Once, during a Garrick month, a crowd of people dropped in unexpectedly to tea. Garrick eyed them with scarce-disguised hostility. Peg was delighted to see them. But no more so than if their call had come on her month for paying the bills, for she was lavishly hospitable, and was always generous—even prodigal to a fault; traits that caused her thrifty lover much pain.
To-day, as usual, Peg brewed the tea. Glancing at his own new-filled cup, as Macbeth might have glared at the imaginary Banquo, Garrick groaned aloud:
"Peg, you've made this tea so strong it's as red as blood. Zounds, ma'am, d'ye think 'tis to be bought at a penny the pound that you squander it so?"
It has ever been the fashion of romantic chroniclers, in writing of this strange union, to paint Peg as a suffering saint and Garrick as a crank. The latter picture is flawless. The former, unluckily, is not.
For, though Peg loved the actor manager and—temporarily—loved no one else, yet it was not in her superwoman nature to rest meekly content with the attentions of one man. Even though that man chanced to be the celebrated Davy Garrick. Running through the warp of her love was a woof of flirtations.
For one instance, Lord Darnley, a rich and notorious Piccadilly gallant, proclaimed himself her adorer. Flattered at so famous a nobleman's love, Peg flirted outrageously with Darnley. She even denied to him that she cared for Garrick.
Once Darnley found Garrick's wig in Peg's boudoir and railed at her infidelity to himself. Peg explained that she had borrowed the actor's wig and had brought it home in order to practice in it a masculine role she was soon to play at the Drury Lane.
Garrick, in jealous wrath, protested against her affair with Darnley. So she swore to Garrick that she had dismissed his rival—and gayly continued to meet Darnley on the sly. In time, Garrick found her out and the discovery led to their separation. Afterward, in remorse, Peg is said to have dropped Darnley. But then, as usual, it was too late for her renunciation to do any good except to punish herself.
Time after time Garrick had set back the date of the wedding. When at last the Darnley crisis came, Peg asked him frankly if he meant to keep his pledge or not. He replied gloomily that he did. And he went out and bought a wedding ring. He sighed in utter misery as he slipped the gold loop on her finger. Out flashed Peg's Irish temper.
"If you had ten times the wealth and repute and ability that the world credits you with," she declared, "I would not become your wife after this silent confession."