CHAPTER II.
THE ACTRESS AND THE WAIF.
A lady—a genius, beautiful in face, well formed in person, one of Nature’s nobility if of doubtful pedigree—had been giving a Shakespearian reading or recitation, it matters not which, to a highly respectable audience in a highly respectable county town. The leading county families had, as they were bound to do, put in an appearance on the occasion. Wealthy manufacturers, who did not much care about that sort of thing themselves, had sent their women-folk, always delighted to show that they could dress as well, and look as grand, as the wives and daughters of men whose ancestors had fought at Agincourt or at the Battle of Hastings. Bevies of sweet girl graduates, from the neighbouring female academies, had come to listen and admire; while a few of the superior class of tradesmen and local magnates had kindly condescended to patronize the star that had suddenly appeared in their midst, and whose portrait for some weeks previous had ornamented their walls and shop windows—in the case of the latter by means of photographs, while big lithographs were available for posters. The audience were deeply affected, some with the loveliness of the actress, others, a more select and elderly party, with her dramatic power. According to local journals, the actress was greeted with an ovation as she resumed her seat. All eyes were turned on her as she retired from the scene of her triumphs, fevered with excitement, wearied with her physical exertion, flushed with the applause she had honestly won, her brain still reeking with excitement, her whole figure quivering with emotion, her eyes still glistening with the light that never shone on sea or shore.
By the side of the public hall was a small committee-room, into which our heroine was led, having previously effected a change in her dress and put on her bonnet.
‘How far is it to the railway-station?’ she asked of the committee who had managed the undertaking, and who, as the model men of the town, embalmed or embodied in themselves all those superior virtues which we invariably associate with respectability and wealth, as they stood in a semicircle round her chair, timidly and admiringly—timidly, for they were all respectable married men and had characters to lose; admiringly, because for two hours the actress, by her magic art, had opened up to them something greater and grander than even the busy life of Sloville town itself.
‘How far is it to the railway-station?’ repeated the Mayor, with an anxious and troubled visage, as if such a question had never been put to him before.
‘A carriage will take you there in less than ten minutes,’ said the Town Clerk, rushing, as he was bound to do, to the relief of the august head of the Corporation.
‘My mare will take you there in five minutes,’ said the old church Vicar, not willing to hide his light under a bushel, and at the same time glad to say a good word for the animal in question. His reverence, it is to be feared, was not much of a theologian, but there were two things which everyone admitted he did understand, and they were—horses and wine.
‘My brougham is quite at your service,’ said the Mayor, who was of the party, and who began to fear that unless he asserted himself he would be left out in the cold altogether.
‘Thank you, gentlemen, but I’d rather walk,’ said the actress.
She had passed her childhood in that town, and she was anxious to see what alterations had been made by Time’s effacing fingers since she had last looked wistfully at its shop-windows, or with girlish glee had walked its streets.