"But you have a number of pianofortes," replied Jarrett. "You have music shops here and in Scotland whose contents and goodwill can be sold."
"You wish to ruin me?" asked Wood.
"You did not mind ruining me in 1854," answered Jarrett, "when we carried on Opera together and you left me to bear the burden of your losses."
It is bad enough for a manager to lose money, hoping night after night that by some new and successful stroke, or some change of taste on the part of the capricious public, the tide of luck may at last turn in his favour. But Mr. Wood had no such sanguine delusions to maintain him in his adversity; his losses were irretrievable. They increased as the season went on without any chance of being even arrested; and in the end anyone but a man of Mr. Wood's indomitable energy and courage would have been ruined beyond hope of recovery.
During the Wood season at Drury Lane many interesting performances were given, including Wagner's Flying Dutchman, with Ilma de Murska as the heroine and Santley as the hero; Mignon, with Mdme. Christine Nilsson; also Weber's Abu Hassan, each for the first time in England. But the enterprise could not stand against the superior attractions of the Royal Italian Opera, while the Royal Italian Opera, on its side, suffered in its receipts from the counter attraction presented by Drury Lane.
Towards the end of the season, war having been declared between France and Germany, Mdme. Pauline Lucca became anxious about her husband, who was an officer in a Prussian cavalry regiment, and now under campaigning orders. She was anxious, therefore, to see him before his departure with the army moving towards the French frontier. Some weeks afterwards, at the battle of Mars la Tour, a portion of the Prussian cavalry was sacrificed in order to hold in check the French, who were seeking to leave Metz in order to march towards Paris. Mdme. Lucca's husband, Baron von Rhaden, was dangerously wounded in the charge; and the Baroness received special permission to visit him in the field hospital, where he was lying, outside Metz. Another officer of the same regiment, also wounded, came in for a good share of her attentions; and afterwards, being at that time in the United States, she applied in the New York Courts for a divorce from Baron von Rhaden in order to marry Baron von Wallhofen, the officer, who—as just mentioned—had, like Von Rhaden, been severely wounded at Mars la Tour. The New York Tribunal granted the divorce on Mdme. Lucca's simple affidavit; and before her husband (No. 1) had had time to reply by a counter affidavit from Berlin the second marriage had been celebrated. Such being the case the decree of divorce, so hastily pronounced, could not well be interfered with. So, at least, said the judges to whom the matter was referred; and Mdme. Pauline Lucca remained as she is now, Baroness von Wallhofen.
CHAPTER X.
GYE'S FRATERNAL EMBRACE—LAW-SUITS INTERMINABLE—DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP—RETURN TO DRURY LANE—ARRIVAL OF ALBANI—DÉBUT OF CAMPANINI—THE ANNUAL ONSLAUGHTS OF MR. GYE.
I SOON found that Mr. Gye, on the principle of embracing pour mieux étrangler, had taken me into partnership in order to stifle me at his ease.
In the early part of June, 1869, Mr. Gye suggested to me that it would be very desirable to renew my lease of Her Majesty's Theatre in order to get rid of a provision in the existing one, under which the Earl of Dudley had the power to determine it in the month of February in any year. Gye expressed his intention of seeing the Earl of Dudley on the subject, and at this interview it was agreed that the Earl should grant a new lease for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, Mr. Gye requesting that it should be granted either to himself alone or to Gye and Mapleson conjointly. The Earl decided the latter to be more desirable, requesting that the new lease should be signed on or before the 1st September. In due course we were informed that the lease was ready for signature.