She rose also, and stretching her hand clasped his, like a sister.
“I promise. I know well that life is not all a comedy of Congreve’s—witty, wicked, and with no truth anywhere. Your Grace is all honour. I will shape my steps by yours.”
He bowed low, and kissed the hand that held his,—then departed in silence.
My Lady Fanny sat alone weeping.
CHAPTER X
WAS at this point that life became very difficult for both Miss Polly and Madam Diana. Her company at the playhouse was not what she would have chose, to say no more, and Mrs. Slammikin, Dolly Trull, Mrs. Vixen, Betty Doxy and others might possibly play their parts so finely as to charm the town because they were almost a second nature with them. She certainly believed it so, and it stood in the way of the comradeship of players which, however mixt with jealousies, subsists behind the scenes. Affront her openly they dared not, for Mr. Rich’s piercing eye was about, and his consideration for a Polly who had lined his pockets with gold until they jingled again, prevented any open persecution. He knew well how much he owed her, and even were gratitude lacking as it was not, he knew that Mr. Gay had it in hand to write a sequel to this shining success, and was in mind to call the new piece “Polly.” Where then in all the world could it be possible to replace the lovely Polly who had crowned the first venture, should she go off in a tiff?
Beside, the girl was the rage. Verses were made on her, and not one but lauded her grace, her starry eyes, her voice angelic, and the Lord knows what! Pamphlets were writ of her life with scarce a grain of truth to the bushel. Fine ladies wore a head-dress surnamed the Polly head,—a little cap of Quakerish demureness with a straw hat atop,—but they loaded it with flowers and ribbons and so spoilt its simplicity. Her figure, appealing, gentle, with claspt hands praying to her Macheath, the violent Lucy t’other side of him, took the town with a kind of emotion as yet untasted, the women as well as the men. They too would pet the pretty creature and give her her heart’s desire for the sake of those sweet virginal looks blooming like a flower in the Newgate filth and obscenity. They laughed with her but never at her. The music was sung everywhere and the trills and quirks of the Italian Opera utterly forgot in favour of the fine old English tunes, “Lumps of Pudding,”—“What gudgeons are we men,”—“London Ladies,” and so forth, which bespangle “The Beggar’s Opera,” to Mr. Gay’s fine new words.