Peg Woffington Part 13

"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 b.u.t.ton 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 b.u.t.ton 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.

CHAPTER VII.

COMPARE a November day with a May day. They are not more unlike than a beautiful woman in company with a man she is indifferent to or averse, and the same woman with the man of her heart by her side.

At sight of Mr. Vane, all her coldness and _nonchalance_ gave way to a gentle complacency; and when she spoke to him, her voice, so clear and cutting in the late _a.s.saut d'armes,_ sank of its own accord into the most tender, delicious tone imaginable.

Mr. Vane and she made love. He pleased her, and she desired to please him. My reader knows her wit, her _finesse,_ her fluency; but he cannot conceive how G.o.d-like was her way of making love. I can put a few of the corpses of her words upon paper, but where are the heavenly tones--now calm and convincing, now soft and melancholy, now thrilling with tenderness, now glowing with the fiery eloquence of pa.s.sion? She told him that she knew the map of his face; that for some days past he had been subject to an influence adverse to her. She begged him, calmly, for his own sake, to distrust false friends, and judge her by his own heart, eyes, and judgment. He promised her he would.

"And I do trust you, in spite of them all," said he; "for your face is the shrine of sincerity and candor. I alone know you."

Then she prayed him to observe the heartlessness of his s.e.x, and to say whether she had done ill to hide the riches of her heart from the cold and shallow, and to keep them all for one honest man, "who will be my friend, I hope," said she, "as well as my lover."

"Ah!" said Vane, "that is my ambition."

"We actresses," said she, "make good the old proverb, 'Many lovers, but few friends.' And oh, 'tis we who need a friend. Will you be mine?"

While he lived, he would.

In turn, he begged her to be generous, and tell him the way for him, Ernest Vane, inferior in wit and address to many of her admirers, to win her heart from them all.

This singular woman's answer is, I think, worth attention.

"Never act in my presence; never try to be eloquent, or clever; never force a sentiment, or turn a phrase. Remember, I am the G.o.ddess of tricks. Do not descend to compet.i.tion with me and the Pomanders of the world. At all littlenesses, you will ever be awkward in my eyes. And I am a woman. I must have a superior to love--lie open to my eye. Light itself is not more beautiful than the upright man, whose bosom is open to the day. Oh yes! fear not you will be my superior, dear; for in me honesty has to struggle against the habits of my art and life. Be simple and sincere, and I shall love you, and bless the hour you shone upon my cold, artificial life. Ah, Ernest!" said she, fixing on his eye her own, the fire of which melted into tenderness as she spoke, "be my friend.

Come between me and the temptations of an unprotected life--the recklessness of a vacant heart."

He threw himself at her feet. He called her an angel. He told her he was unworthy of her, but that he would try and deserve her. Then he hesitated, and trembling he said:

"I will be frank and loyal. Had I not better tell you everything? You will not hate me for a confession I make myself?"

"I shall like you better--oh! so much better!"

"Then I will own to you--"