IV
But, despite this auspicious start, all was not set fair at Ballarat. As had happened in other places, Lola was to fall foul of a critic who had disparaged her. Furiously indignant, and horse-whip in hand, she rushed into the editor's office and executed summary vengeance upon him.
"A full account of this remarkable business," announced the opposition journal, "will be given by us to-morrow. Our readers may anticipate a perfect treat." They got it, too, if one can trust the report of a "few choice observations" delivered by Lola to her audience on the second night of her engagement:
"Ladies and Gentlemen: I am very sure that all of you in this house are my very good friends; and I much regret that I now have a most unpleasant duty to perform. I had imagined that, after all the kindness I have experienced from the miners in California, I should never have had anything painful to say to you. Now, however, I am compelled to do so.
"I speak to the ladies, as members of my own sex, and to the gentlemen, as my natural protectors. Well, what I have to tell you is that there is a certain gentleman in this town called Seekamp. Just take out the E's, and what is left of his name becomes Skamp. Listen to my story, and then judge between us. This Mr. Seekamp, who is the editor of the Ballarat Times, actually told me, in the hearing of another lady and two quite respectable gentlemen, that the miners here were a set of ——. No, I really cannot sully my lips with the shocking word he used—and that I was not to believe them.
"Mr. Seekamp called on me, with a certain proposition, and accepted my hospitality. You all know he is just a little fond of drinking. Well, while he was at my house the sherry, the port, the champagne, and the brandy were never off the table. He ate with me, and he drank with me. In fact, he drank so freely that it was only my self-respect that prevented me having him removed. But I said to myself, 'After all, he is an editor; perhaps this is his little way.'
"Well, I did as Mr. Seekamp wanted, and as a result, I was a ten pound note out of pocket by it. I was green, but I was anxious to avoid making enemies among editors. Yet, when his paper next appears, I am referred to in it as being notorious for my immorality. Notorious, indeed! Why, I defy everybody here, or anywhere else, to say that I am, or ever was, immoral. It's not likely that, if I wanted to be immoral, I should be slaving away and earning my bread by hard work. What do you think?
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I appeal to you. Is it fair or generous of this Seekamp person to behave to me like this? The truth is, my manager, knowing that he was a good-for-nothing fellow, gave my printing orders to another editor. In revenge, the angry Seekamp says he will hound me from this town. Ladies and Gentlemen, I appeal to you for protection."
"And here," adds the report, "the intrepid Lola retired amid deafening applause. Three hearty cheers were given for Madame and three lusty groans for her cowardly traducer."
On the following night there was more speech-making. This time, Lola complained to the audience that she had been freshly aspersed by the objectionable Seekamp. "I offered," she said, "though merely a woman, to meet him with pistols, but the cur who attacks a lady's character runs away from my challenge. He says he will drive me from the Diggings. Well, I intend to turn the tables, and to make Seekamp de-camp. I very much regret," she added, "having been compelled to assert myself at the expense of Mr. Seekamp, but, really it was not my fault. His attacks on my art were most ungentlemanly. I challenged him to fight a duel, but the poltroon would not accept."
In the best tradition of the Eatanswill Gazette, the Ballarat Star referred to the Ballarat Times as "our veracious contemporary and doughty opponent," and alluded to the "unblushing profligacy of its editorial columns." The proprietor of the United States Hotel and the solicitor for Lola Montez also sailed into the controversy and challenged Mr. Seekamp to "eat his words." That individual, however, not caring about such a diet, refused to do anything of the sort.
The matter did not end there, and a number of correspondents took up the cudgels on behalf of Lola Montez.
"Is it possible," wrote one of them to the editor of the Star, "that Mr. Seekamp can, in his endeavour to blacken the fair fame of a woman, insinuate that he is also guilty of the most shocking immorality? I blush to think it." There was also a letter in a similar strain from "John Bull," and another from "An Eton Boy," animadverting upon Mr. Seekamp's grammar.
Feeling herself damaged in reputation, Lola's next step was to instruct her solicitor to bring an action for libel against Seekamp. The magistrate remitted the case to the superior court at Geelong. But, as an apology was offered and accepted, nothing more was heard of it.
This, however, was not the end of her troubles at Ballarat, for horse-whips were again to whistle in the air. But, this time Lola got more than she bargained for. She was using her whip on one Mr. Crosby, the manager of the theatre there, when that individual's spouse—a strong-minded and muscular woman—wrested the weapon from her and laid it across her own back.
The account given by an eye-witness is a little different. "At Ballarat," he says, "Lola pitched into and cross-buttocked a stalwart Amazon who had omitted to show her proper respect."
"Cross-buttocked" would appear to be an expression which, so far, has eluded the dictionary-makers.
In other parts of the Colony, however, Lola's reception more than made up for any little unpleasantnesses at Ballarat. "Her popularity," says William Kelly, an Australian squatter, "was not limited to the stage. She was welcomed with rapture on the gold fields, and all the more for the liberal fashion in which she 'shouted' when returning the hospitality of the diggers. Her pluck, too, delighted them, for she would descend the deepest shafts with as much nonchalance as if she were entering a boudoir."
From Sandhurst Lola Montez travelled to Bendigo, where the tour finished. There, says a pressman, "she lived on terms of the most cordial amity with the entire populace, and without a single disturbing incident to ruffle the serenity of the intercourse."