“It is astonishing how faithful ladies are when not what is called beautiful. I speak from painful experience,” said Losely, growing debonnair as the liquor relaxed his gloom, and regaining that levity of tongue which sometimes strayed into wit, and which-springing originally from animal spirits and redundant health—still came to him mechanically whenever roused by companionship from alternate intervals of lethargy and pain. “But, now, Mr. Rugge, I am all ears; perhaps you will be kind enough to be all tale.”
With tragic aspect, unrelaxed by that jeu de mots, and still wholly unrecognising in the massive form and discoloured swollen countenance of the rough-clad stranger, the elegant proportions, the healthful, blooming, showy face, and elaborate fopperies of the Jasper Losely who had sold to him a Phenomenon which proved so evanishing, Rugge entered into a prolix history of his wrongs at the hands of Waife, of Losely, of Sophy. Only of Mrs. Crane did he speak with respect; and Jasper then for the first time learned—and rather with anger for the interference than gratitude for the generosity—that she had repaid the L100, and thereby cancelled Rugge’s claim upon the child. The ex-manager then proceeded to the narrative of his subsequent misfortunes—all of which he laid to the charge of Waife and the Phenomenon. “Sir,” said he, “I was ambitious. From my childhood’s hour I dreamed of the great York Theatre—dreamed of it literally thrice. Fatal Vision! But like other dreams, that dream would have faded—been forgotten in the workday world—and I should not have fallen into the sere and yellow, but have had, as formerly, troops of friends, and not been reduced to the horrors of poverty and a faithful Hag. But, sir, when I first took to my bosom that fiend William Waife, he exhibited a genius, sir, that Dowton (you have seen Dowton?—grand) was a stick as compared with. Then my ambition, sir, blazed and flared up-obstreperous, and my childhood’s dream haunted me; and I went about musing [Hag, you recollect!]—and muttering ‘The Royal Theatre at York.’ But, incredible though it seem, the ungrateful scorpion left me with a treacherous design to exhibit the parts I had fostered on the London boards; and even-handed Justice, sir, returned the poisoned chalice to his lips, causing him to lose an eye and to hobble—besides splitting up his voice—which served him right. And again I took the scorpion for the sake of the Phenomenon. I had a babe myself once, sir, though you may not think it. Gormerick (that is this faithful Hag) gave the babe Daffy’s Elixir, in teething; but it died—convulsions. I comforted myself when that Phenomenon came out on my stage—in pink satin and pearls. ‘Ha,’ I said, ‘the great York Theatre shall yet be mine!’ The haunting idea became a Mania, sir. The learned say that there is a Mania called Money Mania—[Monomania??]—when one can think but of the one thing needful—as the guilty Thane saw the dagger, sir—you understand. And when the Phenomenon had vanished and gone, as I was told, to America, where I now wish I was myself, acting Rolla at New York or elsewhere, to a free and enlightened people—then, sir, the Mania grew on me still stronger and stronger. There was a pride in it, sir, a British pride.
“I said to this faithful Hag: ‘What—shall I not have the York because that false child has deserted me? Am I not able to realise a Briton’s ambition without being beholden to a Phenomenon in spangles?’ Sir, I took the York! Alone I did it!”
“And,” said Losely, feeling a sort of dreary satisfaction in listening to the grotesque sorrows of one whose condition seemed to him yet more abject than his own—“And the York Theatre alone perhaps did you.”
“Right, sir,” said Rugge—half-dolorously, half-exultingly. “It was a Grand Concern, and might have done for the Bank of England! It swallowed up my capital with as much ease, sir, as I could swallow an oyster if there were one upon that plate! I saw how it would be, the very first week—when I came out myself, strong—Kean’s own part in the Iron Chest—Mortimer, sir; there warn’t three pounds ten in the house—packed audience, sir, and they had the face to hiss me. ‘Hag,’ said I to Mrs. Gormerick, ‘this Theatre is a howling wilderness.’ But there is a fascination in a Grand Concern, of which one is the head—one goes on and on. All the savings of a life devoted to the British Drama and the production of native genius went in what I may call—a jiffey! But it was no common object, sir, to your sight displayed—but what with pleasure, sir (I appeal to the Hag), Heaven itself surveyed!—a great man struggling, sir, with the storms of fate, and greatly falling, sir, with—a sensation! York remembers it to this day! I took the benefit of the Act—it was the only benefit I did take—and nobody was the better for it. But I don’t repine—I realised my dream: that is more than all can say. Since then I have had many downs, and no ups. I have been a messenger, sir—a prompter, sir, in my own Exhibition, to which my own clown, having married into the tragic line, succeeded, sir, as proprietor; buying of me when I took the York, the theatre, scenery, and properties, sir, with the right still to call himself ‘Rugge’s Grand Theatrical Exhibition,’ for an old song, sir—Melancholy. Tyrannised over, sir—snubbed and bullied by a creature dressed in a little brief authority; and my own tights—scarlet—as worn by me in my own applauded part of ‘The Remorseless Baron.’ At last, with this one faithful creature, I resolved to burst the chains—to be free as air—in short, a chartered libertine, sir. We have not much, but thank the immortal gods, we are independent, sir—the Hag and I—chartered libertines! And we are alive still—at which, in strict confidence, I may own to you that I am astonished.”
“Yes! you do live,” said Jasper, much interested—for how to live at all was at that moment a matter of considerable doubt to himself; “you do live—it is amazing! How?”
“The Faithful tells fortunes; and sometimes we pick up windfalls—widows and elderly single ladies—but it is dangerous. Labour is sweet, sir: but not hard labour in the dungeons of a Bridewell. She has known that labour, sir; and in those intervals I missed her much, Don’t cry, Hag; I repeat, I live!”
“I understand now; you live upon her! They are the best of creatures, these hags, as you call them, certainly. Well, well, no saying what a man may come to! I suppose you have never seen Waife, nor that fellow you say was so well-dressed and good-looking, and who sold you the Phenomenon, nor the Phenomenon herself—Eh?” added Losely, stretching himself, and yawning, as he saw the brandybottle was finished.
“I have seen Waife—the one-eyed monster! Aha!—I have seen him!—and yesterday too; and a great comfort it was to me too!”
“You saw Waife yesterday—where?”