Madame Flirt Part 33

"You're a cunning devil, captain. You've the wheedling tongue of Satan himself and his black soul, too, I doubt not. You're all ears and eyes when money's to be picked up. Take that for what you did for me to-night."

Sally drew five guineas from her pocket and flung them on the table. A couple would have rolled on to the floor, but Rofflash grabbed them in time. Sally burst into one of her hard, mirthless laughs.

"Trust you for looking after coin. See here, you Judas. Vane promised to meet me at Spring Gardens to-morrow night. When I see him I shall believe him, not before. You must work it so that he comes."

"Hang me, Sally, but that's a hard nut to crack."

"Not too hard for your tiger's teeth. I'll double those five guineas if you bring it off."

Rofflash relished the proposition, but he pretended to find difficulties and held out for higher pay. To Sally money was as water. She agreed to make the ten into fifteen. Rofflash swearing that he'd do his best, took his departure and left the lady, like Archibald Dorrimore, to drink herself into insensibility.

"The devil looks after his own," chuckled Rofflash as he swaggered down the Strand. "It'll go hard if I don't squeeze fifty guineas out of that idiot Dorrimore over to-morrow night's work! He'd give that to have the pleasure of running the scribbler through the body. Lord, if I'd breathed a word of _that_ to Sally! No fool like an old fool, they say.

Bah! The foolishest thing in Christendom is a woman when she's in love."

And Captain Jeremy Rofflash plodded on, well pleased with himself. He took the road which would lead him to Moorfields and Grub Street.

CHAPTER XX

"WHAT DID I TELL THEE, POLLY?"

Lavinia went to her first rehearsal in a strange confusion of spirits, but came through the ordeal successfully. She was letter perfect, and she remembered all Spiller's instructions. Mr. Huddy was pleased to say that he thought she would do.

She left the theatre for her lodgings in Little Queen Street in a flutter of excitement. Otway's "Orphan" might be dull and lachrymose, the part of Serina might be insignificant, but to Lavinia the play was the most wonderful thing. It meant a beginning. She had got the chance she had longed for. She saw herself in imagination a leading lady.

But when she returned to her lodgings a reaction set in. She was depressed. Life had suddenly become drab and dull. She was thinking of Lancelot Vane, but not angrily, as was the case the previous night when she walked away her head high in the air after seeing Sally Salisbury--of all women in the world!--in his arms. She was in a tumult of pa.s.sion, and when that subsided tears of indignation rushed to her eyes. She made no excuses for her recreant lover, no allowances for accidents and misadventures. She did not, indeed, think he had set out to insult her, but the unhappy fact was patent that he knew the wanton Sally, and that he had a tender regard for her. Lavinia's reading of the thing was that in her anxiety she had arrived at the trysting place too soon. Ten minutes later and Vane would have got rid of his old love and taken on with his new one. Oh, it was humiliating to think of!

Lavinia walked away in her rage. By the time she reached Little Queen Street, the storm had pa.s.sed. She had arrived at the conclusion that all men were faithless, selfish, dishonourable. For the future she would have naught to do with them.

The excitement of the rehearsal, the sense of independence she felt when all was got through with credit, lent her buoyancy, but it did not last.

The dream she had once had of playing to an audience and seeing only Lancelot Vane in the first row of the pit applauding and eager to congratulate her, was gone. She was done with him for ever. So she told herself. And to strengthen this resolve she recalled his weaknesses, his vacillation, his distrust in himself, his lapses into inebriety. Yet no sooner had she gone over his sins than she felt pity and inclined to forgiveness. But not forgiveness for his faithlessness. That was unpardonable.

Mrs. Egleton, her fellow lodger, had the night before gone to bed sober and was inclined to be complaisant and to interest herself in Lavinia.

She was pleased to hear that Huddy had praised her.

"If he asks you to join his company, don't you refuse," said Mrs.

Egleton. "He's got a rough tongue when he's put out, but he knows his business. Three months' experience will do wonders. I must come and see you on _the_ night. When is it to be?"

Lavinia said she hadn't the least idea.

"Oh, well, you'll soon know."

Mrs. Egleton was right. In the next issue of the _Daily Post_ appeared this advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

"At the desire of several persons of quality for the benefit of Mr.

Huddy, at the New Theatre in the Haymarket. To-morrow being Thursday, the 24th day of February, will be presented a tragedy called 'The Orphan; or, the Unhappy Marriage,' written by the late Mr. Otway, with a new prologue to be spoken by Mr. Roger, who plays the part of Chamont. The part of Acas...o...b.. Mr. Huddy; Monimia, Mrs.

Haughton; the page, Miss Tollet; and the part of Serina by a gentlewoman who never appear'd on any stage before. With singing in Italian and English by Mrs. Fitzgerald. And the original trumpet song of sound fame, as set to musick by Mr. Henry Purcel, to be performed by Mr. Amesbury."

Lavinia read this over twice and thrilled with delight. She ran with the paper to Mrs. Egleton.

"Mercy on me, child!" cried the actress. "So you're a gentlewoman, are you?"

"The paper says I am, so I suppose it's true," said Lavinia, casting down her eyes demurely.

"If you are, it'll be a wonder. Not many women players are, I may tell you for your satisfaction. Who was your father?"

"I don't know. I can't remember him."

"Well, you're in the fas.h.i.+on there. Few of us are better off than you.

But what matters father or mother? You're in the world, and after all that's as much as you need trouble about. As for your mother--but I won't bother you about _her_. A mother's not much good to her daughter.

She mostly looks to make money out of her by a rich marriage, not that she's over particular about the marriage so long as there's plenty of coin."

Lavinia did not contradict Mrs. Egleton's cynical views. From her own experience she knew it was very often true.

The 24th was a fortnight ahead--plenty of time for the play to be in readiness. Huddy had no fear about the performance. What concerned him more nearly was his "benefit" money. He busied himself in canva.s.sing his patrons and the disposal of tickets.

The night came. Lavinia was wrought to a high pitch of excitement, but her excitement was pleasurable. The scenery, albeit it would be scoffed at nowadays, was to her magnificent. The costumes were gorgeous. It was nothing that they smelt musty from having laid long in the theatre wardrobe. The incongruity of many of the garments gave her no pang of uneasiness. "The Orphan" was of no particular period. Dresses which had done duty in Shakespearean tragedies, in cla.s.sical plays of the Cato type, in the comedies of the Restoration dramatists, were equally admissible. The circ.u.mscribed s.p.a.ce afforded the players by the intrusion on the stage of the seats for the "quality" did not embarra.s.s her. The combined odours of oranges and candle snuff had their charm.

The house was full, but in the dim and smoky candlelight the faces of the audience were little better than rows of shadowy masks. The pit occupied the entire floor of the house right up to the orchestra. Here the critics were to be found. The pit could make or mar the destiny of plays, and the reputation of players. Dozens of regular playgoers knew the traditions of the theatre better than many actors and actresses.

They were sticklers for the preservation of the stage "business" to which they had been accustomed. They knew certain lines of their favourite plays by heart, and how those lines ought to be delivered.

The curtain rose. Acasto, Monimia, Chamont mouthed their various parts, and did exactly what was expected from them. Curiosity was excited only when Serina, the daughter of Acasto, in love with Chamont, made her appearance. Lavinia's winsome face, her eyes half tender, half alluring, her pretty mouth with not an atom of ill nature in its curves, her sympathetic voice, at once attracted the audience. It was a pity, everyone felt, she had so little to say and do. Her few lines expressed but one sentiment--her love for Chamont.

Lavinia played the part as if she felt it, which was indeed the fact, for she was thinking of Lancelot Vane all the time. When she came to her final words in the fifth act--

"If any of my family have done thee injury, I'll be revenged and love thee better for it"

the house thundered its applause, so naturally and with such genuine pathos were they delivered.

The curtain fell. The gallants who had seats on the stage crowded round the "young gentlewoman" and showered compliments. A few privileged people from the front of the house who found their way behind were equally enthusiastic. Even Mrs. Haughton--the Monimia of the play--deigned to smile approvingly.

"What did I tell thee, Polly?" she heard a pleasant if somewhat husky voice whisper in her ear.

She knew the tones and turned quickly. John Gay's kindly eyes were beaming upon her. He had come with Jemmy Spiller, and with a stout man from whose broad red face a look of drollery was rarely absent. This was Hippisley, a comedian with a natural humour which was wont to set an audience in a roar.

Lavinia blushed with pleasure and cast a grateful look at Spiller, whose hints had proved so valuable.

"Was I not right, Spiller?" went on Gay. "You've read my opera, what there is of it that's finished. Won't Polly Peachum fit her like a glove?"

"Aye, if she can sing as prettily as she acted to-night," said Spiller, with a quizzical glance at the girl.

"Sing? My lad, she has the voice of a nightingale. Pepusch agrees with me. I'll swear there's no singing woman outside the King's Theatre--or inside, for the matter of that--who can hold a candle by the side of her. Have you forgotten the pretty baggage who so charmed us at the Maiden Head?"