"Sing? My lad, she has the voice of a nightingale. Pepusch agrees with me. I'll swear there's no singing woman outside the King's Theatre—or inside, for the matter of that—who can hold a candle by the side of her. Have you forgotten the pretty baggage who so charmed us at the Maiden Head?"
"Not I, faith. I was but jesting. And so you've fixed upon her. But I hear that Mr. Rich has set his face against so many songs. He won't take your Polly merely because she can sing."
"Mr. Rich is a fool—in some things," rejoined Gay hastily. "He can dance, I grant you, and posture as no other man can, and he thinks he can act! I heard him once at a party of friends. My good Spiller, if his vanity ever prompted him to air his voice on the stage, the people would think he was mocking them, and one half would laugh and the other half boo and hiss."
"I know—I know. Still, he holds command, and he likes his own way, no man better."
"No doubt, but whatever a man wills he has to give up when a woman says yea or nay. My good duchess means to have a word with him over the songs."
"If that's so John Rich had better capitulate at once. He's as good as beaten."
Lavinia could only catch a word of this talk here and there. She was being pestered by half a dozen sparkish admirers who were somewhat taken aback when they discovered that the "gentlewoman who had never appear'd on any stage before" could more than hold her own in repartee and give the fops of fashion as good as or better than they gave. How could they tell that the sprightly young budding actress had graduated in the wit and slang of the streets?
But she was pestered and peeved all the same, for she dearly wanted to talk to Gay and Spiller. At last the modish gadflies got tired of having their smart talk turned against them, and one by one fell off, especially as Huddy, whose blunt speech was not much to their taste, came up and intruded without apology into their vapid banter.
"The gal's done well, Spiller," said Huddy, "and I'm obleeged to ye. Now I want to get on the road and waste no time about it. I ought to be at Woolwich afore a fortnight's over, then Dartford, Gravesend, Rochester, Maidstone, and so away on to Dover. What d'ye say, miss? I can give ye a good engagement—no fixed salary in course—sharing out, that's the rule with travelling companies—Mr. Spiller knows what I'm a'telling you is right."
Lavinia hardly knew what to say to this, and she turned to Spiller for advice. Huddy saw the look of doubt on her face, and went on with his argument.