But of course Josh knew Pink Bonnet--with the peculiarly intimate
knowledge that is entertained by the soldier for the garrison
prostitute. He pitied himself for the rough cross-chance that had
brought her to the theater--with the man who had taken the place he
had indifferently vacated--and set her down, blazing with gin and
jealousy, on the bench, cheek-by-jowl with the man who had thrown her
over to marry a cleanly maid.
Ah, poor young wives! How little they dream of the muddy secrets hiding
behind the clear, candid eyes they gaze in so trustfully--how little
they suspect what lips the beloved lips have kissed! If you told them:
“This hand that strays in your hair has tangled in the tresses of
the harlot,” they would laugh you to scorn, or scorch you with their
burning indignation; so unshaken is their faith in the manly hearts
of whose swept and garnished chambers none ever held the key before
them--whose most hidden secrets they believe they have been told. Alas!
the poor young wives!
As for the husbands of the wives, by a law immutable as the foundations
of the world we tread on, Pink Bonnets must be paid for in the end.
Find me a smart to outdo that of lying to the dearest who never dreams
of doubting you! thought the trooper, in homelier phrase than this.
Sickly heats coursed through his thick veins, and the taste in his
mouth was bitter as Dead Sea waters. The big, tawdry theater, packed
full with eager pleasure-seekers, gave a sense of emptiness that
frightened him.... Nelly nestling by his solid side, seemed miles and
miles away.... For the shadow of an old, wellnigh forgotten sin had
come between them, and was pushing them apart. To counteract the mental
conviction of guiltiness he repeated to himself all the trite clauses
of the Code of Manhood, and employed, in imaginary defense of conduct
denounced by an unspecified accuser--all the clinching arguments he
knew.
“Ye wouldn’t have a man live aught but a man’s life would ye?”
Followed by:
“’Tis true I ha’ run wild a bit--drank a bit,--betted a bit--frequented
loose women, and the rest of it!--but so have all the young chaps I
ever knew or heard of. Why should I set up to be better than the rest?”
Then:
“Women ye see--they be made different from men! ’Tis easy for them to
run straight--that is, for the good ones. They can resist temptation
better than us--being so much weaker and less sensible than we!”
The Curtain went up as the unseen person with whom Josh argued--and
who never answered any of his arguments,--was getting the best of it,
to the trooper’s mind, Mrs. Joshua clutched the big blue cloth-covered
arm with a little squeal, as the Interior of the Robber’s Cave amongst
the Rocks was revealed by the combined light of a calcium moon and a
brazier with rags dipped in spirits-of-wine blazing in it. Anon, to
his band of cloaked, bearded and villainously slouch-hatted myrmidons,
entered--to tremulous music from the fiddles, down the rocks, Giraldi
Duval the Ruffian Boy.
Never was such an out-and-out scoundrel. For certain unspecified
reasons it was comforting to Joshua Horrotian to have somebody to
disapprove of just then. The light and trivial sins of a whole regiment
of British soldiers, would, if piled into the balance against the
crimes of the Ruffian, have certainly kicked the beam.
It was necessary to assure Mrs. Joshua, holding on to the stout blue
arm and shivering deliciously, that the whole thing was make-believe.
That the Ruffian--unloading pocket after pocket of stolen jewelry and
bags of guineas--bragging of his enormities, and quaffing draught
after draught from an immense gilt goblet painted red inside--was
a respectable gentleman “off.” That he had not just drunk a
stranger’s blood with his thirsty dagger in mistake for the beauteous
Ethelinda’s; and that Innocence and Virtue as personified by that fair
creature--whose scorn had driven the Ruffian to raving madness--though
doomed to suffer hideous things in the course of the evening (unless
the playbill deceived people who had paid their money for places) would
certainly triumph in the long-run.
How enchanting Ethelinda was, when the Castle Hall, having hurried on
from both sides and fallen down in the middle--and a brace of retainers
in black wigs having brought on a table and two chairs--she appeared
in pale blue satin, spangles, curls, and feathers, leading the Baron’s
children--Ethelinda being the Baron’s lady, it was even more possible
to cry out upon the Ruffian--and telling the faithful Catherine and her
dearest prattlers all about her latest escape from Giraldi’s unhallowed
hands.
The Baron was sure that in spite of the valor of a husband’s arm, the
Ruffian would have another shy at running off with the lady; and so
he did, in the very next scene, dressing up in old Margaretta’s cloak
and hiding in her cottage; and terrifying Ethelinda into vowing never
to quit her Baron’s castle again, even though myriad summers decked the
land with flowers and feathered songsters upon every tree tempted the
ear with joyous songs of love--until the Ruffian should have yielded up
his ghost upon the gallows.
* * * * *
Depend upon it, our forerunners of the forties were not half so
ignorant and unsophisticated in matters dealing with Dramatic Art as
we suppose them to have been. They knew, as well as we do, that Life,
as represented on the stage in that era, was impossible, unreal, and
absurd.... But just because it was so unlike Life they loved it. They
preferred Action to Art--and got it.... They reveled in impossible,
absurd sentiment, and high-flown hyperboles. Impromptu love-matches,
extravagant, gaudy crimes, and greased-lightning repentances gave them
the purest joy. When you went to the theater you left Reality behind
you. You expected the combined smells of paint, glue, and varnish to be
wafted over the footlights. The last thing you wanted was the odor of
new-mown hay.
The Gothic Chamber in the Baronial Castle was another thrill--the
evening was a succession of them--with more of the tremolo passages
from the fiddles in the Orchestra, heralding the advent of the Mad
Lady--whose daughter--you have of course forgotten--had been immolated
by the Ruffian in mistake for Ethelinda. To see the poor thing trailing
about looking ghastly in white draperies, staring glassily at nothing
in particular, and blowing lamps out with deep sighs, drew pitying
tears from Mrs. Joshua, and even caused Josh to sniff and gulp and
surreptitiously wipe his eyes. Both were certain she would be seen more
of presently; and so she was--coming on in the very nick of time--just
as the Ruffian, armed with a drawn sword, had burst from behind the
tapestry in Ethelinda’s bedchamber--to terrify him into rushing off,
just in time to meet the Baron, with _his_ drawn sword, in the Gothic
Gallery.
Clish--clash! went the broadswords in the dark--stage darkness at
that era being but a shade or two less obscure than a November
afternoon.... Chains, repentance, vengeance for the Ruffian, union,
joy, felicity for the Baron and Ethelinda. And the Drop came down upon
a general picture, to rise again and sink once more, and rise--ere
the tidy semicircle of legs of both sexes had quite disappeared from
view--amidst round upon round of clapping; piercing whistles---the
pounding of approving sticks, enthusiastic umbrellas, and urgent
boot-heels, and reiterated shouts of “Bravo!” and “’Core!”
The interlude of “The Lancers” followed, and then the great queen
curtain fell amidst the strains of “God save the Queen,” and then the
sensations of the evening were over. All save that last one at the very
end.
It happened when the packed gallery-audience, howling like Siberian
wolves from sheer high spirits and good temper--swept down the long
steep flight of stone stairs and out into a muddy side-street, and
filling this mean alley from wall to wall, crushed out at the upper
end of it, to encounter the turbid flood of humanity roaring from the
gullet of the Pit Entrance that gaped just beyond the gilded portals
by which the gentlefolks who came in carriages and wore Evening Dress,
and didn’t seem to enjoy themselves half as much as folks who sat in
cheaper places--were admitted to the Grand Tier.
There was a good deal of joking, laughter, squeezing, and jostling, and
some pocket-picking beyond a doubt.... The shiny chimney-pot hats, smug
whiskered faces, and bright brass collar-numbers of policemen bobbed up
and down amongst the crowd--there were several ugly rushes, accompanied
by oaths and screaming; and Josh and Nelly, carried off their feet by
one of these, were swept up some steps leading from the gilt-pillared
portico previously referred to, as some well-dressed Circle and Box
people were coming down them, headed by a tall and handsome young
gentleman, who, with a gallant air of being in charge of something
particularly precious and breakable, was bending down to whisper to the
young lady who leaned upon his arm....
Josh hadn’t the faintest intention of bumping into the lady, a slender,
pretty young creature in a white velvet mantle--trimmed beautifully
with swansdown--and who was wearing a garland of pale blush roses on
the loveliest fair hair you ever did see. But as the trooper ruthfully
stammered his apologies, the gentleman--becoming aware of the blue,
white-faced uniform, brusquely interposed, saying in a tone by no means
pleasant to hear:
“You infernal scoundrel! how dared you jostle the young lady? What do
you mean by it, you blackguard, hey?”
Josh answered with a sullen frown:
“I’ve said a-ready, sir, as I didn’t go to do it, and that I’m as sorry
as man can be!”
The gentleman retorted, in a cold savage way, speaking between his set
teeth:
“If you had meant it, you dog, you would have been soundly thrashed for
your insolence. As it is--take that!”
_That_ was a sharp blow across the trooper’s mouth from the lady’s
fan, carried in the white-gloved hand of her gallant. The ivory sticks
broke, and the blood sprang, and Nelly cried out; and then, as the
gentleman hurried the young lady down the steps--at the bottom of which
a brougham waited--with a liveried servant holding open the door:
“You didn’t hurt the man, Arthur, did you?...” Nelly heard the young
lady ask, and the answer came brusquely:
“No! though the blackguard deserved it.... Broken your fan though!
Pity!... Never mind!... You shall have a prettier from Bond Street,
when I get back from Town....”
Then the carriage door banged, the crowd seemed to melt away, and Mr.
and Mrs. Joshua Horrotian were hurrying through the muddy ill-paved
gas-lit streets, home to their lodgings. From whose dinginess the rosy
glamour of the honeymoon had quite, quite fallen away....
As Josh, by special permit, was not due in Barracks before next day’s
Revally, the newly-wedded couple supped on cold scraps put by from
dinner,--or pretended to, for the trooper’s cut lip hurt him, and Mrs.
Joshua couldn’t have eaten a mouthful, seeing him so cast down--not if
you had tempted her with Turkey Soup--as understood to be consumed by
the Lord Mayor of London out of a gold spoon--and Roast Venison--and
betook themselves to rest. Nelly had comforted the swollen lip with
old linen rags and hot water; but the swollen heart of its owner was
not to be eased, even by her gentle touch.... Long after her soft even
breathing had convinced him that his young wife slept, the man lay
open-eyed and wakeful; staring at the narrow line of watery moonlight
that outlined the edges of the square of dirty blind....
And presently he knew that Nelly had not been sleeping; for he heard
her sob out in the darkness the question that could not be kept back.
“Oh, Josh, dear love! Why ever did he do it? Why should even a grand,
rich gentleman have the right to treat my husband so?”
She hardly knew the hard, stern voice that answered:
“You ask why he called me dog,--and struck me? Being th’ dog’s wife,
med-be ye have a right to know! ’Twas because the gaslight showed
my soldier’s cloth and buttons.... We’re housed like dogs, and fed
like ’em--and take our pleasures come-by-chance as dogs do--and are
sometimes whipped as dogs are.... Why shouldn’t he call me dog? He was
in his right--I was in my wrong! There’s little else to say!...”
She sobbed out some indignant, incoherent words of protest. He filled
his vast chest with a long, deep quivering breath, and sent it slowly
out again, and said, still sternly, but less bitterly:
“In th’ old days, dear lass, when, as I’ve heard tell, Leprosy were
common in England, smitten folks went about th’ roads and byways,
sounding bell and clapper to warn wholesome people out of their tainted
way. In some such manner--as I have no learning to word as should
be--my uniform, that ought to be my honor, is my shame, in the eyes of
my superiors and even many o’ my equals. And gentlefolks like _him_ and
his, shrink from the rub o’ the soldier’s sleeve as if it carried th’
pest. Now you and me’ll speak no more of this, my Pretty. Let it be
buried deep--and covered up--and hid away.”
She promised amidst tears and wifely kisses, and thenceforwards the
sore subject was touched upon no more. But Nelly was to learn that
there are some things that, however deep their grave be dug, and though
whole tons of figurative earth be heaped above them, cannot be kept
buried. Long after the trooper’s wounded lip had healed and the small
scar left by the ivory fan had paled and vanished, she saw the bleeding
scar.