'MELIA JANE, GODDESS OF POTS AND PANS.
While this conversation was proceeding there stood at a little distance
from the speakers a man who had been walking arm in arm with the actor
when the friends met, and who fell apart from Kiss when he clapped Mr.
Lethbridge upon the shoulder. He was an anxious-eyed man, nervous,
fidgety, with a certain tremulousness of limb and feature, denoting a
troubled nature. His age was some thirty-five or thereabouts; his
clothes were respectable and shabby; and although he took no part in
the conversation, and did not obtrude himself, he did not remove his
eyes from Kiss and Mr. Lethbridge. Kiss, turning, beckoned to him, and
he joined the friends.
"You heard what we've been talking about," said the actor. "What do you
think of it?"
"I wish," said the man, "that I could write such a piece."
"Ah," said Kiss, "it is easy to preach as we've been preaching, but to
do the thing is a different pair of shoes. It comes by nature, or it
comes not at all."
"But," said the man, "I don't believe it would be a success."
"Wait a moment," said Kiss; "I am forgetting my manners. Mr.
Linton--Mr. Lethbridge."
The two shook hands.
"Mr. Linton," said Kiss to Mr. Lethbridge, in explanation, "_is_ a
dramatic author, and has written plays."
Mr. Linton sighed, and fidgeted with his fingers.
"Has he?" exclaimed Mr. Lethbridge. "And they have been played, of
course?"
Mr. Linton sighed again, and inclined his head.
"I am really delighted," said Mr. Lethbridge. "I have never in my life
spoken to a dramatic author, and have never shaken hands with one. Will
you allow me?"
They shook hands again, Mr. Lethbridge effusively, Mr. Linton with
mingled bashfulness, pride, and awkwardness.
"Successful pieces, I am sure," observed Mr. Lethbridge.
"More or less so," said Kiss. "We must take our rubs, my dear Leth."
"Of course, of course. We've got to take them."
"That's what I'm always telling Linton. We've got to take 'em. Why,
you, now," pointing his finger at Mr. Lethbridge, "you're not a public
man, and you have your rubs."
"I am not free from them," said Mr. Lethbridge, in a cheerful voice.
"There, now, Linton," said Kiss, with the manner of one who desired to
point a moral, "our friend Lethbridge here is not a public man, and
_he_ has rubs. So you don't think his piece would be a success? Why,
Sempronius?"
"An author must follow the fashion," replied Mr. Linton, "if he wants
to live."
"He wants that, naturally." And here Kiss took Mr. Lethbridge aside,
with, "Excuse me, Linton, a moment," and whispered, confidentially, "A
little dashed. Had a knock-down blow. Last piece a failure. Produced a
fort-night ago. Ran a week. I was in it, but could not save it.
Consequence, out of an engagement; not serious to me, but to him--very.
A man of genius; but not yet hit 'em quite. Will soon, or I'm the worst
of actors. Which I am not--nor the best; but 'twill serve. Meanwhile,
waiting for the spondulix to pour in, has wife and family to support. A
modern Triplet. Has play which will take the town by storm. The play
that failed was of a domestic turn. Very pretty; but lacked incident.
Too much dialogue, too little action. He feels it--badly. Here,"
touching his heart, "and here," touching his stomach. They returned to
Mr. Linton. "Proceed, Linton."
"The public," said Mr. Linton. "require red fire. Give it them. They
want murders. Supply them. They want the penny-dreadful on the stage.
Fling it at their heads. Ah! I've not been as wise as some I know."
"In point of ability," whispered Kiss again to Mr. Lethbridge, "he
could wipe out the authors he refers to. Excuse him; he is not a bit
malicious or envious; but he has been stung, and he's writhing. If you
heard me read the play that failed, you would require a dozen
pocket-handkerchiefs. He slaved at it for eight months; and dreamt of
success with empty platters on his table. I wonder if people know
anything of this, or ever give it a thought? But it won't do to
encourage him. It does him good to lash out; but we must not agree with
him when he's wrong. In his new play there's a part I should like to
take. He wrote it with me in his eye. All will come right; till the
time arrives, he must grin and bear it. 'Suffering is the badge of all
his tribe.' But there are big plums in the pudding, old fellow, and his
day to pick 'em will come." Then he said aloud to the moody author:
"Don't talk stuff and nonsense. You don't copy, as a rule; you're
original, and I make my bow to you; but in what you said you _are_
copying the platitudinarians. What the public want are good plays, such
as you can write, and good actors, who are not so scarce as croakers
would have us believe. Cheer up, Linton! Where would be the glory of
success if we could have it by whistling for it? Why, here we are at
your very door, Leth! Now I call that singular."
"Why?" asked Mr. Lethbridge.
"Because we were coming to see you, to ask a favour."
"Anything I can do," said Mr. Lethbridge, knocking at the door, "you
may depend upon."
"I told you so, Linton," said Kiss.
The dramatic author brightened up for a moment, but fell again
immediately into a state of despondency.
"You're just in time for tea," said Mr. Lethbridge, kissing his wife,
who opened the door for them. "Come in, come in. I've brought you some
visitors, mother."
"How do you do, Mr. Kiss?" said Mrs. Lethbridge, shaking hands with the
always welcome actor.
"Mother," said Mr. Lethbridge, "this is Mr. Linton, the celebrated
author."
"I am glad to see you, sir," said Mrs. Lethbridge, inwardly disturbed
by the thought that she had not got out her best tea service. "Mr.
Kiss, will you take Mr. Linton into the drawing-room? You are at home,
you know. Fanny and Bob will be in presently. Phoebe is here, father."
In point of fact, Phoebe, Fanny, and Bob, excited by the sound of the
arrival of visitors, were on the first-floor landing, peeping over the
balustrade to see who they were.
"It's Mr. Kiss," whispered Fanny.
"And a strange gentleman," whispered Bob.
"Uncle Leth said," whispered Phoebe, "'the celebrated author.' I wonder
if he's joking?"
"They are going to stop to tea," whispered Fanny, "and mother has sent
them into the drawing-room while she gets out the best tea-things. We
must go and help her."
Aunt Leth, from the passage below, coughed aloud, having detected the
presence of the young people, and there was an instant scuttling away
above, and a sound of smothered laughter. To Aunt Leth's relief, this
was not noticed by her visitors, who made their way into the
drawing-room. It was called so more from habit than because it was a
room set apart for holiday and grand occasions; there was no such room
in the house of the Lethbridges, which was a home in the truest sense
of the word.
Aunt Leth was deeply impressed by the circumstance of having a
celebrated author in her house, and when the drawing-room door was
closed, she asked her husband in the passage--speaking in a very low
tone--what he had written.
"Why, don't you know, mother?" said Mr. Lethbridge; but the superior
air he assumed--as though he was intimately acquainted with everything
Mr. Linton had written, and was rather surprised at his wife's
question--was spoilt by a shamefacedness which he was not clever enough
to conceal.
"No, father," said Mrs. Lethbridge; adding, triumphantly, "and I don't
believe you do, either."
"Well, to tell you the truth," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a little
laugh, "I don't. But he _is_ very celebrated. Mr. Kiss says so. He
writes plays, and his last one was not a success. It has troubled him
greatly, poor fellow. Give us a good tea, mother."
Mrs. Lethbridge nodded, and sent him in to his visitors, and went
herself down to the kitchen to attend to her domestic arrangements,
where she was presently joined by her children and Phoebe.
"We don't want you, Bob," said Mrs. Lethbridge to her son; "go and join
the gentlemen."
"I'd sooner stop here, mother," said Robert.
"Go away, there's a good boy," said the mother; "you will only put
things back."
Robert, however, showed no inclination to leave the kitchen, but
hovered about Phoebe like a butterfly about a flower.
"_Do_ you hear what mother says?" demanded Fanny, imperiously; she was
given to lord it occasionally over her brother. "Go at once, and listen
to the gentlemen, and have your mind improved."
"Now you're chaffing me," said Robert, "and you know that always puts
my back up."
Mrs. Lethbridge looked around with affectionate distraction in her
aspect.
"Go, Robert," said Phoebe.
"Not if you call me 'Robert,' said he.
"Well, Bob."
"All right, I'll vanish. Fanny, there's a smut on your nose."
Which caused Fanny to rub that feature smartly with her handkerchief,
and then to ask Phoebe in a tone of concern, "Is it off?" This sent
Robert from the kitchen laughing, while Fanny called out to him that
she would pay him for it. She laughed too, when he was gone, and
declared that he was getting a greater tease every day. Presently all
was bustle; the best cups and saucers were taken from the cupboard, and
Phoebe, with her sleeves tucked up, was dusting them; Fanny was cutting
the bread and buttering it; Aunt Leth was busy with eggs and rashers of
bacon, and the frying-pan was on the fire; while, attending to the
frying-pan and the kettle and the teapot, and working away generally
with a will, was the most important person in the kitchen--the goddess,
indeed, of that region--whose name, with a strange remissness, has not
yet been mentioned: 'Melia Jane!
In these days of fine-lady-servants, the mere mention of so inestimable
a treasure is an agreeable thing; for if ever there was a devoted,
untiring, unselfish, capable, cheerful slave of the broom and the pan,
that being was 'Melia Jane. Up early in the morning, without ever being
called; up late at night, without a murmur; no Sundays out, as a law,
the violation of which was a graver matter than the separation of
church and state; cooking, scrubbing, washing, with a light heart, and
as happy as the day is long. Could I write an epic, I would set about
it, and call it "'Melia Jane."
Not a beauty; somewhat the reverse, indeed. But "Lor!" as she used to
say, scratching her elbow, "beauty's only skin-deep." Nevertheless, she
worshipped it in the persons of Fanny and Phoebe, to whom she was
devotedly attached. Of the two, she leaned, perhaps, more closely and
affectionately to Phoebe, for whom she entertained the profoundest
admiration, "Wenus," she declared, "couldn't 'old a candle to 'er." And
had she been asked, in the way of disputation, under what circumstances
and to what intelligible purpose that goddess could be expected to hold
a candle to Phoebe, she would doubtless have been prepared with a reply
which would have confounded the interrogator.
She had a history, which can be briefly recorded.
Like all careful housewives with limited incomes, Mrs. Lethbridge had
her washing "done" at home, and 'Melia Jane's mother, in times gone by,
was Aunt Leth's washer-woman. She died when 'Melia Jane was ten years
old, and the child, being friendless and penniless, was admitted into
Mrs. Lethbridge's kitchen as a kind of juvenile help. She proved to be
so clever and willing, and so "teachable," as Mrs. Lethbridge said,
that when the old servant left to get married, 'Melia Jane took her
place, and from that day did the entire work of the house. For the
present, this brief record is sufficient. More of 'Melia Jane anon.
Robert burst into the kitchen in a state of great excitement.
"Mother, you didn't tell me Mr. Linton was a dramatic author. Just
think, Phoebe; he writes plays! Isn't it grand?"
The girls opened their eyes very wide. There was indeed a luminary in
the house, a star of the first magnitude. A dramatic author! It was
enough to make them tremble.
"But why have you left them, Bob?" asked Mrs. Lethbridge.
"I was told to go," replied Robert. "They did not want me. They're
talking business."
"Business!" exclaimed Mrs. Lethbridge. "What business can they have
with father?"
"Perhaps," suggested Robert, "he is going to take a theatre, and Mr.
Linton is going to write the plays, and Mr. Kiss is going to act in
them."
"What nonsense you talk!" said Mrs. Lethbridge.
"Mother," said Robert, solemnly, "my mind's made up."
"A very small parcel," remarked Fanny, thus paying him off for the smut
on her nose.
"I'm serious," said Robert; "I'm fixed--yes, fixed as the polar star.
That sounds well. I shall go on the stage."
"And off again, very quick," said Fanny.
"What! turn actor, Bob?" exclaimed Mrs. Lethbridge.
"Yes," said Robert, folding his arms; "a second Irving."
"Avaunt, and quit my sight!" cried Phoebe, seizing the rolling-pin and
striking an attitude.
They all fell to laughing, and 'Melia Jane stared at the young people,
with her eyes almost starting out of their sockets.