“Nothing, my own dearest, was ever more comfortable and satisfactory than the manner in which you have managed this affair. Pray write to George Whittaker directly. Of course we must not take a farthing less than one hundred and fifty pounds, when we are sure of it from such a respectable quarter as Longman’s. I never had the slightest hesitation in my liking for that house, except their name for closeness; but certainly this offer is very liberal. You have done the business most excellently—just as I thought you would.” (The Doctor was evidently playing off Longman’s against his godson.) “God grant you an equal success with the dramatic affair! I am not the least afraid of your management there. I’ll never write a play again, for I daresay Longman’s people would give a good price for a novel. If you can, without inconvenience, will you bring me a bottle of eau-de-Cologne?—this is a piece of extravagance upon the strength of the fifty pounds; but don’t buy anything else. And pray, my darling, get quit of the dogs.”
The dramatic affair mentioned in this letter evidently concerned the long-postponed production in London of Rienzi, and as Dr. Mitford’s prolonged absence in town seemed futile, his daughter wrote, still to the care of “Old Betty’s,” informing him that she could no longer bear the suspense, and that she had written to Kemble to say that she was coming to town immediately, and would drive at once to his house, where, “if he cannot see me then, I have requested him to leave word when and where he will see me.”
The matter was evidently settled and the play arranged to be produced at Drury Lane Theatre on Saturday, October 11. Writing this information to Sir William Elford a week or so before the production, Miss Mitford said: “Mr. Young plays the hero, and has been studying the part during the whole vacation; and a new actress[24] makes her first appearance in the part of the heroine. This is a very bold and hazardous experiment, no new actress having come out in a new play within the memory of man; but she is young, pretty, unaffected, pleasant-voiced, with great sensibility, and a singularly pure intonation—a qualification which no actress has possessed since Mrs. Siddons. Stanfield[25] is painting the new scenes, one of which is an accurate representation of Rienzi’s house. This building still exists in Rome, and is shown there as a curious relique of the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages. They have got a sketch which they sent for on purpose, and they are hunting up costumes with equal care; so that it will be very splendidly brought out, and I shall have little to fear, except from the emptiness of London so early in the season. If you know any one likely to be in that great desert so early in the year, I know that you will be so good as to mention me and my tragedy. I do not yet know where I shall be. I think of going to town in about a fortnight, and, if the play succeeds, shall remain there about the same time.”
Mrs. S. C. Hall, in her Memories, gives us a delightful picture of the flurry and bustle which preceded the Rienzi production, a bustle which was accentuated by an alteration of the date to one week earlier. Miss Mitford was up in town superintending the arrangements, lodging meanwhile at the house of her friend, Mrs. Hofland, in Newman Street. “Mrs. Hofland invited us to meet her there one morning. All the world was talking about the expected play, and all the world was paying court to its author.
“‘Mary,’ said Mrs. Hofland to her visitors, ‘is a little grand and stilted just now. There is no doubt the tragedy will be a great success; they all say so in the green-room; and Macready told me it was a wonderful tragedy—an extraordinary tragedy “for a woman to have written.” The men always make that reservation, my dear; they cramp us, my dear, and then reproach us with our lameness; but Mary did not hear it, and I did not tell her. She is supremely happy just now, and so is her father, the doctor. Yes, it is no wonder that she should be a little stilted—such grand people coming to call and invite them to dinner, and all the folk at the theatre down-upon-knee to her—it is such a contrast to her life at Three Mile Cross.’
“‘But,’ I said, ‘she deserves all the homage that can be rendered her—her talents are so varied. Those stories of Our Village have been fanned by the pure breezes of “sunny Berkshire,” and are inimitable as pictures of English rural life; and she has also achieved the highest walk in tragedy——’
“‘For a woman,’ put in dear Mrs. Hofland. She had not forgiven our great tragedian—then in the zenith of his popularity—for his ungallant reserve.”
It is pleasant to read that Macready could praise this tragedy, although we cannot forget that spiteful entry in his Diary, under date November 24, 1836—“I have no faith in her power of writing a play.”
Stilted or not, Miss Mitford was contented to appear in a garb which spoke, all too plainly, of the country cottage and country fashion.
“I certainly was disappointed,” continues Mrs. Hall, “when a stout little lady, tightened up in a shawl, rolled into the parlour in Newman Street, and Mrs. Hofland announced her as Miss Mitford; her short petticoats showing wonderfully stout leather boots, her shawl bundled on, and a little black coal-scuttle bonnet—when bonnets were expanding—added to the effect of her natural shortness and rotundity; but her manner was that of a cordial country gentlewoman; the pressure of her fat little hands (for she extended both) was warm; her eyes, both soft and bright, looked kindly and frankly into mine; and her pretty, rosy mouth, dimpled with smiles that were always sweet and friendly. At first I did not think her at all ‘grand or stilted,’ though she declared she had been quite spoilt—quite ruined since she came to London, with all the fine compliments she had received; but the trial was yet to come. ‘Suppose—suppose Rienzi should be——,’ and she shook her head. Of course, in full chorus, we declared that could not be. ‘No! she would not spend an evening with us until after the first night; if the play went ill, or even coldly, she would run away, and never be again seen or heard of; if it succeeded——’ She drew her rotund person to its full height, and endeavoured to stretch her neck, and the expression of her face assumed an air of unmistakable triumph. She was always pleasant to look at, and had her face not been cast in so broad—so ‘outspread’—a mould, she would have been handsome; even with that disadvantage, if her figure had been tall enough to carry her head with dignity, she would have been so, but she was most vexatiously ‘dumpy’; but when Miss Mitford spoke, the awkward effect vanished—her pleasant voice, her beaming eyes and smiles, made you forget the wide expanse of face; and the roly-poly figure, when seated, did not appear really short.”