The doctor told me all that happened when I saw him that evening; for, you may be sure, I was very anxious to know how matters had been arranged.
The young fellow had to leave at six o’clock, as he had to get to the theatre at eight; but after dinner he had a long private talk with the clergyman, who, it seems, had Mrs. Elmore’s instructions in the matter.
The young fellow agreed to give up his profession at once, for the young lady’s sake. Of course it was a blow to him, as he was getting on very nicely; and I’ve heard that a man or a woman who has once had a success on the stage is always hankering after the footlights and applause, and it makes them very unhappy to be away from them.
However, Mr. Leighton gave up acting for Miss Elmore’s sake. He got the manager to release him from his engagement, and he began to look about for some appointment that would bring him in five hundred pounds a year; as, of course, he didn’t want to live on the young lady’s mother, or the young lady, who, it seems, had three hundred pounds a year in her own right.
The young lady got quite well and left our hotel, and six months afterwards I read of her marriage in the papers, and the next day a three-cornered box arrived by post, and when I opened it there was a lovely piece of wedding-cake for me, with Mr. and Mrs. Frank Leighton’s compliments.
And some time afterwards I heard that, through the death of a relative, the young gentleman had come into a large fortune and a title—yes, a title!—and that dear Miss Elmore, that we thought would die in our house of a broken heart, lived to be a happy wife and mother, and to be called “my lady.”
I am pretty sure that Mrs. Elmore wouldn’t have given her daughter those “religious whackings,” as Harry called them, if she had known that the play-actor the poor young lady was in love with was going to have a title. What I know of the world has taught me that.
When I read the news I said to Mr Wilkins, “Well, Mr. Wilkins, what about play-actors being rogues and vagabonds now?—here is one that is a person of rank.”
“Oh yes,” he said, “I dare say; but rank isn’t what it was in the good old times. I have been told there is a baronet working as a labourer in the docks, and his wife, who is ‘my lady,’ goes out charing.”
Wilkins is certainly not so nice as he used to be. Perhaps it is age that is souring him; but we have never been such good friends since that business about the “Memoirs.” And he has the gout, too. I will be charitable, and put his nasty remarks down to his gout. I have heard it does make people very disagreeable. I once lived in a family where the master had the gout, and——