Mr. Mitchell, who from the first took charge of all my readings in England, and was the very kindest, most considerate, and most courteous of all managers, on one occasion, complaining bitterly to my sister of the unreasonable objection I had to all laudatory advertisements of my readings, said to her, with a voice and countenance of the most rueful melancholy, and with the most appealing pathos, "Why, you know, ma'am, it's really dreadful; you know, Mrs. Kemble won't even allow us to say in the bills, these celebrated readings; and you know, ma'am, it's really impossible to do with less; indeed it is! Why, ma'am, you know even Morrison's pills are always advertised as these celebrated pills!"—an illustration of the hardships of his case which my sister repeated to me with infinite delight.
When I saw the shop-windows full of Lawrence's sketch of me, and knew myself the subject of almost daily newspaper notices; when plates and saucers were brought to me with small figures of me as Juliet and Belvidera on them; and finally, when gentlemen showed me lovely buff-colored neck-handkerchiefs which they had bought, and which had, as I thought, pretty lilac-colored flowers all over them, which proved on nearer inspection to be minute copies of Lawrence's head of me, I not unnaturally, in the fullness of my inexperience, believed in my own success.
I have since known more of the manufacture of public enthusiasm and public triumphs, and, remembering to how many people it was a matter of vital importance that the public interest should be kept alive in me, and Covent Garden filled every night I played, I have become more skeptical upon the subject.
Seeing lately a copy of my play of "Francis the First," with (to my infinite astonishment) "tenth edition" upon it, I said to a friend, "I suppose this was a bit of bookseller's puffery; or did each edition consist of three copies?" He replied, "Oh, no, I think not; you have forgotten the furor there was about you when this came out." At twenty I believed it all; at sixty-eight I find it difficult to believe any of it.
It is certain, however, that I played Juliet upward of a hundred and twenty times running, with all the irregularity and unevenness and immature inequality of which I have spoken as characteristics which were never corrected in my performances. My mother, who never missed one of them, would sometimes come down from her box and, folding me in her arms, say only the very satisfactory words, "Beautiful, my dear!" Quite as often, if not oftener, the verdict was, "My dear, your performance was not fit to be seen! I don't know how you ever contrived to do the part decently; it must have been by some knack or trick which you appear to have entirely lost the secret of; you had better give the whole thing up at once than go on doing it so disgracefully ill." This was awful, and made my heart sink down into my shoes, whatever might have been the fervor of applause with which the audience had greeted my performance.
My life now became settled in its new shape. I acted regularly three times a week; I had no rehearsals, since "Romeo and Juliet" went on during the whole season, and so my mornings were still my own. I always dined in the middle of the day (and invariably on a mutton-chop, so that I might have been a Harrow boy, for diet); I was taken by my aunt early to the theater, and there in my dressing-room sat through the entire play, when I was not on the stage, with some piece of tapestry or needlework, with which, during the intervals of my tragic sorrows, I busied my fingers; my thoughts being occupied with the events of my next scene and the various effects it demanded. When I was called for the stage, my aunt came with me, carrying my train, that it might not sweep the dirty floor behind the scenes; and after spreading it out and adjusting its folds carefully, as I went on, she remained at the side scene till I came off again, then gathered it on her arm, and, folding a shawl around me, escorted me back to my dressing-room and tapestry; and so my theatrical evenings were passed. My parents would not allow me to go into the green-room, where they thought my attention would be distracted from my business, and where I might occasionally meet with undesirable associates. My salary was fixed at thirty guineas a week, and the Saturday after I came out I presented myself for the first and last time at the treasury of the theater to receive it, and carried it, clinking, with great triumph, to my mother, the first money I ever earned.
It would be difficult to imagine anything more radical than the change which three weeks had made in the aspect of my whole life. From an insignificant school-girl, I had suddenly become an object of general public interest. I was a little lion in society, and the town talk of the day. Approbation, admiration, adulation, were showered upon me; every condition of my life had been altered, as by the wand of a fairy. Instead of the twenty pounds a year which my poor father squeezed out of his hard-earned income for my allowance, out of which I bought (alas, with how much difficulty, seeing how many other things I would buy!) my gloves and shoes, I now had an assured income, as long as my health and faculties were unimpaired, of at least a thousand a year; and the thirty guineas a week at Covent Garden, and much larger remuneration during provincial tours, forever forbade the sense of destitution productive of the ecstasy with which, only a short time before I came out, I had found wedged into the bottom of my money drawer in my desk a sovereign that I had overlooked, and so had sorrowfully concluded myself penniless till next allowance day. Instead of trudging long distances afoot through the muddy London streets, when the hire of a hackney-coach was matter of serious consideration, I had a comfortable and elegant carriage; I was allowed, at my own earnest request, to take riding lessons, and before long had a charming horse of my own, and was able to afford the delight of giving my father one, the use of which I hoped would help to invigorate and refresh him. The faded, threadbare, turned, and dyed frocks which were my habitual wear were exchanged for fashionably made dresses of fresh colors and fine texture, in which I appeared to myself transfigured. Our door was besieged with visitors, our evenings bespoken by innumerable invitations; social civilities and courtesies poured in upon us from every side in an incessant stream; I was sought and petted and caressed by persons of conventional and real distinction, and every night that I did not act I might, if my parents had thought it prudent to let me do so, have passed in all the gayety of the fashionable world and the great London season. So much cordiality, sympathy, interest, and apparent genuine good-will seemed to accompany all these flattering demonstrations, that it was impossible for me not to be touched and gratified,—perhaps, too, unduly elated. If I was spoiled and my head turned, I can only say I think it would have needed a strong head not to be so; but God knows how pitiful a preparation all this tinsel, sudden success, and popularity formed for the duties and trials of my after-life.
CHAPTER XIII.
Among the persons whom I used to see behind the scenes were two who, for different reasons, attracted my attention: one was the Earl of W——, and the other the Rev. A.F. C——. I was presented to Lord and Lady W—— in society, and visited them more than once at their place near Manchester. But before I had made Lord W——'s acquaintance, he was an object of wondering admiration to me, not altogether unmixed with a slight sense of the ridiculous, only because it passed my comprehension how any real, live man could be so exactly like the description of a particular kind of man, in a particular kind of book. There was no fault to find with the elegance of his appearance and his remarkable good looks; he certainly was the beau ideal of a dandy,—with his slender, perfectly dressed figure, his pale complexion, regular features, fine eyes, and dark, glossy waves of hair, and the general aristocratic distinction of his whole person,—and was so like the Earl of So-and-So, in the fashionable novel of the day, that I always longed to ask him what he did at the end of the "third volume," and "whether he or Sir Reginald married Lady Geraldine." But why this exquisite par excellence should always have struck me as slightly absurd, I cannot imagine. The Rev. A.F. C—— was the natural son of William IV. and Mrs. Jordan, and vicar of Maple Durham; when first I came out, this young gentleman attended every one of my performances, first in one of the stage boxes and afterward in a still nearer position to the stage, one of the orchestra reserved seats. Thence, one night, he disappeared, and, to my surprise, I saw him standing at one of the side scenes during the whole play. My mother remarking at supper his non-attendance in his usual place, my father said that he had come to him at the beginning of the play, and asked, for his mother's sake, to be allowed occasionally to present himself behind the scenes. My father said this reference to Mrs. Jordan had induced him to grant the request so put, though he did not think the back of the scenes a very proper haunt for a gentleman of his cloth. There, however, Mr. F. C—— came, and evening after evening I saw his light kid gloves waving and gesticulating about, following in a sort of sympathetic dumb show the gradual development of my distress, to the end of the play. My father, at his request, presented him to me, but as I never remained behind the scenes or went into the green-room, and as he could not very well follow me upon the stage, our intercourse was limited to silent bows and courtesies, as I went on and off, to my palace in Verona, or from Friar Laurence's cell. Mr. F. C—— appeared to me to have slightly mistaken his vocation: that others had done so for him was made more manifest to me by my subsequent acquaintance with him. I encountered him one evening at a very gay ball given by the Countess de S——. Almost as soon as I came into the room he rushed at me, exclaiming, "Oh, do come and dance with me, that's a dear good girl." The "dear good girl" had not the slightest objection to dancing with anybody, dancing being then my predominant passion, and a chair a perfectly satisfactory partner if none other could be come by. While dancing, I was unpleasantly struck with the decidedly unreverend tone of my partner's remarks. Clergymen danced in those days without reproach, but I hope that even in those days of dancing clerks they did not often talk so very much to match the tripping of the light fantastic toe. My amazement reached its climax when, seeing me exchange signs of amicable familiarity with some one across the room, Mr. F. C—— said, "Who are you nodding and smiling to? Oh, your father. You are very fond of him, ain't you?" To my enthusiastic reply in the affirmative, he said, "Ah, yes; just so. I dare say you are." And then followed an expression of his filial disrespect for the highest personage in the realm, of such a robust significance as fairly took away my breath. Surprised into a momentary doubt of my partner's sobriety, I could only say, "Mr. F. C——, if you do not change your style of conversation I must sit down and leave you to finish the dance alone." He confounded himself in repeated apologies and entreaties that I would finish the dance with him, and as I could not find a word to say to him, he went on eagerly to excuse himself by a short sketch of his life, telling me that he had not been bred to the Church and had the greatest disinclination to taking orders; that he had been trained as a sailor, the navy being the career that he preferred above all others, but that in consequence of the death of a brother he had been literally taken from on board ship, and, in spite of the utmost reluctance on his part, compelled to go into the Church. "Don't you think it's a hard case?" reiterated he, as I still found it difficult to express my opinion either of him or of his "case," both appearing to me equally deplorable. At length I suggested that, since he had adopted the sacred calling he professed, perhaps it would be better if he conformed to it at least by outward decency of language and decorum of demeanor. To this he assented, adding with a sigh, "But, you see, some people have a natural turn for religion; you have, for instance, I'm sure; but you see I have not." This appeared to me incontrovertible. Presently, after a pause, he asked me if I would write a sermon for him, which tribute to my talent for preaching, of which he had just undergone a sample, sent me into fits of laughter, though I replied with some indignation, "Certainly not; I am not a proper person to write sermons, and you ought to write your own!" "Yes," said he, with rather touching humility, "but you see I can't,—not good ones, at least. I'm sure you could, and I wish you would write one for me; Mrs. N—— has." This statement terminated the singular conversation, which had been the accompaniment to a quadrille. The vicar of Maple Durham is dead; had he lived he would doubtless have become a bishop; his family had already furnished its contingent to the army and navy, in Lord E. and Lord A.F. C——, and the living of Maple Durham had to be filled and he to be provided for; and whenever the virtues of the Established Church system are under discussion, I try to forget this, and one or two similar instances I have known of its vices as it existed in those days. But that was near "fifty years since," and such a story as that of my poor sailor-parson friend could hardly be told now. Nor could one often now in any part of England find the fellow of my friend H. D——, who was also the predestined incumbent of a family living. He was passionately fond of hunting; and, clinging to his beloved "pink" even after holy orders had made it rather indecorous wear, used to huddle on his sacred garments of office at week-day solemnities of marrying or burying, and, having accomplished his clerical duties, rapidly divest himself of his holy robes, and bloom forth in unmitigated scarlet and buckskins, while the temporary cloud of sanctity which had obscured them was rapidly rolled into the vestry closet.