AN ADVENTURE WITH MRS. CREWE.
We next proceeded to the Shakspeare gallery,[371] which I had never seen. And here we met with an adventure that finished our morning’s excursions.
There was a lady in the first room, dressed rather singularly, quite alone, and extremely handsome, who was parading about with a nosegay in her hand, which she frequently held to her nose, in a manner that was evidently calculated to attract notice. We therefore passed on to the inner room, to avoid her. Here we had but just all taken our stand opposite different pictures, when she also entered, and, coming pretty close to my father, sniffed at her flowers with a sort of extatic eagerness, and then let them fall. My father picked them up, and gravely presented them to her. She curtsied to the ground in receiving them, and presently crossed over the room, and, brushing past Mrs. Crewe, seated herself immediately by her elbow. Mrs. Crewe, not admiring this familiarity, moved away, giving her at the same time a look of dignified distance that was almost petrifying.
It did not prove so to this lady, who presently followed her to the next picture, and, sitting as close as she could to where Mrs. Crewe stood, began singing various quick passages, without words or connexion. I saw Mrs. Crewe much alarmed, and advanced to stand by her, meaning to whisper her that we had better leave the room; and this idea was not checked by seeing that the flowers were artificial. By the looks we interchanged we soon mutually said, “This is a mad woman.” We feared irritating her by a sudden flight, but gently retreated, and soon got quietly into the large room when she bounced up with a great noise, and, throwing the veil of her bonnet violently back, as if fighting it, she looked after us, pointing at Mrs. Crewe.
Seriously frightened, Mrs. Crewe seized my father’s arm, and hurried up two or three steps into a small apartment. Here Mrs. Crewe, addressing herself to an elderly gentleman, asked if he could inform the people below that a mad woman was terrifying the company; and while he was receiving her commission with the most profound respect, and with an evident air of admiring astonishment at her beauty, we heard a rustling, and, looking round, saw the same figure hastily striding after us, and in an instant at our elbows.
Mrs. Crewe turned quite pale; it was palpable she was the object pursued, and she most civilly and meekly articulated, “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” as she hastily passed her, and hurried down the steps. We were going to run for our lives, when Miss Townshend whispered Mrs. Crewe it was Only Mrs. Wells the actress, and said she was certainly Only performing vagaries to try effect, which she was quite famous for doing.
It would have been food for a painter to have seen Mrs. Crewe during this explanation. All her terror instantly gave way to indignation; and scarcely any pencil could equal the high vivid glow of her cheeks. To find herself made the object of game to the burlesque humour of a bold player, was an indignity she could not brook, and her mind was immediately at work how to assist herself against such unprovoked and unauthorized effrontery.
The elderly gentleman who, with great eagerness, had followed Mrs. Crewe, accompanied by a young man who was of his party, requested more particularly her commands; but before Mrs. Crewe’s astonishment and resentment found words, Mrs. Wells, singing, and throwing herself into extravagant attitudes, again rushed down the steps, and fixed her eyes on Mrs. Crewe. This, however, no longer served her purpose. Mrs. Crewe fixed her in return, and with a firm, composed, commanding air and look that, though it did not make this strange creature retreat, somewhat disconcerted her for a few minutes. She then presently affected a violent coughing such a one as almost shook the room; though such a forced and unnatural noise as rather resembled howling than a cold.
This over, and perceiving Mrs. Crewe still steadily keeping her ground, she had the courage to come up to us, and, with a flippant air, said to the elderly gentleman, “Pray, sir, will you tell me what it is o’clock?”
He looked vexed to be called a moment from looking at Mrs. Crewe, and, with a forbidding gravity, answered her, “About two.”
“No offence, I hope, sir?” cried she, seeing him turn eagerly from her. He bowed without looking at her, and she strutted away, still, however, keeping in sight, and playing various tricks, her eyes perpetually turned towards Mrs. Crewe, who as regularly, met them, with an expression such as might have turned a softer culprit to stone.
Our cabal was again renewed, and Mrs. Crewe again told this gentleman to make known to the proprietors of the gallery that this person was a nuisance to the company, when, suddenly re-approaching as, she called out, “Sir! sir!” to the younger of our new protectors.
He coloured, and looked much alarmed, but only bowed. “Pray, sir,” cried she, “what’s o’clock?”
He looked at his watch, and answered.
“You don’t take it ill, I hope, sir?” she cried.
He only bowed.
“I do no harm, sir,” said she; “I never bite.”
The poor young man looked aghast, and bowed lower; but Mrs. Crewe, addressing herself to the elder, said aloud, “I beg you, sir, to go to Mr. Boydell; you may name me to him—Mrs. Crewe.”
Mrs. Wells at this walked away, yet still in sight. “You may tell him what has happened, sir, in all our names. You may tell him Miss Burney—”
“O no!” cried I, in a horrid fright, “I beseech I may not be named! And, indeed, ma’am, it may be better to let it all alone. It will do no good; and it may all get into the newspapers.”
“And if it does,” cried Mrs. Crewe, “what is it to us? We have done nothing; we have given no offence, and made no disturbance. This person has frightened us all wilfully, and Utterly without provocation; and now she can frighten us no longer, she would brave us. Let her tell her own story, and how will it harm us?”
“Still,” cried I, “I must always fear being brought into any newspaper cabals. Let the fact be ever so much against her, she will think the circumstances all to her honour if a paragraph comes out beginning ‘Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Wells.’”
Mrs. Crewe liked this sound as little as I should have liked it in placing my own name where I put hers. She hesitated a little what to do, and we all walked down-stairs, where instantly this bold woman followed us, paraded Up and down the long shop with a dramatic air while our group was in conference, and then, sitting down at the clerk’s desk, and calling in a footman, she desired him to wait while she wrote a note.
She scribbled a few lines, and read aloud her direction, “To Mr. Topham;” and giving the note to the man, said, “Tell your master that is something to make him laugh. Bid him not send to the press till I see him.”
Now as Mr. Topham is the editor of “The World,” and notoriously her protector, as her having his footman acknowledged, this looked rather serious, and Mrs. Crewe began to partake of my alarm. She therefore, to my infinite satisfaction, told her new friend that she desired he would name no names, but merely mention that some ladies had been frightened.... We then got into Mrs. Crewe’s carriage, and not till then would this facetious Mrs. Wells quit the shop. And she walked in sight, dodging us, and playing antics of a tragic sort of gesture, till we drove out of her power to keep up with us. What a strange creature!