‘What beast was’t, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?’
And now oblige me by walking your body off, for I have got my yesterday’s guard report to fill up and send in, in default of which I shall be sure to catch an ‘official’ from the Brigade-Major.”
But Fred not only did not walk his body off, but harping on the same string, pertinaciously continued to ply me with alternate arguments and intreaties, until at last fairly wearied out, and more, I believe, with the hope of getting rid of the “importunate chink” of the fellow’s discourse, than anything else, in an evil moment I consented! hear it not, shade of Mrs. Siddons! to denude myself of the bushy honours of my cheeks, and tread the boards of the Bangalore stage as the wife of that atrocious usurper “King Cawdor Glamis!”
Fred marched himself away, elated at having carried his point; and I, after sundry dubious misgivings anent the rash promise I had made, ended by casting all compunctious visitings to the winds, and doughtily resolved, as I was in for the business, to “screw my courage to the sticking-place,’ and go through with it as boldly as I might.
By dint of continually studying my rôle, my dislike to it gradually diminished, nay, at length was converted into positive enthusiasm. I became convinced that I should make a decided hit, and cover my temples with unfading laurel. I rehearsed at all times, seasons, and places, until I was a perfect nuisance to everybody, and my acquaintance, I am sure, to a man, wished both me and her bloodthirsty ladyship, deeper than plummet ever sounded, at the bottom of the sea. Even the brute creation did not escape the annoyance. One morning my English pointer “Spot” ran yelping out of the room, panic-stricken by the vehement manner with which I exclaimed, “Out damned spot, out, I say!” and with the full conviction, which the animal probably entertained to the day of his death, that the said anathema had personal reference to himself.
The evening big with my fate at last arrived. The house was crammed, expectation on tiptoe, and the play commenced. The first four acts went off swimmingly, my performance especially was applauded to the echo, and there only wanted the celebrated sleeping scene, in which I flattered myself to be particularly strong, to complete my triumph. Triumph, did I say!
I must here explain, for the benefit of those who have never rounded the Cape, that the extreme heat of an Indian climate is so favourable to the growth of hair as to put those wights who are afflicted with dark chevelures, which was my case, to the inconvenient necessity of chin-scraping twice on the game day, when they wish to appear particularly spruce of an evening. Now I intended to have shaved before the play began, but in the hurry of dressing had forgotten all about it; and upon inspecting my visage in a glass, after I had donned Lady Macbeth’s night-gear, the lower part of it appeared so swart in contrast with the white dress, that I found it would be absolutely necessary to pass a razor over it before going on with my part.
The night was excessively warm, even for India; and as the place allotted to us for dressing was very small and confined, the bright thought struck me that I should have more air and room on the stage, whither I accordingly directed my servant to follow me with the shaving apparatus.