THE “PUFF PAPERS.”
CHAPTER III.
On my next visit I found Mr. Bayles in full force, and loud in praise of some eleemosynary entertainment to which he had been invited. Having exhausted his subject and a tumbler of toddy at the same time, Mr. Arden “availed himself of the opportunity to call attention to the next tale,” which was found to be
A FATAL REMEMBRANCE.
I was subaltern of the cantonment main-guard at Bangalore one day in the month of June, 182-. Tattoo had just beaten; and I was sitting in the guard-room with my friend Frederick Gahagan, the senior Lieutenant in the regiment to which I belonged, and manager of the amateur theatre of the station.
Gahagan was a rattling, care-for-nothing Irishman, whose chief characteristic was a strong propensity for theatricals and practical jokes, but withal a generous, warm-hearted fellow, and as gallant a soldier as ever buckled sword-belt. In his capacity of manager, he was at present in a state of considerable perplexity, the occasion whereof was this.
There chanced then to be on a visit at Bangalore a particular ally of Fred’s, who was leading tragedian of the Chowringhee theatre in Calcutta; and it was in contemplation to get up Macbeth, in order that the aforesaid star might exhibit in his crack part as the hero of that great tragedy. Fred was to play Macduff; and the “blood-boltered Banquo” was consigned to my charge. The other parts were tolerably well cast, with the exception of that of Lady Macbeth, which indeed was not cast at all, seeing that no representative could be found for it. It must be stated that, as we had no actresses amongst us, all our female characters, as in the times of the primitive drama, were necessarily performed by gentlemen. Now in general it was not difficult to command a supply of smooth-faced young ensigns to personate the heroines, waiting-maids, and old women, of the comedies and farces to which our performances had been hitherto restricted. But Lady Macbeth was a very different sort of person to Caroline Dormer and Mrs. Hardcastle; and our ladies accordingly, one and all, struck work, refusing point blank to have anything to say to her.
The unfortunate manager, who had set his heart upon getting up the piece, was at his wits’ end, and had bent his footsteps towards the main guard, to advise with me as to what should be done in this untoward emergency. I endeavoured to console him as well as I could, and suggested, that if the worst came to the worst, the part might be read. But, lugubriously shaking his caput, Fred declared that would never do; so, after discussing half-a-dozen Trichinopoly cheroots, with a proportionate quantum of brandy pani, he departed for his quarters. “disgusted,” as he said, “with the ingratitude of mankind,” whilst I set forth to go my grand rounds.
Next morning, having been relieved from guard, I had returned home, and was taking my ease in my camp chair, luxuriously whiffing away at my after-breakfast cheroot, when who should step gingerly into the room but Manager Fred Gahagan. The clouds of the previous evening had entirely disappeared from his ingenuous countenance, which was puckered up in the most insinuating manner, with what I was wont to call his ‘borrowing smile;’ for Fred was oftentimes afflicted with impecuniosity—a complaint common enough amongst us subs;—and when the fit was on him, in the spirit of true friendship, he generally contrived to disburthen me of the few remaining rupees that constituted the balance of my last month’s pay.
Fred brought himself to an anchor upon a bullock trunk, and, after my boy had handed him a cheroot, and he had disgorged a few puffs of smoke, thus delivered himself—
“This is a capital weed, Wilmot. I don’t know how it is, but you always manage to have the best tobacco in the cantonment.”
“Hem,” said I, drily. “Glad you like it.”
“I say, Peter, my dear fellow,” quoth he, “Fitzgerald, Grimes, and I, have just been talking over what we were discussing last night, about Lady Macbeth you know.”
“Yes,” said I, somewhat relieved to find the conversation was not taking the turn I dreaded.
“Well, sir,” continued Fred, plunging at once “in medias res,”and speaking very fast, “and we have come to the conclusion that you are the only person to relieve us from all difficulty on the subject; Fitzgerald will take your part of Banquo; and you shall have Lady Macbeth, a character for which every one agrees you are admirably fitted.”
“I play Lady Macbeth!” cried I, “with my scrubbing-brush of a beard, and whiskers like a prickly-pear hedge; why, you mast be all mad to think of such a thing.”
“My dear friend,” remarked Gahagan mildly, “you know I have always said that you had the Kemble eye and nose, and I’m sure you won’t hesitate about cutting off your whiskers when so much depends upon it; they’ll soon grow again you know, Peter; as for your dark chin that don’t matter a rush, as Lady Macbeth is a dark woman.”
The reader will agree with me in thinking that friendship can sometimes be as blind as love, when I say with respect to my “Kemble eye and nose,” that the former has been from childhood affected with a decided tendency to strabismus, and the latter bears a considerably stronger resemblance to a pump-handle than it does to the classic profile of John Kemble or any of his family.
“Lieutenant Gahagan,” said I, solemnly, “do you remember how, some six years ago at Hydrabad, when yet beardless and whiskerless, the only hair upon my face being eyebrows and eyelashes, at your instigation and ‘suadente diabolo,’ I attempted to perform Lydia Languish in ‘The Rivals?’ and hast thou yet forgotten, O son of an unsainted father, how my grenadier stride, the fixed tea-pot position of my arms, to say nothing of the numerous other solecisms in the code of female manners which I perpetrated on that occasion, made me a laughing-stock and a by-word for many a long day afterwards! All this, I say, must be fresh in your recollection, and yet you have the audacity to ask me to expose myself again in a similar manner.”
“Pooh, pooh!” laughed Gahagan, “you were only a boy then, now you have more experience in these matters; besides, Lydia Languish was a part quite unworthy of your powers; Lady Macbeth is a horse of another colour.”
“Why, man, with what face could I aver that
‘I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.’
That would certainly draw tears from the audience, but they would be tears of laughter, not sympathy, I warrant you. No, no, good master Fred, it won’t do, I tell you; and in the words of Lady Macbeth herself, I say—
‘What beast was’t, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?’
And now oblige me by walking your body off, for I have got my yesterday’s guard report to fill up and send in, in default of which I shall be sure to catch an ‘official’ from the Brigade-Major.”
But Fred not only did not walk his body off, but harping on the same string, pertinaciously continued to ply me with alternate arguments and intreaties, until at last fairly wearied out, and more, I believe, with the hope of getting rid of the “importunate chink” of the fellow’s discourse, than anything else, in an evil moment I consented! hear it not, shade of Mrs. Siddons! to denude myself of the bushy honours of my cheeks, and tread the boards of the Bangalore stage as the wife of that atrocious usurper “King Cawdor Glamis!”
Fred marched himself away, elated at having carried his point; and I, after sundry dubious misgivings anent the rash promise I had made, ended by casting all compunctious visitings to the winds, and doughtily resolved, as I was in for the business, to “screw my courage to the sticking-place,’ and go through with it as boldly as I might.
By dint of continually studying my rôle, my dislike to it gradually diminished, nay, at length was converted into positive enthusiasm. I became convinced that I should make a decided hit, and cover my temples with unfading laurel. I rehearsed at all times, seasons, and places, until I was a perfect nuisance to everybody, and my acquaintance, I am sure, to a man, wished both me and her bloodthirsty ladyship, deeper than plummet ever sounded, at the bottom of the sea. Even the brute creation did not escape the annoyance. One morning my English pointer “Spot” ran yelping out of the room, panic-stricken by the vehement manner with which I exclaimed, “Out damned spot, out, I say!” and with the full conviction, which the animal probably entertained to the day of his death, that the said anathema had personal reference to himself.
The evening big with my fate at last arrived. The house was crammed, expectation on tiptoe, and the play commenced. The first four acts went off swimmingly, my performance especially was applauded to the echo, and there only wanted the celebrated sleeping scene, in which I flattered myself to be particularly strong, to complete my triumph. Triumph, did I say!
I must here explain, for the benefit of those who have never rounded the Cape, that the extreme heat of an Indian climate is so favourable to the growth of hair as to put those wights who are afflicted with dark chevelures, which was my case, to the inconvenient necessity of chin-scraping twice on the game day, when they wish to appear particularly spruce of an evening. Now I intended to have shaved before the play began, but in the hurry of dressing had forgotten all about it; and upon inspecting my visage in a glass, after I had donned Lady Macbeth’s night-gear, the lower part of it appeared so swart in contrast with the white dress, that I found it would be absolutely necessary to pass a razor over it before going on with my part.
The night was excessively warm, even for India; and as the place allotted to us for dressing was very small and confined, the bright thought struck me that I should have more air and room on the stage, whither I accordingly directed my servant to follow me with the shaving apparatus.
I ensconced myself behind the drop-scene, which was down, and was in the act of commencing the tonsorial operation, when, horresco referens, the prompter’s bell rang sharply, whether by accident or design I was never able to ascertain, but have grievous suspicions that Fred Gahagan knew something about it—up flew the drop-scene like a shot, and discovered the following tableau vivant to the astounded audience:—
Myself Lady Macbeth, with legs nearly a yard asunder—face and throat outstretched, and covered with a plentiful white lather—right arm brandishing aloft one of Paget’s best razors, and left thumb and forefinger grasping my nose. In front of me stood my faithful Hindoo valet, Verasawmy by name, with a soap-box in one hand, while his other held up to his master’s gaze a small looking-glass, over the top of which his black face, surmounted by a red turban, was peering at me with grave and earnest attention.
A wondering pause of a few seconds prevailed, and then one loud, rending, and continuous peal of laughter and screams shook the universal house.
As if smitten with sudden catalepsy, I was without power to move a single muscle of my body, and for the space of two minutes remained in a stupor in the same attitude—immovable, rooted, frozen to the spot where I stood. At length recovering at once my senses and power of motion, I bounded like a maniac from the stage, pursued by the convulsive roars of the spectators, and upsetting in my retreat the unlucky Verasawmy, who rolled down to the footlights, doubled up, and in a paroxysm of terror and dismay.
Lieutenant Frederick Gahagan had good reason to bless his stars that in that moment of frenzy I did not encounter him, the detestable origin of the abomination that had just been heaped upon my head. I am no two-legged creature if I should not have sacrificed him on the spot with my razor, and so merited the gratitude of his regimental juniors by giving them a step.
I have never since, either in public or private life, appeared in petticoats again.