The mesmeric influence of the excitement filled Lucia with a glowing beauty; with a brilliance which made her seem a goddess—of her order. No one remarked whether the piece was properly gone through after this. I think it was not. From all that I can learn, I believe the audience watched Godiva to and fro till the palfrey or its rider grew exhausted, and then left en masse.
Paris was aflame next day. The papers said nothing—they were wise. There is, however, something more powerful even than the newspaper—it is conversation. Lucia had got conversation—her name was heard everywhere. It was not only the acting, or show—it could not be called acting—it was the fact of her position as Sternhold’s wife. She stood upon the pinnacle of his fame for wealth, brazen and shameless in the eyes of the world. Brazen and shameless, yet secure; for Aurelian never left her. He watched her himself. His son—his paid servants—did the same; not from fear of her indiscretion, but in order to appear as witnesses if any proceedings should take place.
Next night and next night, and again on the third night, this extraordinary spectacle was repeated. The crowds that came to the doors could not be admitted. But by this time the leading papers had felt the pulse of the people—not the excitable populace, but the steady people. With one consent they rushed at the exhibition with lance in rest. Improper was the softest insinuation. They were undoubtedly right. The moment they took this tone all the press followed, and before the week was over those who had the power had prohibited the performance.
Chapter Nine.
The exhibition was stopped, but the end had been attained—Lucia was famous. The manager and Aurelian had foreseen the inevitable official veto, and had prepared for it. They had arranged for her to appear as Cleopatra; it was a part which could be made to suit her admirably by leaving Shakespeare’s text out of the question, and studying spectacle instead.
It is a singular fact that Sternhold had no idea of what was going on until the fourth or fifth day. He was told that Lucia had left Stirmingham with her brother for a short visit to Paris, and paid little or no attention to it. For the first day or two the papers had been silent. At last the news reached him.
What Dodd had previously feared now happened—he was struck down with a slight attack of paralysis, which affected one side. Some persons said it was a merciful infliction, as it prevented him from witnessing his wife’s disgrace with his own eyes. They were wrong. His body was bent, but his mind was torn with contending and frenzied passions. The sense of outrage—of outrage upon his dignity—was perhaps the strongest. That after all his labour and self-denial, after long, long years of slowly building up a property such as his, which rendered him in his own estimation not one whit inferior to a king; that he should be insulted, his name dragged in the dirt, his wife a spectacle for all Paris!
Sternhold had the vaguest ideas of stage proprieties and theatrical morality. He had not a doubt but that Lucia was already an abandoned woman. There were plenty who urged upon him to commence a suit for divorce, though in reality it was extremely doubtful whether there were sufficient grounds for anything beyond a judicial separation.
But Sternhold was filled with one consuming desire—to see her with his own eyes. Whether it was this passion, or whether it was the natural strength of his constitution, certain it is that in a marvellously short time after the attack, he had himself conveyed to Paris, and sat, a miserable, haggard, broken-down old man, in a box at the theatre the same night, watching his wife upon the stage. He did this night after night. A species of fascination seemed to carry him there to sit silent, brooding over the utter wreck of his great schemes.