A Georgian Pageant

by Frank Frankfort Moore

This was how Lady Susan Fox-Strangways first met Mr. O'Brien, the actor whom Garrick had brought from Ireland in the year 1762. He good-naturedly agreed to help Sir Francis Délavai in his extremity, and his ready Irish tact enabled him to be the first to stipulate that his name should not appear in the bills—a condition with which Sir Francis complied, drawing a long breath.

“Mr. O'Brien,” he said, “should the stage ever fail you, a fortune awaits you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of being a gentleman.”

“Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out by the window,” said the actor. “It is Nature, not art, that makes a gentleman.”

One can well believe that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, with all the pride of her connection with a peerage nearly ten years old, treated Mr. O'Brien's accession to a place in the company of amateurs with some hauteur, though it was said that she fell in love with him at once. On consideration, her bearing of hauteur which we have ventured to assign to her, so far from being incompatible with her having fallen in love with him, would really be a natural consequence of such an accident, and the deeper she felt herself falling the more she would feel it necessary to assert her position, if only for the sake of convincing herself that it was impossible for her to forget herself so far as to think of an Irish play-actor as occupying any other position in regard to her than that of a diversion for the moment.

It was equally a matter of course that Lady Sarah should have an instinct of what was taking place. She had attended several of the rehearsals previously in the capacity of adviser to her friend, for Lady Susan had a high opinion of her critical capacity; but not until two rehearsals had taken place with O'Brien as Bellaire was she able to resume her attendance at Downing Street. Before half an hour had passed this astute lady had seen, first, that O'Brien made every other man in the cast seem a lout; and, secondly, that Lady Susan felt that every man in the world was a lout by the side of O'Brien.

She hoped to discover what were the impressions of O'Brien, but she found herself foiled: the man was too good an actor to betray himself. The fervour which he threw into the character when making love to Lady Susan had certainly the semblance of a real passion, but what did this mean more than that Mr. O'Brien was a convincing actor?

When she arrived at this point in her consideration of the situation Lady Sarah lost herself, and began to long with all her heart that the actor were making love to her—taking her hand with that incomparable devotion to—was it his art?—which he showed when Lady Susan's hand was raised, with a passionate glance into her eyes, to his lips; putting his arm about her waist, while his lips, trembling under the force of the protestations of undying devotion which they were uttering, were almost touching Lady Susan's ear. Before the love scene was over Lady Sarah was in love with the actor, if not with the man, O'Brien.

So was every lady in the cast. O'Brien was the handsomest actor of the day. He had been careful of his figure at a time when men of fashion lived in such a way as made the preservation of a figure well-nigh impossible. Every movement was grace itself with him, and the period was one in which the costume of a man gave him every chance of at least imitating a graceful man. All the others in the cast of the play seemed imitating the gracefulness of O'Brien, and every man of them seemed a clown beside him. They gave themselves countless graces, but he was grace itself.

Lady Sarah saw everything that was to be seen and said nothing. She was wise. She knew that in due time her friend would tell her all there was to be told.

She was not disappointed. The play was produced, and of course every one recognised O'Brien in the part, although the bill—printed in gold letters on a satin ground, with a charming allegorical design by Lady Diana Spencer, showing a dozen dainty cupids going to school with satchels—stated that Bellaire would be represented by “a gentleman.”