In the green-room of one of the great London theatres--David Garrick's,
perhaps--the stage company and their friends were waiting the call-boy
and the rising of the curtain.
As strange boards as any--as broad contrasts. Here a king, with his
crown cast down; there a beggar, with his wallet laid aside. But kings
and beggars are not affording the glaring discrepancies of Hogarth's
"Olympus in a Barn," but suggesting and preserving the distinctions far
below the buskins, the breastplate, the sandals, the symars. Here are
heroes, with the heroism only skin deep; and peers, like their Graces of
Bolton and Wharton, with less of the lofty, self-denying graces and the
ancient chivalry, than the most grovelling of ploughmen.
Among the crowd, Lady Betty is biding her time, very _nonchalant_, and a
little solitary in her state. Ladies who are independent, exclusive, and
inflexible, however admired and respected, are generally left to enjoy
their own opinions unmolested and at their leisure, whether behind the
stage curtain or elsewhere.
Just then a country gentleman, whose murrey coat has a certain country
cut, while his complexion breathes of hay-fields and hedge sides, is
introduced, gazes round, and steps up to her. Mistress Betty cries out,
"La!"--an exclamation not a whit vulgar in her day--"the Justice!" And
she holds forth both her hands. "How are dear Mistress Prissy and
Mistress Fiddy? Have you come up to town for any time, sir? I wish
prosperity to your business."
He has not held such kind, unaffected, friendly hands since they parted;
he has only once before held a hand that could have led a Jaffier to
confess his conspiracy--that could have clung to a crushed man, and
striven to raise him when calamity, like a whirlwind, cast him down.
The squire is sensibly moved, and Mistress Betty vindicates her
womanliness by jumping at a conclusion and settling in her own mind that
his brain is addled with this great London--its politicians, its
mohawks, its beggars in Axe Lane, its rich tradesmen in Cranbourne
Alley, its people of quality, fashion, and taste in their villas at
Twickenham.
He asks if she is on in Belvidera, and when he hears that it is another
actress's benefit, and that she has only consented to appear in a
secondary part in a comedy of Sir John's, who is now a great
castle-builder, he does not trouble himself to enter a box; at which she
is half flattered, half perplexed. He waits, hot and excited, until her
short service is over. He will not call upon her at her lodgings,
because, in his delicacy, he has so keen a remembrance of her exposed
position.
In the corner behind the curtain, bounded by the refreshment table, and
filled with the prompter's monotonous drawl,--far, far from his barley
ripe for the mowing, his boxwood peacocks, his greyhaired Hal and his
buxom milkmaids; far from old madam, the pedantic, formal vicar, young
madam, brisk, hot, and genial, and his old charmers Prissy and
Fiddy,--the squire told his tale of true love. The man threw down the
costs and besought Mistress Betty Lumley, Lady Betty, to renounce the
stage, forsake fame, quit studies, rehearsals, opening-nights, and
concluding curtsies amidst the cheers of thousands, to go down with him
to rural Larks' Hall, to grow younger, happier, and better every day,
and die like Lady Loudon in her hundredth year, universally
regretted,--above all, to fill up the gulf which had yawned in the
market-place of his existence since that night at Bath.
It was a primitive proceeding. Lady Betty was amazed at the man's
assurance, simplicity, and loyalty. He spoke plainly--almost
bluntly--but very forcibly. It was no slight or passing passion which
had brought the squire, a gentleman of a score and more of honourable
descents, to seek such an audience-chamber to sue a pasteboard queen. It
was no weak love which had dislodged him from his old resting-place, and
pitched him to this dreary distance.
Mistress Betty was taken "all in a heap;" she had heard many a
love-tale, but never one with so manly a note. Shrewd, sensitive
Mistress Betty was bewildered and confounded, and in her hurry she
made a capital blunder. She dismissed him summarily, saw how white he
grew, and heard how he stopped to ask if there were no possible
alternative, no period of probation to endure, no achievement to be
performed by him. She waved him off the faster because she became
affrighted at his humility; and got away in her chair, and wrung her
hands, and wept all night in the long summer twilight, and sat
pensive and sick for many days.
In time, Mistress Betty resumed her profession; but she was unusually
languid: she played to disappointed houses, and cherished always, with
more romance, the shade of the brave, trustful, Somersetshire squire and
antiquary. Suddenly she adopted the resolution of retiring from the
stage in the summer of her popularity, and living on her savings and her
poor young brother's bequest. Her tastes were simple; why should she
toil to provide herself with luxuries? She had no one now for whose old
age she could furnish ease, or for the aims and accidents of whose
rising station she need lay by welcome stores; she had not even a nephew
or niece to tease her. She would not wear out the talents a generous man
had admired on a mass of knaves and villains, coxcombs and butterflies;
she would not expose her poor mind and heart to further deterioration.
She would fly from the danger; she would retire, and board with her
cousin Ward, and help her with a little addition to her limited income,
and a spare hand in her small family; and she would jog-trot onwards for
the rest of her life, so that when she came to die, Mistress Prissy and
Mistress Fiddy would have no cause to be ashamed that so inoffensive,
inconspicuous, respectable a person had once been asked to stand to them
in the dignified relation of aunt. The public vehemently combated Mrs.
Betty's verdict, in vain; they were forced to lament during twice nine
days their vanished favourite, who had levanted so unceremoniously
beyond the reach of their good graces.