FOOTNOTES:
[22] Mrs. Frances Trollope, a noted author, died 1863.
[23] Marianne Skerrett—a connection of Macready’s. She subsequently held a position in Queen Victoria’s household, as superintendent of the Queen’s dressers.
CHAPTER XX
MACREADY’S RESERVATION, AND LORD LYTTON’S PRAISE
Notwithstanding the success of Foscari and the apparently overwhelming literary output of its author during the year 1826, it is fairly certain that the financial position of the household at Three Mile Cross remained as before. There had been, of course, the acquisition of the pony and chaise—originally purchased so that Dr. and Mrs. Mitford might take exercise in a form they both enjoyed and, in the case of the latter, certainly required—but this, so far as can be ascertained, was the only extravagance in expenditure that had been indulged in. The production of Foscari—if the run lasted for twenty performances—was to bring in £400, and the copyright of the play and the sale of the Dramatic Scenes was fixed at £150, a total of £550 as estimated income at the end of 1826. Then there were the regular payments from Blackwood’s, and these, together with the odd items gathered from the “Annuals”—the editors of which were actually dunning Miss Mitford for contributions—must have brought the receipts up to considerably over £600, even if we estimate most modestly. Such an income for a family of three persons, plus the housekeeper, maid and odd-man for stable and garden, living in a glorified cottage in a tiny village, seems to us to represent a very comfortable sum upon which to exist for, let us say, twelve months.
And yet in June, 1827, we find Miss Mitford writing to a friend: “We are as poor as poor can be and are ourselves living on credit.” It is true that she added, “we have only received one hundred pounds from the theatre,” but, even so, that would leave an estimated balance of £300—a sum which would scarcely justify such a family in living on credit. Where did the money go? We confess to being nonplussed, and can only suggest that the extravagance and improvidence of Dr. Mitford were still to the fore and still being acquiesced in and glossed over by his daughter, for Mrs. Mitford could hardly be held to blame now that she was unfitted to exercise any control whatever over domestic matters.
These are problems which will never be solved, but of this we can be certain: that Miss Mitford was still working as hard as ever to keep the family ship afloat. A letter to William Harness, written in March, 1827, gives an outline of a new play, Inez de Castro, upon which, after consulting her friends, she worked diligently, and was able to send it up to Kemble during the year 1828.
In addition to this there was in active preparation a third volume of Our Village, the publication of which was arranged for by Dr. Mitford in person. To him, then lodging at “Old Betty’s Coffee House, behind the new church, Strand,” his daughter wrote in February, 1828:—
“Nothing, my own dearest, was ever more comfortable and satisfactory than the manner in which you have managed this affair. Pray write to George Whittaker directly. Of course we must not take a farthing less than one hundred and fifty pounds, when we are sure of it from such a respectable quarter as Longman’s. I never had the slightest hesitation in my liking for that house, except their name for closeness; but certainly this offer is very liberal. You have done the business most excellently—just as I thought you would.” (The Doctor was evidently playing off Longman’s against his godson.) “God grant you an equal success with the dramatic affair! I am not the least afraid of your management there. I’ll never write a play again, for I daresay Longman’s people would give a good price for a novel. If you can, without inconvenience, will you bring me a bottle of eau-de-Cologne?—this is a piece of extravagance upon the strength of the fifty pounds; but don’t buy anything else. And pray, my darling, get quit of the dogs.”
The dramatic affair mentioned in this letter evidently concerned the long-postponed production in London of Rienzi, and as Dr. Mitford’s prolonged absence in town seemed futile, his daughter wrote, still to the care of “Old Betty’s,” informing him that she could no longer bear the suspense, and that she had written to Kemble to say that she was coming to town immediately, and would drive at once to his house, where, “if he cannot see me then, I have requested him to leave word when and where he will see me.”
The matter was evidently settled and the play arranged to be produced at Drury Lane Theatre on Saturday, October 11. Writing this information to Sir William Elford a week or so before the production, Miss Mitford said: “Mr. Young plays the hero, and has been studying the part during the whole vacation; and a new actress[24] makes her first appearance in the part of the heroine. This is a very bold and hazardous experiment, no new actress having come out in a new play within the memory of man; but she is young, pretty, unaffected, pleasant-voiced, with great sensibility, and a singularly pure intonation—a qualification which no actress has possessed since Mrs. Siddons. Stanfield[25] is painting the new scenes, one of which is an accurate representation of Rienzi’s house. This building still exists in Rome, and is shown there as a curious relique of the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages. They have got a sketch which they sent for on purpose, and they are hunting up costumes with equal care; so that it will be very splendidly brought out, and I shall have little to fear, except from the emptiness of London so early in the season. If you know any one likely to be in that great desert so early in the year, I know that you will be so good as to mention me and my tragedy. I do not yet know where I shall be. I think of going to town in about a fortnight, and, if the play succeeds, shall remain there about the same time.”
Mrs. S. C. Hall, in her Memories, gives us a delightful picture of the flurry and bustle which preceded the Rienzi production, a bustle which was accentuated by an alteration of the date to one week earlier. Miss Mitford was up in town superintending the arrangements, lodging meanwhile at the house of her friend, Mrs. Hofland, in Newman Street. “Mrs. Hofland invited us to meet her there one morning. All the world was talking about the expected play, and all the world was paying court to its author.
“‘Mary,’ said Mrs. Hofland to her visitors, ‘is a little grand and stilted just now. There is no doubt the tragedy will be a great success; they all say so in the green-room; and Macready told me it was a wonderful tragedy—an extraordinary tragedy “for a woman to have written.” The men always make that reservation, my dear; they cramp us, my dear, and then reproach us with our lameness; but Mary did not hear it, and I did not tell her. She is supremely happy just now, and so is her father, the doctor. Yes, it is no wonder that she should be a little stilted—such grand people coming to call and invite them to dinner, and all the folk at the theatre down-upon-knee to her—it is such a contrast to her life at Three Mile Cross.’
“‘But,’ I said, ‘she deserves all the homage that can be rendered her—her talents are so varied. Those stories of Our Village have been fanned by the pure breezes of “sunny Berkshire,” and are inimitable as pictures of English rural life; and she has also achieved the highest walk in tragedy——’
“‘For a woman,’ put in dear Mrs. Hofland. She had not forgiven our great tragedian—then in the zenith of his popularity—for his ungallant reserve.”
It is pleasant to read that Macready could praise this tragedy, although we cannot forget that spiteful entry in his Diary, under date November 24, 1836—“I have no faith in her power of writing a play.”
Stilted or not, Miss Mitford was contented to appear in a garb which spoke, all too plainly, of the country cottage and country fashion.
“I certainly was disappointed,” continues Mrs. Hall, “when a stout little lady, tightened up in a shawl, rolled into the parlour in Newman Street, and Mrs. Hofland announced her as Miss Mitford; her short petticoats showing wonderfully stout leather boots, her shawl bundled on, and a little black coal-scuttle bonnet—when bonnets were expanding—added to the effect of her natural shortness and rotundity; but her manner was that of a cordial country gentlewoman; the pressure of her fat little hands (for she extended both) was warm; her eyes, both soft and bright, looked kindly and frankly into mine; and her pretty, rosy mouth, dimpled with smiles that were always sweet and friendly. At first I did not think her at all ‘grand or stilted,’ though she declared she had been quite spoilt—quite ruined since she came to London, with all the fine compliments she had received; but the trial was yet to come. ‘Suppose—suppose Rienzi should be——,’ and she shook her head. Of course, in full chorus, we declared that could not be. ‘No! she would not spend an evening with us until after the first night; if the play went ill, or even coldly, she would run away, and never be again seen or heard of; if it succeeded——’ She drew her rotund person to its full height, and endeavoured to stretch her neck, and the expression of her face assumed an air of unmistakable triumph. She was always pleasant to look at, and had her face not been cast in so broad—so ‘outspread’—a mould, she would have been handsome; even with that disadvantage, if her figure had been tall enough to carry her head with dignity, she would have been so, but she was most vexatiously ‘dumpy’; but when Miss Mitford spoke, the awkward effect vanished—her pleasant voice, her beaming eyes and smiles, made you forget the wide expanse of face; and the roly-poly figure, when seated, did not appear really short.”
On October 4 Rienzi was played—played to crowded houses, with audiences so rapt that a pin might have been heard had one dropped in the house. The author, fearful of failure, dare not witness the first production, but remained near at hand, praying for success from her inmost soul, “for on it hangs the comfort of those far dearer to me than myself.” It was Haydon who was the first to bring her the news of success, and it was a message the bearer of which she never forgot.
On October 20 she wrote informing Sir William Elford that “the triumph has been most complete and decisive—the houses crowded—and the attention such as has not been since Mrs. Siddons. How long the run may continue I cannot say, for London is absolutely empty; but even if the play were to stop to-night, I should be extremely thankful—more thankful than I have words to tell; the impression has been so deep and so general. You should have been in London, or seen the newspapers as a whole, to judge of the exceedingly strong sensation that has been produced.”
“The reception of this tragedy,” wrote George Daniel, the famous critic and Editor of Cumberland’s British Theatre, “is a proof that, though the public have been wont to feed on garbage, they have no disinclination to wholesome food.... If in the character of Rienzi, Miss Mitford has shown that she can write with masculine energy, let Claudia bear witness that her wonted dominion over the heart is still in full force; that, with the power of agitating the soul by the fierce conflict of contending passions, a fine sensibility, a true pathos, a bewitching tenderness, are still her own, to relieve and illumine the dark shadows that veil the mysterious grandeur of the tragic muse.
“The sentiments are just and noble; the language is vigorous, picturesque and poetical.
“It was to be expected that the actor who plays Macbeth and Hamlet with such skill and effect as Mr. Young should be highly successful in Rienzi. His performance was a fine specimen of the Kemble school—chaste, vigorous and grand. Miss Phillips proved herself fully equal to sustain the character of the gentle Claudia. Her excellence lies in the expression of tenderness.”
Congratulations poured in upon the author from all quarters, and these, with countless invitations to festivities in her honour, nearly turned her head. Fulfilling a promise made at the Hofland’s house to Mrs. Hall, she went to dinner one evening during the run of Rienzi, and was, unconsciously, the cause of much merriment, fortunately suppressed. Mrs. Hall describes her as not appearing to advantage that evening; “her manner was constrained, and even haughty. She got up tragedy looks, which did not harmonize with her naturally playful expression. She seated herself in a high chair, and was indignant at the offer of a footstool, though her feet barely touched the ground; she received those who wished to be introduced to her en reine; but such was her popularity just then, that all were gratified. She was most unbecomingly dressed in a striped satin something, neither high nor low, with very short sleeves, for her arms were white and finely formed; she wore a large yellow turban, which added considerably to the size of her head. She had evidently bought the hideous thing en route, and put it on, in the carriage, as she drove to our house, for pinned at the back was a somewhat large card, on which were written in large letters, ‘VERY CHASTE—ONLY 5s. 3d.’ I had observed several of our party passing behind the chair, whispering and tittering, and soon ascertained the cause. Under pretence of settling her turban, I removed the obnoxious notice; and, of course, she never knew that so many wags had been merry at her cost.”
All very amusing; and yet, a picture which cannot fail to evoke our sympathy for the little woman so anxious to enjoy to the full her wonderful hour of success.
The play ran for fifty nights and enjoyed a truly remarkable sale in book form. In view of the popularity of Rienzi and, possibly, because she feared it might affect the run in some way, Miss Mitford now begged Kemble to postpone the production of Inez de Castro until some future date, to which he, of course, agreed.
Meanwhile, and in the November of the same year—that is, while Rienzi was still running—she made preparations towards the writing of a new play, founded on a German story, and to be called Otto of Wittelsbach.
Upon her return to Three Mile Cross she was again inundated with congratulations, both personal and written, and this, of course, proved a serious delay to her work, and, incidentally, led to a temporary break in her correspondence with her old friend, Sir William Elford. Conscience-stricken, she sent him a pretty letter—an amusing blend of contrition and excuse—on her birthday.
“Thinking over those whom I love and those who have been kind to me, as one does on these annual occasions, it occurred to me, my dear friend, that I had most unkindly checked your warmhearted interest in my doings. I was very busy—not quite well—and overwhelmed, beyond anything that can be conceived, by letters and visits of congratulation. I am now quite well again; and though still with much to do—much that I ought to have done to make up—yet, having fairly stemmed the tide of formal compliments, I steal a moment to tell you and your dear circle that Rienzi continues prosperous. It has passed the twentieth night, which, you know, insures the payment of four hundred pounds from the theatre (the largest price that any play can gain); and the sale of the tragedy has been so extraordinary, that I am told the fourth edition is nearly exhausted—which, as the publisher told me each edition would consist of at least two thousand, makes a circulation of eight thousand copies in two months.... Heaven grant I may ever do as well again! I shall have hard work to write up to my own reputation, for certainly I am at present greatly overrated.”
Among the many tributes of praise received by Rienzi’s author none gave greater delight than the one embodied in Lord Lytton’s Preface to his novel, Rienzi, which first appeared in 1835. “I cannot conclude,” it runs, “without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage to the versatile and gifted Author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi. Considering that our hero be the same—considering that we had the same materials from which to choose our several stories—I trust I shall be found to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously occupied. With the single exception of a love-intrigue between a relative of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes the plot of Miss Mitford’s Tragedy, and is little more than an episode in my Romance, having slight effect on the conduct and none on the fate of the hero, I am not aware of any resemblance between the two works; and even this coincidence I could easily have removed, had I deemed it the least advisable; but it would be almost discreditable if I had nothing that resembled a performance so much it were an honour to imitate.”