MACHIAVEL entered the green-room, intending to wait for Mrs. Woffington,
and carry out the second part of his plan.
He knew that weak minds cannot make head against ridicule, and with this
pickax he proposed to clear the way, before he came to grave, sensible,
business love with the lady. Machiavel was a man of talent. If he has
been a silent personage hitherto, it is merely because it was not his
cue to talk, but listen; otherwise, he was rather a master of the art
of speech. He could be insinuating, eloquent, sensible, or satirical, at
will. This personage sat in the green-room. In one hand was his diamond
snuffbox, in the other a richly laced handkerchief; his clouded cane
reposed by his side.
There was an air of success about this personage. The gentle reader,
however conceited a dog, could not see how he was to defeat Sir Charles,
who was tall, stout, handsome, rich, witty, self-sufficient, cool,
majestic, courageous, and in whom were united the advantages of a hard
head, a tough stomach, and no heart at all.
This great creature sat expecting Mrs. Woffington, like Olympian Jove
awaiting Juno. But he was mortal, after all; for suddenly the serenity
of that adamantine countenance was disturbed; his eye dilated; his grace
and dignity were shaken. He huddled his handkerchief into one pocket,
his snuff-box into another, and forgot his cane. He ran to the door in
unaffected terror.
Where are all his fine airs before a real danger? Love, intrigue,
diplomacy, were all driven from his mind; for he beheld that
approaching, which is the greatest peril and disaster known to social
man. He saw a bore coming into the room!
In a wild thirst for novelty, Pomander had once penetrated to Goodman's
Fields Theater; there he had unguardedly put a question to a carpenter
behind the scene; a seedy-black poet instantly pushed the carpenter away
(down a trap, it is thought), and answered it in seven pages, and in
continuation was so vaguely communicative, that he drove Sir Charles
back into the far west.
Sir Charles knew him again in a moment, and at sight of him bolted. They
met at the door. “Ah! Mr. Triplet!” said the fugitive, “enchanted--to
wish you good-morning!” and he plunged into the hiding-places of the
theater.
“That is a very polite gentleman!” thought Triplet. He was followed
by the call-boy, to whom he was explaining that his avocations, though
numerous, would not prevent his paying Mr. Rich the compliment of
waiting all day in his green-room, sooner than go without an answer
to three important propositions, in which the town and the arts were
concerned.
“What is your name?” said the boy of business to the man of words.
“Mr. Triplet,” said Triplet.
“Triplet? There is something for you in the hall,” said the urchin, and
went off to fetch it.
“I knew it,” said Triplet to himself; “they are accepted. There's a note
in the hall to fix the reading.” He then derided his own absurdity in
having ever for a moment desponded. “Master of three arts, by each of
which men grow fat, how was it possible he should starve all his days!”
He enjoyed a natural vanity for a few moments, and then came more
generous feelings. What sparkling eyes there would be in Lambeth to-day!
The butcher, at sight of Mr. Rich's handwriting, would give him credit.
Jane should have a new gown.
But when his tragedies were played, and he paid! El Dorado! His children
should be the neatest in the street. Lysimachus and Roxalana should
learn the English language, cost what it might; sausages should be
diurnal; and he himself would not be puffed up, fat, lazy. No! he would
work all the harder, be affable as ever, and, above all, never swamp
the father, husband, and honest man in the poet and the blackguard of
sentiment.
Next his reflections took a business turn.
“These tragedies--the scenery? Oh, I shall have to paint it myself. The
heroes? Well, they have nobody who will play them as I should. (This was
true!) It will be hard work, all this; but then I shall be paid for
it. It cannot go on this way; I must and will be paid separately for my
branches.”
Just as he came to this resolution, the boy returned with a brown-paper
parcel, addressed to Mr. James Triplet. Triplet weighed it in his hand;
it was heavy. “How is this?” cried he. “Oh, I see,” said he, “these
are the tragedies. He sends them to me for some trifling alterations;
managers always do.” Triplet then determined to adopt these alterations,
if judicious; for, argued he, sensibly enough: “Managers are practical
men; and we, in the heat of composition, sometimes _(sic?)_ say more
than is necessary, and become tedious.”
With that he opened the parcel, and looked for Mr. Rich's communication;
it was not in sight. He had to look between the leaves of the
manuscripts for it; it was not there. He shook them; it did not fall
out. He shook them as a dog shakes a rabbit; nothing!
The tragedies were returned without a word. It took him some time to
realize the full weight of the blow; but at last he saw that the manager
of the Theater Royal, Covent Garden, declined to take a tragedy by
Triplet into consideration or bare examination.
He turned dizzy for a moment. Something between a sigh and a cry escaped
him, and he sank upon a covered bench that ran along the wall. His poor
tragedies fell here and there upon the ground, and his head went down
upon his hands, which rested on Mrs. Woffington's picture. His anguish
was so sharp, it choked his breath; when he recovered it, his eye bent
down upon the picture. “Ah, Jane,” he groaned, “you know this villainous
world better than I!” He placed the picture gently on the seat (that
picture must now be turned into bread), and slowly stooped for his
tragedies; they had fallen hither and thither; he had to crawl about for
them; he was an emblem of all the humiliations letters endure.
As he went after them on all-fours, more than one tear pattered on
the dusty floor. Poor fellow! he was Triplet, and could not have died
without tingeing the death-rattle with some absurdity; but, after all,
he was a father driven to despair; a castle-builder, with his work
rudely scattered; an artist, brutally crushed and insulted by a greater
dunce than himself.
Faint, sick, and dark, he sat a moment on the seat before he could find
strength to go home and destroy all the hopes he had raised.
While Triplet sat collapsed on the bench, fate sent into the room all
in one moment, as if to insult his sorrow, a creature that seemed the
goddess of gayety, impervious to a care. She swept in with a bold, free
step, for she was rehearsing a man's part, and thundered without rant,
but with a spirit and fire, and pace, beyond the conception of our poor
tame actresses of 1852, these lines:
“Now, by the joys Which my soul still has uncontrolled pursued, I would
not turn aside from my least pleasure, Though all thy force were armed
to bar my way; But, like the birds, great Nature's happy commoners,
Rifle the sweets--”
“I beg--your par--don, sir!” holding the book on a level with her eye,
she had nearly run over “two poets instead of one.”
“Nay, madam,” said Triplet, admiring, though sad, wretched, but polite,
“pray continue. Happy the hearer, and still happier the author of verses
so spoken. Ah!”
“Yes,” replied the lady, “if you could persuade authors what we do
for them, when we coax good music to grow on barren words. Are you an
author, sir?” added she, slyly.
“In a small way, madam. I have here three trifles--tragedies.”
Mrs. Woffington looked askant at them, like a shy mare.
“Ah, madam!” said Triplet, in one of his insane fits, “if I might but
submit them to such a judgment as yours?”
He laid his hand on them. It was as when a strange dog sees us go to
take up a stone.
The actress recoiled.
“I am no judge of such things,” cried she, hastily.
Triplet bit his lip. He could have killed her. It was provoking, people
would rather be hanged than read a manuscript. Yet what hopeless
trash they will read in crowds, which was manuscript a day ago. _Les
imbeciles!_
“No more is the manager of this theater a judge of such things,” cried
the outraged quill-driver, bitterly.
“What! has he accepted them?” said needle-tongue.
“No, madam, he has had them six months, and see, madam, he has returned
them me without a word.”
Triplet's lip trembled.
“Patience, my good sir,” was the merry reply. “Tragic authors should
possess that, for they teach it to their audiences. Managers, sir, are
like Eastern monarchs, inaccessible but to slaves and sultanas. Do you
know I called upon Mr. Rich fifteen times before I could see him?”
“You, madam? Impossible!”
“Oh, it was years ago, and he has paid a hundred pounds for each of
those little visits. Well, now, let me see, fifteen times; you must
write twelve more tragedies, and then he will read _one;_ and when he
has read it, he will favor you with his judgment upon it; and when you
have got that, you will have what all the world knows is not worth a
farthing. He! he! he!
'And like the birds, gay Nature's happy commoners,
Rifle the sweets'--mum--mum--mum.”
Her high spirits made Triplet sadder. To think that one word from this
laughing lady would secure his work a hearing, and that he dared not ask
her. She was up in the world, he was down. She was great, he was nobody.
He felt a sort of chill at this woman--all brains and no heart. He took
his picture and his plays under his arms and crept sorrowfully away.
The actress's eye fell on him as he went off like a fifth act. His Don
Quixote face struck her. She had seen it before.
“Sir,” said she.
“Madam,” said Triplet, at the door.
“We have met before. There, don't speak, I'll tell you who you are.
Yours is a face that has been good to me, and I never forget them.”
“Me, madam!” said Triplet, taken aback. “I trust I know what is due to
you better than to be good to you, madam,” said he, in his confused way.
“To be sure!” cried she, “it is Mr. Triplet, good Mr. Triplet!” And this
vivacious dame, putting her book down, seized both Triplet's hands and
shook them.
He shook hers warmly in return out of excess of timidity, and dropped
tragedies, and kicked at them convulsively when they were down, for fear
they should be in her way, and his mouth opened, and his eyes glared.
“Mr. Triplet,” said the lady, “do you remember an Irish orange-girl you
used to give sixpence to at Goodman's Fields, and pat her on the head
and give her good advice, like a good old soul as you were? She took the
sixpence.”
“Madam,” said Trip, recovering a grain of pomp, “singular as it may
appear, I remember the young person; she was very engaging. I trust
no harm hath befallen her, for methought I discovered, in spite of her
brogue, a beautiful nature in her.”
“Go along wid yer blarney,” answered a rich brogue; “an' is it the
comanther ye'd be putting on poor little Peggy?”
“Oh! oh gracious!” gasped Triplet.
“Yes,” was the reply; but into that “yes” she threw a whole sentence of
meaning. “Fine cha-ney oranges!” chanted she, to put the matter beyond
dispute.
“Am I really so honored as to have patted you on that queen-like head!”
and he glared at it.
“On the same head which now I wear,” replied she, pompously. “I kept
it for the convaynience hintirely, only there's more in it. Well, Mr.
Triplet, you see what time has done for me; now tell me whether he has
been as kind to you. Are you going to speak to me, Mr. Triplet?”
As a decayed hunter stands lean and disconsolate, head poked forward
like a goose's, but if hounds sweep by his paddock in full cry, followed
by horses who are what he was not, he does, by reason of the good blood
that is and will be in his heart, _dum spiritus hoss regit artus,_ cock
his ears, erect his tail, and trot fiery to his extremest hedge, and
look over it, nostril distended, mane flowing, and neigh the hunt
onward like a trumpet; so Triplet, who had manhood at bottom, instead of
whining out his troubles in the ear of encouraging beauty, as a sneaking
spirit would, perked up, and resolved to put the best face upon it all
before so charming a creature of the other sex.
“Yes, madam,” cried he, with the air of one who could have smacked
his lips, “Providence has blessed me with an excellent wife and four
charming children. My wife was Miss Chatterton; you remember her?”
“Yes! Where is she playing now?”
“Why, madam, her health is too weak for it.”
“Oh!--You were scene-painter. Do you still paint scenes?”
“With the pen, madam, not the brush. As the wags said, I transferred
the distemper from my canvas to my imagination.” And Triplet laughed
uproariously.
When he had done, Mrs. Woffington, who had joined the laugh, inquired
quietly whether his pieces had met with success.
“Eminent--in the closet; the stage is to come!” and he smiled absurdly
again.
The lady smiled back.
“In short,” said Triplet, recapitulating, “being blessed with health,
and more tastes in the arts than most, and a cheerful spirit, I should
be wrong, madam, to repine; and this day, in particular, is a happy
one,” added the rose colorist, “since the great Mrs. Woffington has
deigned to remember me, and call me friend.”
Such was Triplet's summary.
Mrs. Woffington drew out her memorandum-book, and took down her summary
of the crafty Triplet's facts. So easy is it for us Triplets to draw the
wool over the eyes of women and Woffingtons.
“Triplet, discharged from scene-painting; wife, no engagement; four
children supported by his pen--that is to say, starving; lose no time!”
She closed her book; and smiled, and said:
“I wish these things were comedies instead of trash-edies, as the French
call them; we would cut one in half, and slice away the finest passages,
and then I would act in it; and you would see how the stage-door would
fly open at sight of the author.”
“O Heaven!” said poor Trip, excited by this picture. “I'll go home, and
write a comedy this moment.”
“Stay!” said she; “you had better leave the tragedies with me.”
“My dear madam! You will read them?”
“Ahem! I will make poor Rich read them.”
“But, madam, he has rejected them.”
“That is the first step. Reading them comes after, when it comes at all.
What have you got in that green baize?”
“In this green baize?”
“Well, in this green baize, then.”
“Oh madam! nothing--nothing! To tell the truth, it is an adventurous
attempt from memory. I saw you play Silvia, madam; I was so charmed,
that I came every night. I took your face home with me--forgive my
presumption, madam--and I produced this faint adumbration, which I
expose with diffidence.”
So then he took the green baize off.
The color rushed into her face; she was evidently gratified. Poor, silly
Mrs. Triplet was doomed to be right about this portrait.
“I will give you a sitting,” said she. “You will find painting dull
faces a better trade than writing dull tragedies. Work for other
people's vanity, not your own; that is the art of art. And now I want
Mr. Triplet's address.”
“On the fly-leaf of each work, madam,” replied that florid author, “and
also at the foot of every page which contains a particularly brilliant
passage, I have been careful to insert the address of James Triplet,
painter, actor, and dramatist, and Mrs. Woffington's humble, devoted
servant.” He bowed ridiculously low, and moved toward the door; but
something gushed across his heart, and he returned with long strides to
her. “Madam!” cried he, with a jaunty manner, “you have inspired a son
of Thespis with dreams of eloquence, you have tuned in a higher key a
poet's lyre, you have tinged a painter's existence with brighter colors,
and--and--” His mouth worked still, but no more artificial words would
come. He sobbed out, “and God in heaven bless you, Mrs. Woffington!” and
ran out of the room.
Mrs. Woffington looked after him with interest, for this confirmed her
suspicions; but suddenly her expression changed, she wore a look we have
not yet seen upon her--it was a half-cunning, half-spiteful look; it was
suppressed in a moment, she gave herself to her book, and presently Sir
Charles Pomander sauntered into the room.
“Ah! what, Mrs. Woffington here?” said the diplomat.
“Sir Charles Pomander, I declare!” said the actress.
“I have just parted with an admirer of yours.
“I wish I could part with them all,” was the reply.
“A pastoral youth, who means to win La Woffington by agricultural
courtship--as shepherds woo in sylvan shades.”
“With oaten pipe the rustic maids,” quoth the Woffington, improvising.
The diplomat laughed, the actress laughed, and said, laughingly: _“Tell
me what he says word for word?”_
“It will only make you laugh.”
“Well, and am I never to laugh, who provide so many laughs for you all?”
_“C'est juste._ You shall share the general merriment. Imagine a
romantic soul, who adores you for _your simplicity!”_
“My simplicity! Am I so very simple?”
“No,” said Sir Charles, monstrous dryly. “He says you are out of place
on the stage, and wants to take the star from its firmament, and put it
in a cottage.”
“I am not a star,” replied the Woffington, “I am only a meteor. And what
does the man think I am to do without this (here she imitated applause)
from my dear public's thousand hands?”
“You are to have this” (he mimicked a kiss) “from a single mouth,
instead.”
“He is mad! Tell me what more he says. Oh, don't stop to invent; I
should detect you; and you would only spoil this man.”
He laughed conceitedly. “I should spoil him! Well, then, he proposes to
be your friend rather than your lover, and keep you from being talked
of, he! he! instead of adding to your _eclat.”_
“And if he is your friend, why don't you tell him my real character, and
send him into the country?”
She said this rapidly and with an appearance of earnest. The diplomatist
fell into the trap.
“I do,” said he; “but he snaps his fingers at me and common sense and
the world. I really think there is only one way to get rid of him, and
with him of every annoyance.”
“Ah! that would be nice.”
“Delicious! I had the honor, madam, of laying certain proposals at your
feet.”
“Oh! yes--your letter, Sir Charles. I have only just had time to run my
eye down it. Let us examine it together.”
She took out the letter with a wonderful appearance of interest, and the
diplomat allowed himself to fall into the absurd position to which she
invited him. They put their two heads together over the letter.
“'A coach, a country-house, pin-money'--and I'm so tired of houses and
coaches and pins. Oh! yes, here's something; what is this you offer me,
up in this corner?”
Sir Charles inspected the place carefully, and announced that it was
“his heart.”
“And he can't even write it!” said she. “That word is 'earth.' Ah! well,
you know best. There is your letter, Sir Charles.”
She courtesied, returned him the letter, and resumed her study of
Lothario.
“Favor me with your answer, madam,” said her suitor.
“You have it,” was the reply.
“Madam, I don't understand your answer,” said Sir Charles, stiffly.
“I can't find you answers and understandings, too,” was the lady-like
reply. “You must beat my answer into your understanding while I beat
this man's verse into mine.
'And like the birds, etc.'”
Pomander recovered himself a little; he laughed with quiet insolence.
“Tell me,” said he, “do you really refuse?”
“My good soul,” said Mrs. Woffington, “why this surprise! Are you so
ignorant of the stage and the world as not to know that I refuse such
offers as yours every week of my life?”
“I know better,” was the cool reply. She left it unnoticed.
“I have so many of these,” continued she, “that I have begun to forget
they are insults.”
At this word the button broke off Sir Charles's foil.
“Insults, madam! They are the highest compliments you have left it in
our power to pay you.”
The other took the button off her foil.
“Indeed!” cried she, with well-feigned surprise. “Oh! I understand.
To be your mistress could be but a temporary disgrace; to be your wife
would be a lasting discredit,” she continued. “And now, sir, having
played your rival's game, and showed me your whole hand” (a light broke
in upon our diplomat), “do something to recover the reputation of a man
of the world. A gentleman is somewhere about in whom you have interested
me by your lame satire; pray tell him I am in the green-room, with no
better companion than this bad poet.”
Sir Charles clinched his teeth.
“I accept the delicate commission,” replied he, “that you may see how
easily the man of the world drops what the rustic is eager to pick up.”
“That is better,” said the actress, with a provoking appearance of
good-humor. “You have a woman's tongue, if not her wit; but, my good
soul,” added she, with cool _hauteur,_ “remember you have something to
do of more importance than anything you can say.”
“I accept your courteous dismissal, madam,” said Pomander, grinding his
teeth. “I will send a carpenter for your swain. And I leave you.”
He bowed to the ground.
“Thanks for the double favor, good Sir Charles.”
She courtesied to the floor.
Feminine vengeance! He had come between her and her love. All very
clever, Mrs. Actress; but was it wise?
“I am revenged,” thought Mrs. Woffington, with a little feminine smirk.
“I will be revenged,” vowed Pomander, clinching his teeth.