Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 5

In this my London life, I found it irksome that I could never, as at dear Cambridge, pause upon my own reflections. If I stopped awhile, "to plume contemplation's wings, so ruffled and impaired," some of the low realities, some of the impertinent necessities of fas.h.i.+onable life, would tread on my heels. The order of the day or night was for ever pressed upon me--and the order of the day was now to go to this new sentimental comedy--my mother's favourite actor, the silver-toned Barry, was to play the lover of the piece; so she was sure of as many fas.h.i.+onable young ladies as her box could possibly hold. At this period, in England, every fas.h.i.+onable belle declared herself the partisan of some actor or actress; and every fas.h.i.+onable beau aspired to the character of a dramatic critic. Mowbray, of course, was distinguished in that line, and his pretty little sister, Lady Anne, was, at least in face, formed to grace the front box. The hours of the great world were earlier then than they are now, and nothing interfered, indeed nothing would have been suffered to interfere, with the hour for the play. As a veteran wit described it, "There were at this time four estates in the English Const.i.tution, kings, lords, commons, and the theatre."

Statesmen, courtiers, poets, philosophers, crowded pell mell with the white-gloved beaux to the stage box and the pit. It was thought well-bred, it was _the thing_ to be in the boxes before the third act, even before the second, nay, incredible as it may in these times appear, before the first act began. Our fas.h.i.+onable party was seated some minutes before the curtain drew up.

CHAPTER VII.

The beaux and belles in the boxes of the crowded theatre had bowed and curtsied, for in those days beaux did bow and belles did curtsy; the impatient sticks in the pit, and shrill catcalls in the gallery, had begun to contend with the music in the orchestra; and thrice had we surveyed the house to recognize every body whom any body knew, when the door of the box next to ours, the only box that had remained empty, was thrown open, and in poured an over-dressed party, whom _n.o.body knew_.

Lady de Brantefield, after one reconnoitring glance, p.r.o.nounced them to be city Goths and Vandals; and without resting her gla.s.s upon them for half a moment, turned it to some more profitable field of speculation.

There was no gentleman of this party, but a portly matron, towering above the rest, seemed the princ.i.p.al mover and orderer of the group. The awkward bustle they made, facing and backing, placing and changing of places, and the difficulty they found in seating themselves, were in striking contrast with the high-bred ease of the ladies of our party.

Lady Anne Mowbray looked down upon their operations with a pretty air of quiet surprise, tinctured with horror; while my mother's shrinking delicacy endeavoured to suggest some idea of propriety to the city matron, who having taken her station next to us in the second row, had at last seated herself so that a considerable portion of the back part of her head-dress was in my mother's face: moreover, the citizen's huge arm, with its enormous gauze cuff, leaning on the part.i.tion which divided, or ought to have divided, her from us, considerably pa.s.sed the line of demarcation. Lady de Brantefield, with all the pride of all the De Brantefields since the Norman Conquest concentrated in her countenance, threw an excommunicating, withering look upon the arm--but the elbow felt it not--it never stirred. The lady seemed not to be made of penetrable stuff. In happy ignorance she sat fanning herself for a few seconds; then suddenly starting and stretching forward to the front row, where five of her young ladies were wedged, she aimed with her fan at each of their backs in quick succession, and in a more than audible whisper asked, "Cecy! Issy! Henny! Queeney! Miss Coates, where's Berry?"--All eyes turned to look for Berry--"Oh! mercy, behind in the back row! Miss Berry, that must not be--come forward, here's my place or Queeney's," cried Mrs. Coates, stretching backwards with her utmost might to seize some one in the farthest corner of the back row, who had hitherto been invisible. We expected to see in Miss Berry another vulgarian produced, but to our surprise, we beheld one who seemed of a different order of beings from those by whom she was surrounded. Lord Mowbray and I looked at each other, struck by the same sentiment, pained for this elegant timid young creature, as we saw her, all blus.h.i.+ng and reluctant, forced by the irresistible fat orderer of all things to "step up on the seat," to step forward from bench to bench, and then wait in painful pre-eminence while Issy, and Cecy, and Queeney, and Miss Coates, settled how they could make room, or which should vacate her seat in her favour. In spite of the awkwardness of her situation she stood with such quiet, resigned, yet dignified grace, that ridicule could not touch her.

The moment she was seated with her back to us, and out of hearing, Lady de Brantefield turned to her son and asked "Who is she?"

"An East Indian, I should guess, by her dark complexion," whispered Lady Anne to me.

Some feather or lappet intercepted my view of her face, but from the glimpse I caught of it as she pa.s.sed, it struck me as uncommonly interesting, though with a peculiar expression and foreign air--whether she was handsome or not, though called upon to decide, I could not determine. But now our attention was fixed on the stage. It was announced to the audience that, owing to the sudden illness of the actor who was to have performed the princ.i.p.al part in the comedy advertised for this night, there was a necessity for changing the play, and they should give in its stead the Merchant of Venice.

The Merchant of Venice and Macklin the Jew!--Murmurs of discontent from the ladies in my box, who regretted their sentimental comedy and their silver-toned Barry, were all lost upon me; I rejoiced that I should see Macklin in Shylock. Before the performance began, my attention was again caught by the proceedings of the persons in the next box. There seemed to be some sudden cause of distress, as I gathered from exclamations of "How unlucky!--How distressing!--What shall we do?--What can we do?--Better go away--carriage gone!--must sit it out--May be she won't mind--Oh! she will--Shylock!--Jessica!--How unfortunate!--poor Miss Berry!"

"Jessica!" whispered Mowbray to me, with an arch look: "let me pa.s.s,"

added he, just touching my shoulder. He made his way to a young lady at the other end of the box; and I, occupying immediately the ceded place, stationed myself so that I had a better view of my object, and could observe her without being seen by any one. She was perfectly still, and took no notice of the whispering of the people about her, though, from an indescribable expression in the air of the back of her head and neck, I was convinced that she heard all that pa.s.sed among the young and old ladies in her box. The play went on--Shylock appeared--I forgot every thing but him.--Such a countenance!--Such an expression of latent malice and revenge, of every thing detestable in human nature! Whether speaking or silent, the Jew fixed and kept possession of my attention. It was an incomparable piece of acting: much as my expectations had been raised, it far surpa.s.sed any thing I had conceived--I forgot it was Macklin, I thought only of Shylock. In my enthusiasm I stood up, I pressed forward, I leaned far over towards the stage, that I might not lose a word, a look, a gesture. When the act finished, as the curtain fell, and the thunders of applause died away, I heard a soft low sigh near me; I looked, and saw the Jewess! She had turned away from the young ladies her companions, and had endeavoured to screen herself behind the pillar against which I had been leaning. I had, for the first time, a full view of her face and of her countenance, of great sensibility, painfully, proudly repressed. She looked up while my eyes were fixed upon her--a sudden and deep colour spread over her face and mounted to her temples.

In my confusion I did the very thing I should not have done, and said the thing of all others I should not have said. I expressed a fear that I had been standing in such a manner as to prevent her from seeing Shylock; she bowed mildly, and was, I believe, going to speak.

"You have indeed, sir," interrupted Mrs. Coates, "stood so that n.o.body could see nothing but yourself. So, since you mention it, and speak without an introduction, excuse me if I suggest, against the next act, that this young lady has never been at a play before in her life--in Lon'on, at least. And though it i'n't the play I should have chose for her, yet since she is here, 'tis better she should see something than nothing, if gentlemen will give her leave." I bowed in sign of submission and repentance; and was retiring, so as to leave my place vacant, and a full opening to the stage. But in a sweet, gentlewomanlike voice, seeming, perhaps, more delightful from contrast, the young lady said that she had seen and could see quite as much as she wished of the play; and she begged that I would not quit my place. "I should oblige her," she added, in a lower tone, "if I would continue to stand as I had done." I obeyed, and placed myself so as to screen her from observation during the whole of the next act. But now, my pleasure in the play was over. I could no longer enjoy Macklin's incomparable acting; I was so apprehensive of the pain which it must give to the young Jewess. At every stroke, characteristic of the skilful actor, or of the master poet, I felt a strange mixture of admiration and regret. I almost wished that Shakspeare had not written, or Macklin had not acted the part so powerfully: my imagination formed such a strong conception of the pain the Jewess was feeling, and my inverted sympathy, if I may so call it, so overpowered my direct and natural feelings, that at every fresh development of the Jew's villany I shrunk as though I had myself been a Jew.

Each exclamation against this dog of a Jew, and still more every general reflection on Jewish usury, avarice, and cruelty, I felt poignantly. No power of imagination could make me pity Shylock, but I felt the force of some of his appeals to justice; and some pa.s.sages struck me in quite a new light on the Jewish side of the question.

"Many a time, and oft, In the Rialto, you have rated me, About my moneys and my usances; Still have I borne it with a patient shrug; For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.

You call me misbeliever! cut-throat dog!

And spit upon my Jewish gabardine; And all, for use of that which is my own.

Well, then, it now appears you need my help.

Go to, then--you come to me, and you say, Shylock, we would have moneys; you say so.

Shall I bend low, and in a bondsman key, With bated breath, and whisp'ring humbleness, Say this--Fair sir, you spit on me last Wednesday; You spurned me such a day; another time You called me dog; and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much moneys?"

As far as Shylock was concerned, I was well content he should be used in such a sort; but if it had been any other human creature, any other Jew even--if it had been poor Jacob, for instance, whose image crossed my recollection--I believe I should have taken part with him. Again, I was well satisfied that Antonio should have hindered Shylock of half a million, should have laughed at his losses, thwarted his bargains, cooled his friends, heated his enemies; Shylock deserved all this: but when he came to, "What's his reason?--I am a _Jew_. Hath not a Jew eyes?

Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, pa.s.sions?

fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?--If you p.r.i.c.k us, do we not bleed?--If you tickle us, do we not laugh?--If you poison us, do not we die?--and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?--Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be, by Christian example?--Why, revenge."

I felt at once horror of the individual Shylock, and submission to the strength of his appeal. During the third act, during the Jessica scenes, I longed so much to have a look at the Jewess, that I took an opportunity of changing my position. The ladies in our box were now so happily occupied with some young officers of the guards, that there was no farther danger of their staring at the Jewess. I was so placed that I could see her, without being seen; and during the succeeding acts, my attention was chiefly directed to the study of all the changes in her expressive countenance. I now saw and heard the play solely with reference to her feelings; I antic.i.p.ated every stroke which could touch her, and became every moment more and more interested and delighted with her, from the perception that my antic.i.p.ations were just, and that I perfectly knew how to read her soul, and interpret her countenance. I saw that the struggle to repress her emotion was often the utmost she could endure; and at last I saw, or fancied I saw, that she grew so pale, that, as she closed her eyes at the same instant, I was certain she was going to faint; and quite forgetting that I was an utter stranger to her, I started forward--and then unprovided with an apology, could only turn to Mrs. Coates, and fear that the heat of the house was too much for this young lady. Mrs. Coates, alarmed immediately, wished they could get her out into the air, and regretted that her gentlemen were not with their party to-night--there could be no getting servants or carriage--what could be done? I eagerly offered my services, which were accepted, and we conducted the young lady out. She did not faint; she struggled against it; and it was evident that there was no affectation in the case; but, on the contrary, an anxious desire not to give trouble, and a great dread of exposing herself to public observation. The carriage, as Mrs. Coates repeated twenty times, was ordered not to come till after the farce, and she kept on hoping and hoping that Miss Berry would be stout enough to go back to see "The Maid of the Oaks." Miss Berry did her utmost to support herself; and said she believed she was now quite well, and could return; but I saw she wished to get away, and I ran to see if a chair could be had. Lord Mowbray, who had a.s.sisted in conducting the ladies out, now followed me; he saw, and called to one of his footmen, and despatched him for a chair.

"There, now," said Mowbray, "we may leave the rest to Mrs. Coates, who can elbow her own way through it. Come back with me--Mrs. Abingdon plays Lady Bab Lardoon, her favourite character--she is incomparable, and I would not miss it for the world."

I begged Mowbray to go back, for I could not leave these ladies.

"Well," said he, parting from me, and pursuing his own way, "I see how it is--I see how it will be. These things are ruled in heaven above, or h.e.l.l beneath. 'Tis in vain struggling with one's destiny--so you to your Jewess, and I to my little Jessica. We shall have her again, I hope, in the farce, the prettiest creature I ever saw."

Mowbray hastened back to his box, and how long it might be between my return to the Jewess, and the arrival of the chair, I do not know: it seemed to me not above two minutes, but Mowbray insisted upon it, that it was a full quarter of an hour. He came to me again, just as I had received one look of silent grat.i.tude; and while I was putting the young lady into the chair, and bustling Mrs. Coates was giving her orders and address to the servant, Mowbray whispered me that my mother was in an agony, and had sent him out to see what was become of me. Mrs. Coates, all thanks, and apologies, and hurry, now literally elbowed her way back to her box, expressing her reiterated fears that we should lose the best part of "The Maid of the Oaks," which was the only farce she made it a rule ever to stay for. In spite of her hurry and her incessant talking, I named the thing I was intent upon. I said, that with her permission I should do myself the honour of calling upon her the next morning to inquire after Miss Berry's health.

"I am sure, sir," she replied, "Mr. Alderman Coates, and myself, will be particularly glad of the honour of seeing you tomorrow, or any time; and moreover, sir, the young lady," added she, with a shrewd, and to me offensive smile, "the young lady no doubt's well worth inquiring after--a great heiress, as the saying is, as rich as a Jew she'll be, Miss Montenero."

"Miss Montenero!" repeated Lord Mowbray and I, in the same instant. "I thought," said I, "this young lady's name was Berry.

"Berry, yes--Berry, we call her, we who are intimate, I call her for short--that is short for Berenice, which is her out o' the way Christian, that is, Jewish name. Mr. Montenero, the father, is a Spanish or American Jew, I'm not clear which, but he's a charming man for a Jew, and the daughter most uncommon fond of him, to a degree! Can't, now, bear any reflections the most distant, now, sir, upon the Jews, which was what distressed me when I found the play was to be this Jew of Venice, and I would have come away, only that I couldn't possibly." Here Mrs. Coates, without any mercy upon my curiosity about Mr. Montenero and his daughter, digressed into a subject utterly uninteresting to me, and would explain to us the reasons why Mr. Alderman Coates and Mr. Peter Coates her son were not this night of her party. This lasted till we reached her box, and then she had so much to say to all the Miss Issys, Cecys, and Hennys, that it was with the utmost difficulty I could, even by carefully watching my moment, obtain a card with her own, and another with Miss Montenero's address. This time there was no danger of my losing it. I rejoiced to see that Miss Montenero did not live with Mrs.

Coates.

For all further satisfaction of my curiosity, I was obliged to wait till the next morning.

CHAPTER VIII.

During the whole of the night, sleeping or waking, the images of the fair Jewess, of Shylock, and of Mrs. Coates, were continually recurring, and turning into one another in a most provoking manner. At breakfast my mother did not appear; my father said that she had not slept well, and that she would breakfast in her own apartment; this was not unusual; but I was particularly sorry that it happened this morning, because, being left _tete-a-tete_ with my father, and he full of a debate on the malt-tax, which he undertook to read to me from the rival papers, and to make me understand its merits, I was compelled to sit three-quarters of an hour longer after breakfast than I had intended; so that the plan I had formed of waiting upon Mr. Montenero very early, before he could have gone out for the day, was disconcerted. When at last my father had fairly finished, when he had taken his hat and his cane, and departing left me, as I thought, happily at liberty to go in search of my Jewess, another detainer came. At the foot of the stairs my mother's woman appeared, waiting to let me know that her lady begged I would not go out till she had seen me--adding, that she would be with me in less than a quarter of an hour.

I flung down my hat, I believe, with rather too marked an expression of impatience; but five minutes afterwards came a knock at the door. Mr.

Montenero was announced, and I blessed my mother, my father, and the malt-tax, for having detained me at home. The first appearance of Mr.

Montenero more than answered my expectations. He had that indescribable air, which, independently of the fas.h.i.+on of the day, or the mode of any particular country, distinguishes a gentleman--dignified, courteous, and free from affectation. From his features, he might have been thought a Spaniard--from his complexion, an East Indian; but he had a peculiar cast of countenance, which seemed not to belong to either nation. He had uncommonly black penetrating eyes, with a serious, rather melancholy, but very benevolent expression. He was past the meridian of life.

The lines in his face were strongly marked; but they were not the common-place wrinkles of ign.o.ble age, nor the contractions of any of the vulgar pa.s.sions: they seemed to be the traces of thought and feeling. He entered into conversation directly and easily. I need not say that this conversation was immediately interesting, for he spoke of Berenice. His thanks to me were, I thought, peculiarly gentlemanlike, neither too much nor too little. Of course, I left him at liberty to attribute her indisposition to the heat of the playhouse, and I stood prepared to avoid mentioning Shylock to Jewish ears; but I was both surprised and pleased by the openness and courage with which he spoke on the very subject from which I had fancied he would have shrunk. Instead of looking for any excuse for Miss Montenero's indisposition, he at once named the real cause; she had been, he said, deeply affected by the representation of Shylock; that detestable Jew, whom the genius of the greatest poet that ever wrote, and the talents of one of the greatest actors who had ever appeared, had conspired to render an object of public execration. "But recently arrived in London," continued Mr.

Montenero, "I have not had personal opportunity of judging of this actor's talent; but no Englishman can have felt more strongly than I have, the power of your Shakspeare's genius to touch and rend the human heart."

Mr. Montenero spoke English with a foreign accent, and something of a foreign idiom; but his ideas and feelings forced their way regardless of grammatical precision, and I thought his foreign accent agreeable. To an Englishman, what accent that conveys the praise of Shakspeare can fail to be agreeable? The most certain method by which a foreigner an introduce himself at once to the good-will and good opinion of an Englishman, is by thus doing homage to this national object of idolatry.

I perceived that Mr. Montenero's was not a mere compliment--he spoke with real feeling. "In this instance," resumed he, "we poor Jews have felt your Shakspeare's power to our cost--too severely, and, considering all the circ.u.mstances, rather unjustly, you are aware."

"_Considering all the circ.u.mstances_," I did not precisely understand; but I endeavoured, as well as I could, to make some general apology for Shakspeare's severity, by adverting to the time when he wrote, and the prejudices which then prevailed.

"True," said he; "and as a dramatic poet, it was his business, I acknowledge, to take advantage of the popular prejudice as a _power_--as a means of dramatic pathos and effect; yet you will acknowledge that we Jews must feel it peculiarly hard, that the truth of the story on which the poet founded his plot should have been completely sacrificed to fiction, so that the characters were not only misrepresented, but reversed."

I did not know to what Mr. Montenero meant to allude: however, I endeavoured to pa.s.s it off with a slight bow of general acquiescence, and the hundred-times-quoted remark, that poets always succeed better in fiction than in truth. Mr. Montenero had quick penetration--he saw my evasion, and would not let me off so easily. He explained.

"In the _true_ story, [Footnote: See Stevens' Life of Sixtus V., and Malone's Shakspeare.] from which Shakspeare took the plot of the Merchant of Venice, it was a Christian who acted the part of the Jew, and the Jew that of the Christian; it was a Christian who insisted upon having the pound of flesh from next the Jew's heart. But," as Mr. Montenero repeated, "Shakspeare was right, as a dramatic poet, in reversing the characters."

Seeing me struck, and a little confounded, by this statement, and even by his candour, Mr. Montenero said, that perhaps his was only the Jewish version of the story, and he quickly went on to another subject, one far more agreeable to me--to Berenice. He hoped that I did not suspect her of affectation from any thing that had pa.s.sed; he was aware, little as he knew of fine ladies, that they sometimes were pleased to make themselves noticed, perhaps rather troublesome, by the display of their sensibility; but he a.s.sured me that his Berenice was not of this sort.

Of this I was perfectly convinced. The moment he p.r.o.nounced the name of Berenice, he paused, and looked as if he were afraid he should say too much of her; and I suppose I looked as I felt--afraid that he would not say enough. He gently bowed his head and went on. "There are reasons why she was peculiarly touched and moved by that exhibition. Till she came to Europe--to England--she was not aware, at least not practically aware, of the strong prepossessions which still prevail against us Jews." He then told me that his daughter had pa.s.sed her childhood chiefly in America, "in a happy part of that country, where religious distinctions are scarcely known--where characters and talents are all sufficient to attain advancement--where the Jews form a respectable part of the community--where, in most instances, they are liberally educated, many following the honourable professions of law and physic with credit and ability, and a.s.sociating with the best society that country affords.

Living in a retired village, her father's the only family of Israelites who resided in or near it, all her juvenile friends.h.i.+ps and attachments had been formed with those of different persuasions; yet each had looked upon the variations of the other as things of course, or rather as things which do not affect the moral character--differences which take place in every society."--"My daughter was, therefore, ill prepared,"

said Mr. Montenero, "for European prepossessions; and with her feeling heart and strong affection for those she loves, no wonder that she has often suffered, especially on my account, since we came to England; and she has become, to a fault, tender and susceptible on this point."

I could not admit that there was any fault on her part; but I regretted that England should be numbered among the countries subject to such prejudices. I hoped, I added, that such illiberality was now confined to the vulgar, that is, the ill-educated and the ill-informed.

The well-educated and well-informed, he answered, were, of course, always the most liberal, and were usually the same in all countries. He begged pardon if he had expressed himself too generally with respect to England. It was the common fault of strangers and foreigners to generalize too quickly, and to judge precipitately of the whole of a community from a part. The fact was, that he had, by the business which brought him to London, been unfortunately thrown among some vulgar rich of contracted minds, who, though they were, as he was willing to believe, essentially good and good-natured persons, had made his Berenice suffer, sometimes more than they could imagine, by their want of delicacy, and want of toleration.

As Mr. Montenero spoke these words, the image of vulgar, ordering Mrs.

Coates--that image which had persecuted me half the night, by ever obtruding between me and the fair Jewess--rose again full in my view. I settled immediately, that it was she and her tribe of Issys, and Cecys, and Hennys, and Queeneys, were "the vulgar rich" to whom Mr. Montenero alluded. I warmly expressed my indignation against those who could have been so brutal as to make Miss Montenero suffer by their vile prejudices.

"_Brutal_," Mr. Montenero repeated, smiling at my warmth, "is too strong an expression: there was no brutality in the case. I must have expressed myself ill to give rise to such an idea. There was only a little want of consideration for the feelings of others--a little want of liberality."

Even so I could not bear the thought that Miss Montenero should have been, on her first arrival in England, thrown among persons who might give her quite a false idea of the English, and a dislike to the country.