madam, and you do n't deserve to have one. Think how many girls, prettier and cleverer than you, are obliged to go without husbands all their lives, poor things!”
“It is enough for me to think of those women who are never satisfied unless they have other women's husbands in their train, madam.”
“Look you, my dear ill-treated creature, I do assure you that I have no designs upon your husband. I do not care if I never see him again except on the stage.”
“Is that the truth? Ah, no, everybody says that Mrs. Abington is only happy when—”
“Then leave Mrs. Abington's room if you believe the statements of that vague everybody.”
The actress had risen, and was pointing in fine tragic style to the door.
Mrs. Lewis rose also, but slowly; her eyes fell beneath the flashing eyes of Mrs. Abington. Suddenly she raised her head, and put out a trembling hand.
“I will not believe what I have heard,” she said. “And yet—yet—you are so very beautiful.”
“That you think it impossible I should have any good in me?” laughed the actress. “Well, I do believe that I have some good in me—not much, perhaps, but enough to make me wish to do you a friendly turn in spite of your impudence. Listen to me, you little goose. Why have you allowed your husband to neglect you, and to come here asking me to sup with him at Vauxhall?”
“Ah, then, 't is true!” cried the wife. “You have gone with him—you are going with him?”
“'Tis true that I went with him, and that he left me just now believing that I would accompany him to the Gardens on Monday next. Well, what I want you to explain is how you have neglected your duty toward your husband so that he should stray into such evil ways as supping with actresses at Vauxhall.”
“What! would you make out that his neglect of his duty is my fault?”
“Great heavens, child, whose fault is it, if it is not yours? That is what I say, you do n't deserve to have a toy if you let some strange child snatch it away from you.”
“I protest, Mrs. Abington, that I scarce take your meaning. I have nothing to reproach myself with. I have ever been the best of wives. I have never gone gadding about to balls and routs as some wives do; I have remained at home with my baby.”
“Exactly, and so your poor husband has been forced to ask certain actresses to bear him company at those innocent pleasures, which he, in common with most gentlemen of distinction, enjoy. Ah, 't is you domestic wives that will have to answer for your husbands' backslidings.”
“Is it possible that—why, madam, you bewilder me. You think that I should—I do n't know what you think—oh, I'm quite bewildered!”
“Why, child, have you not seen enough of the world to learn that a woman is most attractive to a man when he perceives that she is admired by other men? Have you not seen that a man seeks to marry a particular woman, not because he cares so greatly for her himself, but because he believes that other men care greatly for her? Your good husband is, I doubt not, fond enough of you; but when he perceives that you think much more of your baby than you do of him—when he perceives that the men whom he considered his rivals before he carried youofffrom them, no longer follow in your train, is he to be blamed if he finds you a trifle insipid? Ah, let me tell you, my sweet young wife, a husband is a horse that requires the touch of a spur now and again. A jog-trot is not what suits a spirited creature.”
“Heavens, madam! You mean that he—my husband—would be true to me if I only I—I—”
“If only you were not too anxious that he should keep pace with the jog-trot into which you have fallen, my dear. Do you not fancy that I know he wishes me to sup with him only because he is well aware that a dozen men will be longing to mince him when they see him mincing my chicken for me?”
“But I would go with him to the Gardens if he would ask me, only—ah, no one would want to mince him on my account.”
“You silly one! Cannot you see that you must place him in the position of wanting to mince the other man?”
“How? I protest that I am bewildered.”
“Dear child, go to the Gardens, not with your husband, but with another man, and you will soon see him return to you with all the ardour of a lover with a rival in view. Jealousy is the spur which a husband needs to recall him to a sense of his duty, now and again.”
“I will never consent to adopt such a course, madam. In the first place, I cannot force myself upon any gentleman of my acquaintance.”
“Then the sooner you find one on whom you can force yourself, the better chance you will have of bringing your husband to your side.”
“In the second place, I respect my husband too highly—”
“Too highly to win him back to you, though not too highly to come to me with a story of the wrongs he has done to you? Oh, go away now; you do n't deserve your toy.”
Mrs. Lewis did not respond to the laughter of the actress. She remained standing in the centre of the room with her head down. Fresh tears were welling up to her eyes.
“I have given you my advice—and it is the advice of one who knows a good deal of men and their manners,” resumed Mrs. Abington. “If you cannot see your way to follow it there is nothing more to be said.”
“I may be foolish; but I cannot bring myself to go alone with any man to the Gardens,” said her visitor in a low tone.
“Then good-bye to you!” cried the actress, with a wave of her hand.
The little lady went slowly to the door; when there she cast an appealing glance at Mrs. Abington; but the latter had picked up her copy of the new comedy, and was apparently studying the contents. With a sigh Mrs. Lewis opened the door and went out.
“Foolish child! She will have to buy her experience of men, as her sisters buy theirs,” cried Mrs. Abington, throwing away the book.
She rose from her seat and yawned, stretching out her arms. As she recovered herself, her eyes rested on a charcoal sketch of herself in the character Sir Harry Wildair, in “The Constant Couple,” done by Sir Joshua Reynolds' pupil, Northcote. She gave a little start, then ran to the door, and called out to Mrs. Lewis, who had not had time to get to the foot of the stairs.
“Come back for one moment, madam,” cried Mrs. Abington over the banisters, and when Mrs. Lewis returned, she said: “I called you back to tell you to be ready dressed for the Gardens on Monday night. I will accompany you thither in my coach.”
“You mean that you will—”
“Go away now, like a good child. Ask no more questions till Monday night.”
She went away, and on the Monday night she was dressed to go to Vauxhall, when the room in which she was waiting was entered by an extremely handsome and splendidly dressed young gentleman, who had all the swagger of one of the beaux of the period, as he advanced to her smirking.
“I protest, sir,” cried Mrs. Lewis, starting up; “you have made a mistake. I have not the honour of your acquaintance.”
“'Fore Gad, my charmer, you assume the airs of an innocent miss with amazing ability,” smirked her visitor. “My name, madam, is Wildair, at your service, and I would fain hope that you will accept my poor escort to the Gardens.”
A puzzled look was on Mrs. Lewis's face as the gallant began to speak, but gradually this expression disappeared. She clapped her hands together girlishly, and then threw herself back on a chair, roaring with laughter.
The next day at the playhouse Mrs. Abington met Lee Lewis with a reproachful look. She had written to him on the Saturday, expressing her regret that she could not go with him to the Gardens, but assuring him that she would be there, and charging him to look for her.
“I thought you would believe it worth your while to keep an eye open for me last night, sir,” she now said. “But I dare say you found some metal more attractive elsewhere.”
“By heavens! I waited for you for an hour on the lantern walk, but you did not appear,” cried Lewis.
“An hour? only an hour?” said the lady. “And pray how did you pass the rest of the time?”
“A strange thing happened,” said Lewis, after a pause. “I was amazed to see my wife there—or one whom I took to be my wife.”
“Ah, sir, these mistakes are of common occurrence,” laughed Mrs. Abington. “Was she, like her husband, alone?”
“No, that's the worst of it; she was by the side of a handsome young fellow in a pink coat embroidered with silver.”
“Oh, Mrs. Lewis would seem to have borrowed a leaf from her husband's book; that is, if it was Mrs. Lewis. Have you asked her if she was at the Gardens?”
“How could I ask her that when I had told her that I was going to the playhouse? I was struck with amazement when I saw her in the distance with that man—did I mention that he was a particularly good-looking rascal?”
“You did; but why you should have been amazed I am at a loss to know. Mrs. Lewis is a very charming lady, I know.”
“You have seen her?”
“She was pointed out to me last night.”
“Heavens! then it was she whom I saw in the Gardens? I would not have believed it.”
“What, are you so unreasonable as to think that 't is a wife's duty to remain at home while her husband amuses himself at Vauxhall?”
“Nay, but my wife—”
“Is a vastly pretty young creature, sir, whom a hundred men as exacting as her husband, would think it a pleasure to attend at the Gardens or the Pantheon.”
“She is, beyond doubt a sweet young creature; but Lord, madam, she is so bound up in her baby that she can give no thought to her husband; and as for other men—did you see the youth who was beside her?”
“To be sure I did. He was devoted to her—and so good looking! I give you my word, sir, I never saw anyone with whose looks I was better pleased.”
“Zounds, madam, if I had got near him I would have spoilt his good looks, I promise you. Good Lord! to think that my wife—I tried to get close to her, but the pair seemed to vanish mysteriously.” “You would have been better employed looking for me. But we will arrange for another evening, you and I, Mr. Lewis.”
“Yes, we will—we will.”
There was not much heartiness in the way Mr. Lewis assented; and when the lady tried to get him to fix upon an evening, he excused himself in a feeble way.
The day following he walked with her to her house after rehearsal, but he did not think it necessary to make use of any of those phrases of gallantry in which he had previously indulged. He talked a good deal of his wife and her attractions. He had bought her a new gown, he said, and, beyond a doubt, it would be difficult to find a match for her in grace and sweetness. He declined Mrs. Abington's invitation to enter the house. He had to hurry home, he said, having promised to take his wife by water to Greenwich Park.
The actress burst into a merry laugh as she stood before the drawing of Sir Harry Wildair.
“All men are alike,” she cried. “And all women, too, for that matter. Psha, there are only two people in the world; the name of one is Adam, the name of the other is Eve.”
In the course of the afternoon a letter was brought to her. It was from Mrs. Lewis, and it stated that the writer was so much overcome with the recent kindness and attention which her husband had been showing her, she had resolved to confess that she had played a trick upon him, and begged Mrs. Abington's leave to do so.
Mrs. Abington immediately sat down and wrote a line to her.
“Do n't be a little fool,” she wrote. “Are you so anxious to undo all that we have done between us? If you pursue that course, I swear to you that he will be at my feet the next day. No, dear child, leave me to tell him all that there is to be told.”
Two days afterwards Lee Lewis said to her:
“I wonder if 't is true that my wife has an admirer.”
“Why should it not be true, sir? Everything that is admirable has an admirer,” said Mrs. Abington.
“She is not quite the same as she used to be,” said he. “I half suspect that she has something on her mind. Can it be possible that—”
“Psha, sir, why not put her to the test?” cried Mrs. Abington.
“The test? How?”
“Why, sir, give her a chance of going again to the Gardens. Tell her that you are going to the playhouse on Thursday night, and then do as you did before, only keep a better look-out for her, and—well you must promise me that if you find her with that handsome young spark you will not run him through the body.”
“You seem to take a great interest in this same young spark,” said Lewis.
“And so I do, sir! Lord, sir, are you jealous of me as well as your wife?”
“Jealous? By my soul, madam, I desire nothing more heartily than to hear of your taking him from my wife.”
“Then carry out my plan, and perhaps I shall be able to oblige you. Put her to the test on Thursday.”
“You will be there?”
“I will be there, I promise you.”
“Then I agree.”
“You promise further not to run him through the body?”
“I promise. Yes, you will have more than a corpse to console you.”
He walked off looking somewhat glum, and in another half hour she had sent a letter to his wife asking her to be dressed for Vauxhall on Thursday night.
The Gardens were flooded with light—except in certain occasional nooks—and with music everywhere. (It is scarcely necessary to say that the few dimly-lighted nooks were the most popular in the Gardens.)