Along one of the tortuous passages leading to the dressing-rooms, a
gentleman is conducting a lady, preceded by the dresser. They have
evidently come from the audience part of the theatre, as they are
both in modern evening dress. Presently the dresser pauses at a door,
and after tapping, enters; and returns to invite the lady to invade
the sacred precincts of the dressing-room of Miss Fonblanque, the
representative of Lady Teazle. After a few whispered words to her
escort, the lady accepts the invitation, and in another moment is
clasped in the embrace of the actress. ‘My dear Julia!’
‘My darling Emily!’
Certainly, Lady Teazle fully deserved the rapturous praises of
Montmorency. Her lovely dark eyes shone all the brighter from the
contrast to the powdered wig; while her splendid figure was displayed
to the utmost advantage by means of her handsome brocaded dress.
‘And so you recognised me under these tinsel robes, Julia?’
‘Your voice is unmistakable; I should have known it anywhere,
Emily.—When do you intend to return to your own sphere?’
‘First tell me, Julia, how you managed to penetrate these sacred
precincts?’
‘Oh! my husband, who knows everybody, said he could at once accomplish
it, directly I told him you were my old schoolfellow at Barbadoes.—Now,
answer me my question, there’s a dear!’
‘I _have_ found my proper sphere; I am free, popular, and admired.
Instead of one admirer, I have hundreds, and the number is increasing
nightly. What can woman wish for more?’
‘I’ll tell you, Emily: a nice husband, and domestic bliss.’
The actress indulged in a scarcely audible sigh. ‘That might have been
my lot. I mean the domestic bliss part of the affair, if I had not had
it dinned into my ears from morning till night that there was only one
road to happiness—a union with Mr Stanley, whom I have never seen.’
‘You might have liked him very much.’
‘Impossible, my dear Julia. The very fact of a man being ticketed like
a prize animal at a show, and then his being introduced to you as your
certain and future husband, would be quite sufficient to make me detest
him.—No, Julia; when _I_ marry, I will myself make the selection, and
he must be one who is ignorant that his intended is a rich heiress.’
‘That will not be a very easy matter to accomplish, Emily.’
‘Listen, Julia, and I’ll tell you a secret. There is a young man
acting in this company—a Mr Percy Montmorency. He is all I could
wish—handsome, clever, accomplished, and vastly agreeable.’
‘Then you have _made_ your selection?’
‘Not so, Julia. His profession renders our union impossible. He may
be heir to a peerage; he may be a lawyer’s clerk. There is the most
delightful mystery as to our antecedents, we play-actors! For instance,
who would suppose that I was the rich West Indian heiress, who utilised
her amateur theatrical talents, and adopted her present profession? And
all in order to escape being pestered into an unwelcome and distasteful
marriage. Heigh-ho! I wish I had never seen this captivating fellow.’
Mrs Sydney sighed as she rejoined: ‘Ah, Emily, there is the danger
of your present mode of life. Before you know where you are, finding
yourself over head and ears in love with some handsome fellow, even of
whose very name you are ignorant. As to the position in society of his
progenitors, that is a point which would require the research of the
Society of Antiquaries.’
The actress looked solemnly in the face of her friend, and taking both
her hands within her own, replied: ‘Julia, there is a fascination in
the life of a successful actress, of which you can form no conception.
There is the delight of selecting the costume you are to wear on
the eventful evening. No trifle to a woman, as you will admit. Then
there is the actual pleasure of wearing it, not for the sake of some
half-dozen friends, whose envy in consequence is a poor reward, but the
object of admiration to hundreds of spectators nightly! Then, instead
of monotonous domesticity, executing crewel-work to the accompaniment
of the snoring in an armchair of a bored husband, we have the nightly
welcome from a thousand pair of hands, and the final call before the
curtain amidst an avalanche of flowers! Your name on every tongue,
your photo. in every print-shop in London, and your acts and deeds the
subject of conversation at every dinner-table in the metropolis!’
Mrs Sydney shook her head with a melancholy smile as the actress
finished her oration. ‘I am still unconverted, Emily.’
‘Quite right, Julia. If we were all actresses, there would be no
audiences.’
The inexorable call-boy here put a compulsory finish to the interview
between the two friends, with the words ‘Lady Teazle.’