“I will work my fingers to the bone,” I said, with tears in my eyes.
“Not quite so bad as that,” he answered. “Bones ain’t negotiable assets. Have you ever thought on the stage, now, for a living?”
“I believe, without much study, I could make an actress,” I said.
“With none at all,” said he confidently. “I have a friend in Westley of Drury Lane, and will see if he can put you in the way to a part. I should fear the publicity, i’ faith, but that my lord has taken his grievances to the Continent for an airing, and in the interval we are safe to act.”
Good loyal friend! He found us pretty snug quarters over a little shop in Long Acre, where, keeping to our pseudonym of the Misses Rush, we bided while he negotiated terms for me. He was successful, when once I had been interviewed by the management; and, to cut short this melancholy story, I made my first appearance on the boards as the fairy Primrose in the Christmas masque of the Dragon of Wantley. I had a little song to sing about a butterfly, which never failed to bring down the house; and altogether, I was growing not unhappy in the novelty of the venture, when that, with almost my life, was ended at a blow.
But first I must relate of the most surprising contretemps that ever I was to experience, and which had the strangest and most immediate bearing on my destinies.
I had noticed frequently that the hind legs of the dragon would linger unaccountably, when the absurd monster, on his way off the stage, happened to pass me standing in the wings. This would lead to much muffled recrimination from the forequarters, which, exhausted by their antics, aimed only at getting to their beer; the consequence being that one eventful night, what between the haulings and contortions, the back seam of the creature split, and out there rolled before my eyes—Gogo.
He picked himself up immediately, and stood regarding me silently, with a most doleful visage. My dear, I cannot describe what emotions swept my soul in a little storm of laughter—the astonishment, the pity, the bewilderment! In the midst, too confounded to arrange my thoughts, I turned away, affecting not to recognise him; seeing which, he uttered one enormous sigh, and stumped off to face the battery of the stage-manager’s indignation.
I must have put a world of feeling that night into my little song about the poor butterfly, that was stripped of its wings by a cruel boy, and so prevented from keeping its assignation with the rose, insomuch that it moved a very beautiful lady, who was present in a private box, to send for me that she might thank me in person.
We had all of us, of course, heard of, and some of us remembered, perhaps, chucking under the chin, the ravishing Mrs. Hart, who, from pulling mugs of beer to the pinks of Drury Lane, had risen to be chère amie to his excellency the British Ambassador at Naples, and, quite recently, his lady. She had lately come to London, à travers tous les obstacles, to be made an honest woman of, and it was she who craved the introduction, to which you may be sure I responded with as much alacrity as curiosity. I could have no doubt of her the moment I entered the box, and made, with becoming naïveté, my little curtsey. She was certainly very handsome, in spite of her twenty-seven years and her large feet, though, I thought, lacking in grace. But her face was beautifully formed, with a complexion of apple-blossoms, and red lips a little swollen with kissing, and, to crown everything, a great glory of chestnut hair. There were tears in her fine eyes as she turned impulsively to address me—