Yes; Mr. Wuff had done it at last! He had cut himself adrift from the moorings of mediocrity, as his nautical dramatist expressed it, and it was now sink or swim with him. He was "going in a perisher," he said himself; and having set his fortune on a die, he was just waiting to see whether it turned up six or ace.
When Mr. Wuff came into a sum of money on the death of a distant relative, and, forsaking the necessary but hardly popular calling of a sheriff's-officer, took the Theatre Royal, Hatton Garden, and opened it with a revival of the legitimate drama in general and of Shakespearian plays in particular, he made a very great hit. It was so long since any one had attempted to represent Shakespeare, that an entirely new generation had sprung up, which, egged on by its elders, went religiously to the first performance of all the celebrated plays, and tried very hard indeed to think they both understood and liked them. The newspaper press too was very noble on the subject. Mr. Wuff, so said the critics, was the great dramatic resuscitator of the age.
What! People had said that the taste for the legitimate was exploded! The answer to that was in the crowds that thronged to T. R., Hatton Garden. And then the critics went on to say that the scenery by Mr. Slapp, with wonderful moonlight effects such as had never previously been seen, was thoroughly appreciated; and that the mechanical arrangement for the appearance of Banquo's ghost amongst the unconscious Thanes was a marvel of theatrical deception. Was it Shakespeare or Slapp who drew? Buncle, a heavy, ignorant, ill-educated man, who had played fourth-rate parts with the Dii majores in those "palmy days" of which we read, and who now, faute de mieux, found himself pitch-forked into the leading characters, thought it was Shakespeare--and Buncle! The knowing ones thought it was the novelty of the reproduction and the excellence of Slapp's scenery which caused the success; and the knowing ones were right. Shakespeare, as interpreted by Buncle, Mrs. Buncle, and Stampede--whom Buncle always took about with him to play his seconds--drew for a certain length of time. Then the audience thinned gradually, and Wuff found it necessary to supplement King Lear with the Harem Beauties--a ballet supported by the best band of coryphées in Europe; and that was a really good stroke of policy. While Buncle was lying down and dying as Lear, the club-men came trooping into the house; and Buncle's apostrophes to his dead daughter Cordelia were nearly inaudible in the creaking of boots and the settling into seats. The pit cried "Hush!" and "Shame!" but the swells did not care about the pit, and the curtain fell on Buncle thirsting for aristocratic blood. The ballet at first attracted largely. As the time for its commencement approached, the military clubs were drained of their members, who went away in a procession of hansoms from Pall Mall to Hatton Garden; and you could have counted more peers within Wuff's walls at one time than were to be found, save on special occasions, at St. Stephen's.
But the ballet, after a time, ceased to draw; and Mr. Wuff could not supplement it by another, for the coryphées had all returned to their allegiance to the manager of the Opera-house, whose season had just commenced. Mr. Wuff was in despair; he dared not shut the house, for he had to make up his rent, which was required with inexorable punctuality by the committee of gentlemen who owned the theatre. He must try something; but what was it to be? Wuff and his treasurer, Mr. Bond,--always known as Tommy Bond, an apple-faced, white-headed old gentleman, who had dropped into the theatrical world no one ever knew whence, and who had held a place of trust with all the great managers of the T. R., Hatton Garden, for thirty years,--were closeted together.
"What's it to be, Tommy?" repeated Mr. Wuff for the twentieth time. "They've had it all round, hot and strong; and what's the caper for 'em now, I don't know."
"What do you think of reviving Julius Caesar? The classic costume has not been seen on these boards for years."
"What! Billy's Julius Caesar? No, thank you! I've had enough of Bill to last me some time--and that brute Buncle drawing fifteen pounds a week, and bellowing his lungs out to thirty people in the pit! No, no! Is there a good lion-and-camel lot about?"
Mr. Bond shuddered; he was frequently prompted to shudder in his conversation with Mr. Wuff. He was a great believer in the elevating tendencies of the drama; and when he thought of lions and camels on the same boards which he had seen trodden at different times by those great actors and rivals, Grumble and Green, he could not refrain from shuddering. But his business instincts made him turn to a file of the Era on the table, and he said, after consulting it:
"There's Roker's troupe at North Shields."
"How long since they've been in town?"
"Oh, two years; and then they were only at the Wells--you can scarcely call that town; and it didn't interfere a bit with our people, you know."
"Roker's are performing lions, ain't they?"
"Yes; they'll let him do anything to them, when they're in a proper state."
"All right! Write to him about terms at once; and send to Darn and tell him we want a piece to bring out this lot at once. Must be Eastern, because of the camel--long procession, slaves, caskets, and all that kind of thing, and a fight with the lion for Roker. That's all Roker's to do, mind; he can't act a bit."
Mr. Roker was driving such an excellent trade with the pitmen of the North, that he refused to come to London except on terms which Mr. Wuff would not give; and so that enterprising manager was again in a strait. Mr. Trapman had been called into council, had ransacked his books and his brain in search for novelty, but all to no purpose; and things were looking very serious for Mr. Wuff, when one morning Trapman rushed from his office and arrived breathless in the manager's sanctum.
"What is it?" asked Wuff, who was sitting vacantly looking at Bond, poring over files of old paybills.
"We've got it at last, I think!" said Trapman, pointing to an open letter in his hand "You've heard of Constance Greenwood?"
"Yes, yes!" struck in Mr. Bond eagerly. "Milman was here last week, just arrived from New York,--and he says that for the leading-lady business--modern time, I mean--he'd never seen anything like her."
"Yankee, ain't she?" asked Wuff coldly.
"Not a bit of it," replied Trapman. "She's English bred and born; only been out there three months; never played anywhere before, and made a most tre-mendous hit. I saw the New York papers about her first night. They'd got up a report that she was the daughter of an English nobleman, and had run away because her father was cruel to her; and this crammed the house. The girl's acting did the rest. Every one says she's very clever, and she was making no end of dollars a-night."
"Well?" said Wuff, who was working up into excitement.
"Oh, I thought you did not care about it," said Trapman. "I've a letter from her here in my hand, saying she's taken a sudden desire to England, and wants me to get her an engagement in a first-class theatre. I've got newspapers by the same mail, describing her farewell benefit, and speculating, in the way those chaps do over there, about what can have made her want to go to England so suddenly. But there's no doubt she's a clipper, and I came at once to offer her to you."
"I'll have her!" shouted Wuff, jumping up. "First-class theatre she wants, eh? This is the shop. Let's have a look at her letter?"
"Can't do that,--it's a private letter," said Trapman; "but I'll tell you her terms: ten pound a-night settled, and a share after a hundred."
"That'll do. Now, Tommy Bond, just sit down and write a stunnin' advertisement, and put that story about her being a nobleman's daughter into shape,--only make her run away because she was in love, and wanted to earn money for the support of her lover, who was blind.--Eh, Trapman, that ought to wake 'em up?--And send the story to little Shiffon, who does that column of lies, and ask him to stick it in next week.--What's her line, Trapman?"
"Genteel comedy and interesting business of the highest class,--lady of the present day, you know."
"All right; then I shan't want Buncle."
"Not a bit; get rid of him at once. But I'll tell you what; Pontifex has quarrelled with the Parthenium people--he was with me yesterday--and I'd pick him up to support her."
Mr. Wuff agreed to this, and told Mr. Trapman to take the necessary steps; and that gentleman then took his departure.
"Wasn't going to let Wuff look at her letter," said he, as he walked away; "wouldn't do at all. What a doosed clever gal! What does she say?" and he pulled the letter from his pocket: "'Not a word to any one until after my appearance. After that I shan't care.' All right, my dear; you may depend upon me."
Mr. Wuff went to work with a will, and spared no expense in his bills and advertisements. The nobleman's daughter's story was duly filtered through the newspapers, and popular curiosity was excited. Miss Constance Greenwood arrived from America by the next mail, bringing with her an American play, founded on a French subject, full of interest, and what we should in the present day call sensation, but wretchedly written. This play was given to the accomplished Spofforth; and under his manipulation it became a very capital acting drama, with a splendid character for Miss Greenwood, and very good chances for Pontifex. Wuff, Bond, Spofforth, and Oldboy, the critic of the Statesman, had a little dinner at Wuff's house before the evening dress-rehearsal, which Miss Greenwood had requested before the production of the piece; and they were all delighted with what they saw. Oldboy was especially pleased. "I thought," said he, "that ladylike women left the stage with Miss Fortescue; but this girl restores my hopes." And Wuff winked at Spofforth, and they both knew that meant a column and a half the morning after the performance.
Sir Laurence Alsager drove straight from the railway-station to the Maecenas Club, where his servant was waiting for him with his dressing-things. As he pushed through the streets, the placards on the walls announcing the theatrical novelty for the evening recalled to his mind the night of his return from the East. Then he drove to the Club, then he had returned to be present at the first representation of a theatrical novelty; but ah, how different was his state of mind then from what it was now! Then the iron had passed over the slight scratch which he at that time imagined was a wound, and had completely cicatrized it; now a real wound was gaping and bare. Kismet! kismet! the old story. That night he saw Georgie Mitford for the first time; and ever since then what had he not suffered on her account! Ah, what had she herself not suffered, poor child! His absence from London and his manner of life down at Knockholt had precluded him from hearing any recent news of her; and he wondered whether the lapse of time had had any effect on Sir Charles Mitford's mad infatuation, or whether it still continued. More than anything else, Laurence wanted to know whether Lady Mitford's domestic misery was known to the world at large, or confined to the few acquaintances who had such splendid opportunities of inspecting in the quiet of Redmoor. He knew that her first appearance in society had excited a great deal of notice, a great deal of admiration, and, consequently, a great deal of envy; and he was too much a man of the world not to feel certain that anything to her disadvantage would be sought out with the greatest perseverance, and spread abroad with the greatest alacrity. And it was to her disadvantage in the eyes of society, that her home was unhappy; there were people in numbers who would declare that the result was her fault; that she was prim, puritanical, bad-tempered; that her jealousy was perfectly ridiculous; that her missy ways and affectation rendered it impossible for any man to live with her. There were numbers of people who would take an opposite view of the question, and who would pity her--not indeed with that pity which is akin to love, but from a feeling springing from a very different source,--a pity which consists in loudly denouncing the cause for compassion, and wondering how the person to be compassionated can endure what has to be gone through. There would be people who could not understand how anything otherwise could have been expected: a young person from the bourgeoisie introduced into the nous-autres class must expect that the silly fancy which had captivated her husband would not last, and must be prepared to take the consequences of her vaulting ambition. The Clanronald and Tappington set would infallibly regard it from this last-mentioned point of view, accordingly.
How Laurence Alsager's blood boiled within him as all these thoughts passed through his mind! During the quietude of his life at Knockholt, he had had sufficient opportunities so thoroughly to catechise himself, so perfectly to dissect the feelings of his breast, as to leave no doubt in his own mind that he loved Lady Mitford deeply and passionately. The notion of the guardian angel, the protecting genius, which he had so encouraged at first, had now entirely faded out, and he had not scrupled to show to himself the actual state of his feelings towards her. Not that they would ever be known; he had made up his mind to keep them rigidly locked in his own bosom. But still it was worse than horrible to think that the woman in whose service he would willingly have perilled his life, was in all probability dragging on a miserable existence, exposed to the perverse misunderstandings or degrading pity of the world! On these latter points he should soon be assured. They discussed everybody at the Maecenas; and if there had been anything sufficiently noticeable in the Mitford ménage to call for comment, it was sure to receive the freest and most outspoken discussion in the tabak-parliament of the Club.
Meanwhile, the mere notion of being back in London conduced in no small degree to raise Laurence's spirits. His time at Knockholt had been, he felt, far from unprofitably spent; he had had opportunities not merely of examining his own heart, but of making himself acquainted with the hopes and fears, the wishes and prospects, of some of those with whose lives he was to a certain extent concerned. He had had opportunities of carrying out certain pet projects of the good old man, whose last days he had been permitted to console; and he had been enabled to take up that position in his county which was required of him, not merely by the hollow ordinances of "gentility," but by the great binding rivets of society. He hoped in all honesty and humility to be able "to do his duty in that state of life unto which God had called him;" but he felt all the delight of a schoolboy out of bounds in laying-by the county magnate, the landed proprietor, the many-acred wealthy baronet, for a time, and making a very small unit in the grand population of London. The crowded streets, the gas-lamps, the dull rumble of the passing vehicles,--all were delightful to him; and as he drew up at the club-door he felt happier than he had done for many a long day.
He dressed himself and went down into the coffee-room, which he found thronged. Mr. Wuff's advertisements and bills had been so far fruitful, that two-thirds of the diners at the Maecenas seemed from their talk to be going to the Hatton-Garden Theatre. Laurence was welcomed with great cordiality by all who knew him, and had numerous offers of "joining tables;" but he expected George Bertram, and when he found that that pillar of the state did not arrive, he preferred dining by himself. The solitary life he had been leading, the event which had led to that life, the reflections which had engrossed him since he had led it,--all concurred to prevent him from suddenly plunging into the light gossip of a club-room. After dinner, finding that the piece in which Miss Constance Greenwood was to appear did not commence until half-past eight, he went into the smoking-room, where most of the diners had assembled, and in addition to them, Lord Dollamore. He looked up and saw Alsager's entrance; then stretched out his hand, and pointed to a vacant seat on the couch beside him.
"My dear Alsager, delighted to see you,--honestly and truly delighted! How are you? What a hermit you have become! though of course I understand,--family-business and all that; and what has brought you up at last--not this new play?"
"Well, I can scarcely say that; but I wanted a something to come up for--a something, I mean, beyond law-business--and perhaps this wondrous advertisement of Wuff's turned the scale."
"They tell me the gal's deuced good. Spofforth, who saw her last night, was here this morning, and says she's really wonderful. This is the second time you've done this sort of thing,--coming back on the first night of a great theatrical event. It's not half a bad idea, because you see a lot of people you know, and get rid of 'how-d'ye-do's' in one large parcel."
"There are some who were present on the last occasion whom I shall not see to-night, I suppose," said Laurence. "I was thinking," he added, as he saw Dollamore whispering to his stick, "of George Bertram."
"No!" said Dollamore, "the Blab has been missing for the last fortnight. It's rumoured that he has gone as a mute into the service of the Pasha of Egypt. I thought you were alluding to our friends in Devonshire: a nice business that."
"Indeed! I, as you know, have been absent from town for months, and have heard nothing."
"Well, you won't listen to me, I suppose, because you'll imagine I am prejudiced, recollecting all I said to you on the subject in this very room after Spofforth's play. But you won't deny that, so far as you had opportunities of judging while we were down at Redmoor, I was right?"
"Right so far as your estimation of the man went, certainly--"
"Oh, as for the lady, there is no one can entertain a higher opinion of Lady Mitford than myself. The degradation that that brute is bringing upon her--"
"Degradation! Do you mean to say that Mitford's infidelities are known--about--generally?"
"My dear Alsager, you think I colour and exaggerate. Let us pump that well of candour, Cis Hetherington. If there is an honest opinion about, it will be procurable from that son of Anak.--Well, Cis, going to the play?"
"Course I am," responded that scion of the aristocracy, lazily lifting his head from the ottoman; "everybody's going, seems to me. What's the woman like? Yankee, ain't she? Don't like Yankees,--all speak through their noses, and say 'I guess;' at, least, all that I've ever seen do, and that's only on the stage."
"She's not Yankee; she's an Englishwoman, they tell me; though of course that story of the nobleman's daughter is all bosh. However, Wuff has worked the oracle splendidly. Everybody's going. Here's Alsager come up to town on purpose."
"Is that Alsager sitting next to you?" asked Cis Hetherington, raising himself on his elbow and looking full at Laurence. "I thought it looked like him, and I wondered he didn't speak to me. But I suppose he's grown proud since he's become a Bart."
"You old idiot! I shook hands with you in the hall as I came in," said Laurence, laughing. "What's the news, Cis? how are all your people?"
"First-rate, old boy! Westonhanger's gone abroad--to America, I mean; Sioux Indians, and that sort of thing. Wanted you awfully to go with him, but thought you were doing monseigneur on your terre. Asked about you no end, give you my word! And the Duke's really tremendous! 'pon my soul, some fellow ought to put him in a book! Ever since the row about the repeal of the Corn Laws has been coming to a head, he's been like a lunatic. He thinks it's all up with everything, and is sure we shall have a revolution, and that he'll have his head cut off by the mob and stuck on a pike, and all that kind of thing."
"And Algy Forrester?" asked Dollamore.
"Algy Forrester was here to-day," said Hetherington; "came to me about a devilish unpleasant thing. That fellow Mitford, whom you both know" ("Now, then, listen!" said Dollamore),--"that fellow Mitford has asked him--Algy, I mean--to put him up here. And Algy came to ask if I'd second him, and I told him I'd see Mitford d--d first. And so I would. I ain't a strait-laced party, and don't go in for being particularly virtuous myself; but I'm a bachelor, and am on my own hook. But the way that fellow Mitford treats that nice wife of his is neither more nor less than blackguardly, I think; and so I wouldn't mind telling him, if I'd the chance."
"Hallo, Cis!" said Markham Bowers, who was sitting near; "shut your stupid old mouth. You'll get into a mess if you give tongue like that,--get cut off in the flower of your youth; and then what weeping and wailing there'll be among the ten tribes, and among those unfortunate Christians who have been speculating on your autograph. Not that you're wrong in what you say about Mitford; for if ever a cad walked this earth, that's the man."
"Ah! and isn't she a nice woman?" said Hetherington. "When she first showed in town last season, she took everybody's fancy; even Runnymede admired her, and the Duchess asked to be introduced, and they were quite thick. Wonderful! wasn't it? And to think of that snob Mitford treating her as he does, completely neglecting her, while he's--Well, I don't know; I suppose it's all right; but there ain't many things that would please me better than dropping on to that party--heavy."
"You're always dropping on to parties, Cis," said Bowers; "but you had better keep quiet in this case, please. You would have to make your own chance of getting into a row, for of course the lady's name must not appear--"
"Oh, don't you be afraid of me, Marky; I'm all right!" said Cis, rising and stretching himself. "You won't mind my stamping on Mitford's feet,--accidentally, of course,--if we find him in the stalls." And the two Guardsmen started away together.
"Well," said Lord Dollamore, leaning forward towards his companion, "was I right or wrong?"
"Right! terribly right!" said Alsager, with a set rigid face.
"You would not have accepted my testimony, thinking perhaps that I had motives for exaggeration, or was prompted by an arrière pensée, in which, on my word of honour, you're wrong. But those fellows are merely types of society; and their opinion, somewhat differently expressed, is society's opinion."
"Has not Mitford's madness cooled down at all?"
"It is worse, far and away,--worse than ever--"
"And that woman?"
"Ah," said Lord Dollamore, "she's been very quiet lately, owing to her husband's death. Poor old boy! poor old Percy Hammond! But she's up in town, I understand, now; and I don't think--" and here Dollamore's crutch-handled stick was evidently whispering confidences into his master's ear,--"I don't think Master Mitford will find it all straight sailing in that quarter just now."
"How do you mean? What would induce her to change to him?"
"Well, you see, she's a widow now, with a comparatively small income; for I suspect poor old Percy knew more than he ever let on, and instructed Trivett to prepare his will accordingly. So that, besides wanting a husband, she'll want him rich; for she's one of the best hands at getting through money in England. With a husband in posse, Mitford's attentions would not do at all."
"Ah, I see; but is not her character too well known?"
"Not a bit of it; her powers of attraction are enormous still. Why, if I'm rightly informed, a Russian whom you know, I think,--Tchernigow by name,-is making the running there already."
"I know him; he was madly in love with her, I heard, the season before last; followed her to Baden and about."
"That's the man! Well, he's revenu-- not to his premier, which was probably some Cossack peasant-girl--but to one of his amours, and is desperate."
"He's enormously wealthy. If she accepted him, there might yet be a chance of happiness for Georgie,--Lady Mitford, I mean."
"Don't you believe that for an instant, Alsager!" said Dollamore, looking keenly at him; "you're not posted up in that family history. Matters have gone too far now; there is only one way in which Sir Charles Mitford could really be of service to his wife, and that is by dying. But I'm afraid she would not think so, poor girl!" Then seeing his companion looking very grave, he said, "Come, it's no use brooding over these matters; let us go to the theatre."
The theatre was crammed, as Mr. Wuff had anticipated. The audience was composed of pretty much the same class of people as those present on the first night of Mr. Spofforth's play at the Parthenium; with the exception of those who were most strongly remembered by Alsager. He had known that the Mitfords and Mrs. Hammond could not be there, and there was little to interest him among the audience. The curtain rose on the piece of the evening, and everybody's attention concentrated on the stage. Shortly afterwards came the appearance of the new actress, who was hailed with shouts of encouragement and applause by Mr. Wuff's supporters in boxes, pit, and gallery. She seemed not in the least overcome by her reception, but bowed gracefully, and entered immediately on the business of the piece. The character she played was that of a highbred wealthy girl, beloved by a young yeoman-farmer of the neighbourhood, who proposes to her, but she mocks at his gaucheries, and rejects him with scorn. He accepts his defeat, and goes away to travel on the Continent with his brother. It is not until he is gone that she finds how deeply she had really loved him; but he is gone never to return, and so she accepts the attention of, and is engaged to, a silly peer. Then comes the Nemesis. The girl's father is ruined, the peer jilts her, and she is left in wretchedness, when the yeoman-farmer comes back a polished gentleman. There is an admirable scene of intensity between them, and, of course, all ends happily. The character of the heroine seemed excellently suited for Miss Greenwood, who, gradually winning the confidence of the audience, worked them to a pitch of enthusiasm in the last scene, and brought down the curtain with a universal verdict of her combining thorough knowledge of the usages of society and ladylike manners with great dramatic power.
Of course she was recalled before the curtain; and then as she swept across the stage, clasping her bouquet to her bosom, and occasionally bowing low, her eyes lit full on those of Laurence Alsager. And then for the first time Laurence Alsager, who had been puzzling his brain about her ever since she appeared on the scene, recollected who she was, and said half aloud, "The woman who wrote me the note!--Miss Gillespie, without a doubt!"