CHAPTER XV.
RETIREMENT.
What wonder that Mrs. Siddons now seriously began to think of retirement. Already, in 1805, she had written to a friend: “It is better to work hard and have done with it. If I can but add three hundred a year to my present income, I shall be perfectly well provided for; and I am resolved when that is accomplished to make no more positive engagements in summer. I trust that God in His great mercy will enable me to do it; and then, oh, how lazy, and saucy, and happy will I be! You will have something to do, I can tell you, my dear, to keep me in order.” This longing now became a distinct determination.
In two letters written some time before, one to James Ballantyne and one to Lady Harcourt, she gave expression to this determination. To Lady Harcourt she wrote:—
“You see where I am, and must know the place by representations as well as reports, I daresay, at least my lord does, yea, ‘every coigne and vantage’ of this venerable pile, and envies me the view of it just before me where I am writing. This is an inn. I set myself down here for the advantage of pure air and perfect quiet, rather than lodge in Leeds, most disagreeable town in His Majesty’s dominions, God bless him. This day my task finishes. I have played there four nights, and am very tired of Kirkstall Abbey. It is too sombre for a person of my age, and I am no antiquarian. It is, however, extremely beautiful. I am going to York for a week, and I hope while I am there to hear from you, my ever dear Lady Harcourt. I must work a little while longer to realise the blessed prospect (almost, I thank God, within my view) of sitting down in peace and quiet for the remainder of my life. About £250 more a year will secure to me the comfort of a carriage, and, believe me, it is one of the favourite objects in that prospect that I shall have the happiness of seeing you and my dear Lord Harcourt often, very often; for though time and circumstances, and that proud barrier of high birth, have all combined to separate our persons, yet allow me the modest ambition to think our minds are kindred ones, and, on my part, united ever since I had the honour and good fortune to be known to you. How could it be otherwise, since to know you both is to esteem and love you? And now, my dear Lady Harcourt, I must leave you to dress for Belvidera. It is very sulky weather, and I am not i’ the mood for acting, but I must play yet a little while longer, and then! how peaceful, how comfortable shall I be, after the storms, the tempests, and afflictions of my laborious life! God bless and preserve you, who are to make a large share of my happiness in that hour of peace.”
To James Ballantyne she expresses herself in the same tenor:—
“I am wandering about the world to get a little more money. I am trying to Secure to myself the comfort of a Carriage, which is now an absolute necessary to me, and then—then will I sit down in quiet to the end of my days. You will perhaps be surprised to hear that I am not abundantly rich, but you know not the expences I have incurred in times past and the losses I have Sustain’d; they drain ones purse beyond imagination. I shall be at York till the 15th inst., from thence I go to Birmingham where I shall remain till the 4th of August, from the 25th of August till the 1st of Septr. I shall be at Manchester and then return ‘to that dear Hut my home.’ You would scarcely know that Sweet little Spot it is so improv’d Since you Saw it. I believe tho’ I wrote you about my new dining Room and the pretty Bedchamber at the end of it, where you are to sleep unannoyd by your former neighbours in their mangers, Stalls, I shou’d say, I believe. All the Lawrells are green and flourishing, all the wooden garden pales, hidden by Sweet Shrubs and flow’rs that form a verdant wall all round me: oh! it is the prettiest little nook in all the world, and I do hope you will Soon come and Say you think so. Your letter Surpris’d me in my Garden of Eden, where it found me, ‘chewing the Cud of Sweet and bitter fancy,’ you making that very moment the principal person in the Drama of my musings—and ‘I said in my haste all men are liars.’ It was more than probable that business, pleasure, illness and persons perhaps less deserving your regard, might have diverted recollection from one So distant So incapable of heightening the joys, alleviating the Sorrows of this ‘working day world’ and our hearts naturally yearn to those who Share our weal and woe. Yes, said I, his taste and feelings are alive to my talents; but he does not know me well enough to value me for Some qualities of greater worth, which in the honest pride of my heart I will not blush to say I possess—he admires me for my Celebrity which is all he knows of me. No blame therefore attaches to him: he is ignorant of my real character, which if he knew he would also approve; at least if I am not much mistaken in myself and him—in myself I’m sure I am not mistaken. It is a vulgar error to say we are ignorant of ourselves, for I am quite Sure that those who think at all Seriously must know themselves better than any other individual can.”
She had served the public for over thirty-five years, and was now in her fifty-sixth year. Long since the ten thousand pounds, which was the original sum with which in the heyday of her prosperity she said she would rest content, had been doubled. Some of this had been unfortunately invested by Mr. Siddons, and some had been lost in Sheridan’s bankruptcy; but still, for a person who had no very expensive personal tastes, whose children were all provided for, it was a handsome provision.
Physical disabilities also began now to interfere with her dramatic effects. Alas! for the days when an “exquisite, fragile, creature” acted Venus in Garrick’s procession, and with her rosy lips whispered promises of sweetmeats into little Tommy Dibdin’s ear. The actress had grown stout and unwieldy in person. When she acted Isabella, and knelt to the Duke, imploring mercy for her brother, two attendants had to come forward to help her to rise; and to make this appear correct, the same ceremony was gone through with a young actress who performed the same part and did not need any assistance whatever. By caricatures and portraits done of her at the time we can see how unshapely she had become. Conventionality and hardness replaced the old spontaneity and pathos; the action of the arms was more pronounced, the voice was unduly raised, and the deficiency in beauty and charm was supplied by energy and rant. Mrs. Siddons was only two years older than her brother, but her physical and mental gifts had deteriorated much more rapidly. The fact of the sister’s dramatic power having been a natural gift, and his the result of industry and hard work, made hers fail more completely with waning strength. Besides all the disabilities of advancing age, that terrible fear of being supplanted was ever before her eyes. Mrs. Jordan had some years before snatched the laurels from her brow in Rosalind; now rumours were wafted across the Channel of a young and lovely actress, Miss O’Neill, who had taken all hearts captive as Juliet (a part Mrs. Siddons could never personate satisfactorily); the matchless beauty of form of the young aspirant, her sensibility and tenderness were the theme of every tongue. “To hear these people talk, one would think I had never drawn a tear,” she said sadly.
The old sensitiveness and pride remained. She accused the public of taking pleasure in mortifying their old favourites by setting up new idols; “I have been three times threatened with eclipse, first by means of Miss Brunton (afterwards Lady Craven), next by means of Miss Smith, and lastly by means of Miss O’Neill; nevertheless,” she added, “I am not yet extinguished.” Mrs. Siddons had no right to complain. She had drunk fully the draught of success and appreciation, and had been singularly exempt from rivalry in her own particular walk. No public, however indulgent, can save an actress from the penalties of old age. She herself had supplanted Mrs. Crawford, and not very gently. The transition point—the last in her life—had been reached, the chapter of active professional life was closed for ever, yet she could not resign herself to accept the decrepitude and inactivity of old age. “I feel as if I were mounting the first steps of a ladder conducting me to another world,” she sighed. Moore mentions meeting her at the house of Rogers:
“Mrs. Siddons came in the evening; had a good deal of conversation with her, and was, for the first time in my life, interested by her off the stage. She talked of the loss of friends, and mentioned herself as having lost twenty-six friends in the course of the last six years. It is something to have had so many. Among other reasons for her regret at leaving the stage was, that she always found in it a vent for her private sorrows, which enabled her to bear them better; and often she has got credit for the truth and feeling of her acting when she was doing nothing more than relieving her own heart of its grief.”