CHAPTER XXX.

ROSE RETIRES FROM THE STAGE.

‘I think,’ said Rose to her husband that night, ‘I shall give up the stage. I have been without an engagement long; I have refused everything of the kind.’

‘Yet, darling, you are not growing old.’

‘No, it is not that.’

‘But what?’

‘That I care less and less for the artificial atmosphere of the stage. We lead such a conventional life and breathe such a conventional air; there is so much of insincerity. “Suppose any given theatre,” writes Mr. Thomas Archer in one of his clever essays, “suppose any given theatre suddenly turned into a Palace of Truth, and all the members of the company forced to state their true opinion of each other’s performances, the Palace of Truth would be a pandemonium.” And then there are other considerations.’

‘For instance?’

‘Well, to begin with, the atmosphere of self-consciousness in which the actor lives and moves and has his being. Mr. Henry James tells us the artist performs great feats in a dream; we must not wake him up lest he should lose his balance. The actor, alas! has always to be wide awake—to think of the applause to be won. I am sure too much of that sort of life cannot be good for anyone.’

‘And I have long been expecting you to say as much.’

‘But you are not sorry, are you?’

‘On the contrary; it is the very thing I have been looking for all along. It is nice to feel when the public applaud an actress that she is your own; but how much nicer to feel as I do now,’ said Wentworth, with a loving caress, ‘that she is all my own! You were happy on the stage; you will be ten times happier off it.’

‘Ah, that I know well enough.’

‘I fancy you little people of the mimic world are rather inclined to overrate your importance. By the side of it the editorial “we” is modesty itself. You actors and actresses are not such great folk after all. Admired one day, forgotten the next! As I think of all the men and women I have known upon the stage, who were lions of their day, for whom the public went into fits of madness, and then see how completely they are forgotten, it has always seemed to me that to illustrate the vanity of life and the nothingness of human applause I should point to the stage.’

One morning there came the manager of the theatre.

‘No, I shall never go back to the stage,’ replied the actress.

‘Why not, my dear?’ said the manager, a gentleman of showy manners, and suspected of being rather over-sweet.

‘Because I don’t like the life behind the scenes.’

‘I am surprised to hear that. If you knew how young ladies of really good position bother me to give them a trial!’

‘Ah, they are ignorant.’

‘Yes,’ said the manager; ‘remember the old lines:

‘“Where ignorance is bliss, ’Tis folly to be wise.’”

‘Folly or not,’ replied Rose, ‘my eyes have been opened by experience. Once I was ignorant as they, and thought how delightful the life behind the scenes must be; but now I know better. I only wish I could have a quiet chat with some of those stage-struck girls, and warn them before it is too late. The life is only possible for the children of parents who are on the stage. It is the atmosphere in which they have been brought up. But as to other girls, the stage is the last thing they should think of if I had my way.’

‘But what do you object to?’

‘Why, to everything: the language one is obliged to hear; the dresses, which are often actually indecent; the way in which one is persecuted by men supposed to be gentlemen—the free-and-easy way in which they attempt familiarities is decidedly unpleasant. No, I have been behind the scenes; I have no more illusions on that score. I have done with the whole affair. I am off the boards, and I have no wish to reappear on them again.’

‘No money will tempt you?’ said the manager.

‘None,’ was the reply.

‘You will be exposed to no inconvenience, you know.’

‘That is true; but I should have to give my sanction to much that I disapprove of. You must reform what goes on behind the scenes.’

‘Oh, that is impossible.’

‘That’s what I fear.’

‘Well, as you’ve made up your mind, it is no use, I fear, discussing the subject any longer.’

His appeal was in vain.

She did not want money, she did not care for applause; she had plenty of excitement in real life. She wanted time to think, and read, and feel. Behind the footlights every night, what time has actor or actress to realize the great ends of life as something real, and not a show with its pretended tragedy or farce?

‘In fact,’ said the lady, ‘I wish to live and not to act.’

‘And then return to the stage when you are getting old,’ said the manager in dismay. ‘Well, the public are indulgent, I admit. A favourite is a favourite, whether old or young. There are old men and women now on the stage who ought to have retired years ago. They cannot act decently; with all their making up they are scarcely presentable. Their memory and their power are gone, or something very like it, still the public applaud. They do not understand what failures the poor creatures have become, and they praise them as liberally as when they were in their prime and could act. One cannot much wonder that under the circumstances the veteran actor lags superfluous on the stage.’

‘But are they not afraid of the newspaper critics?’

Here the manager laughed.

‘Excuse me—that is too ridiculous. Who cares for theatrical criticism? Of course, we managers are civil to the critics, who give themselves amusing airs, and have a high opinion of their own abilities, and we get an advertisement gratuitously, which, of course, is an advantage. But a theatrical critic always swims with the stream—applauds what the public applaud, and blames what they blame. The public don’t care a rap for the theatrical critic. I often wonder newspaper editors take the trouble to print what they write. That no one reads it, except on a wet Sunday, they know as well as I. But you will come back to us soon?’ said the manager, with his most beseeching air.

‘No, I think not,’ said the lady. ‘The life is too exciting to be healthy, either for the heart or the head. It is all very well for a little while, but not for long. I have been happy on the stage, but I believe I shall be equally happy off. Let the younger ones have a chance. Every dog has his day.’

And the manager departed, thinking that the lady had made a great mistake, that perhaps she only needed a little more pressing. At any rate, he said, as he bowed himself out:

‘Madame, you shall hear from me again.’

‘It is no use,’ was her reply.

‘I am glad you have come to such an opinion. I also have obtained my freedom,’ said Wentworth. ‘My work at the newspaper office is done. It has been rather unpleasant of late. The proprietors depend on the Liberal Government; the Liberal Government fancy that to me it is due that a Tory was returned for Sloville. It was hinted to me that I was too independent—too negligent as to the interests of the party; that I was not severe enough on the sins of the opposition; that, in short, I was not enough of a party hack. Our manager is a keen party man; indeed, he expects one of these days to be knighted. And now I am free, and so are you, and we can set about a work I have long had in contemplation. You and I have often talked of Southey’s and Coleridge’s pantisocracy—I believe the time has come for some such an enterprise. It is true they never carried it out, it is true that when Robert Owen tried to do something of the kind it failed; but that is no reason why we should fail.’

‘Of course not,’ said Rose. ‘Yes, let us emigrate. Let us leave Sodom and Gomorrah to their fate. The sooner we are off the better.’

‘Let us have old Buxton down to talk over the matter,’ said Wentworth, making a signal by applying the poker to the ceiling.

In a moment or two he was in the room, a big burly man, with a big head and a big beard—given to the immoderate use of tobacco; averse to wearing new clothes, and not overfond of soap and water; rather inclined to be lazy; ready to say with Lord Melbourne, when reforming action was proposed: ‘Why can’t you leave it alone?’ Such men have their uses in a land where fussy people—as much with a view to their own personal gratification as to the welfare of the public—are always putting themselves forward; attempting to wash the blackamoor white, to have the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots.

‘What’s up now?’ said he as he shuffled in. ‘You look uncommonly grave.’

‘Listen to me,’ said Wentworth. ‘You have read my article in this morning’s paper?’

‘Not a line.’

‘Read it then.’

Buxton shrugged his shoulders and sat down.

Wentworth continued:

‘Listen to my ideas, which I have published in the paper.’

‘By all means.’

‘If in the multitude of counsellors there is safety, the England of to-day has little to fear, in spite of the undeniable facts that she is losing her trade and commerce, that her national debt seems impossible of payment, that her expenditure increases as her income declines, and that the unemployed and pauper class threaten, like the lean kine Joseph saw in his dream, to swallow up all the rest. As long as I can remember I have heard statesmen, and clergymen of all denominations, and politicians of all creeds, say something must be done; and they are still saying it in the most hopeless of tones, and with air the most dejected. We have not had our French Revolution yet. At the worst, the hungry mobs have contented themselves with an occasional raid on an unfortunate butcher or baker, or on some imprudent jeweller, whose attractive windows have proved too strong a temptation for the horny-handed. In the meanwhile, people of a hopeful turn of mind tell us—and truly—that the working classes were never better off, better paid, or better fed. But still, somehow or other, it is apparent that outside of the hopeless pauperism which the idiotic legislation of our fathers has called into existence—outside the depraved, whom drink and dishonesty have removed from the ranks of labour, to swell the bitter cry which ever ascends from city slums, where all foul things congregate, and where decent life is impossible—there are hundreds, nay, thousands, who are ready to work, but for whom, though to seek it they rise early and sit up late, no work is to be had. Is there any hope for such? Are they to be uncared for till they have lost all heart, and sink down to the pit of misery and despair, never more, till death comes to them as a friend, to rise again? Is it not time that we think of them? In Ireland, a hundred patriots would have rent the air with the story of their wrongs. In England, we take small note of them. Yet they are our flesh and blood, with honest hearts and hands. A scheme has been devised for their benefit. That it is worth a trial, few who can examine it can doubt.

‘The idea of this new remedy is that, now when agricultural land is to be had for next to nothing, farms should be bought on which home colonies may be planted, and labour provided sufficient for self-support.

‘The fact is,’ said Wentworth, ‘we have rather a grand scheme in view. A gentleman is ready to purchase land in America or Canada or one of the Colonies; to plant it with poor people who can find no work at home, nor are likely to do so, if they stop here all their lives. And he wants me to go out as manager; I am quite ready to do so. And Rose is anxious for the experiment to be tried—indeed, far more so than myself.’

‘That is a matter of course—novelty has always charms for woman.’

‘And woman,’ said Rose, ‘is always ready to lend a helping hand to any philanthropic scheme.’

‘Well, it requires a good deal of thinking about.’

‘And we have thought about it long,’ said Wentworth; ‘and the more we think about it the better we like it. But we want you to accompany us.’

‘In what capacity?’

‘As medical man.’

‘And you think I would turn my back on London, and give up my easy life, to undertake all this responsibility?’

‘Well, I don’t see why you should not,’ said Wentworth. ‘You are not doing much good here, you know.’

‘And why should I, when everyone is fussing about doing good and in the meantime doing a great deal of mischief, interfering with the working of the unalterable laws of the universe, washing blackamoors white, trying to make empty sacks stand upright?’

‘Yes, but we are going to do nothing of the kind. We are only finding homes and work for men and women who can find in the old country neither the one nor the other—to save them from sinking into hopeless pauperism, to help them to live happy and healthful lives. What have you to say against our scheme?’

‘Really, now I think about it, I can’t say anything against it, supposing that you have a proper site for the experiment, that you take proper people, and that you have sufficient capital to make a fair start.’

‘Oh, as to that, everything has been provided for. Each colonist will have a bit of ground, which he will pay for in time by his labour. We intend working on the old lines, not to be led away by communistic ideas. Each man will do the best he can for himself, and in so doing will be best for all. What do you think, Buxton, of the scheme?’

‘Why, like all her ladyship’s ideas, it is excellent.’

‘Pretty flatterer!’ said Rose.

‘He wants to cut me out,’ said Wentworth. ‘He was always envious of my superior abilities.’

‘As he had every reason to be,’ said Rose.

‘Come, that’s too bad,’ said Buxton, turning to Rose, ‘after the way in which I buttered you up just now. Two to one ain’t fair. But to return to business.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Wentworth.

‘If I had a family—which, thank Heaven, I have not—I would not stop in England a day. If I had a lad to plant out in the world as you have, I’d send him off to America or the Colonies to-morrow.’

‘Because?’

‘Because it’s all up in old England in the first place; and in the second place, because if it were not so, the New World offers better opportunities for a young fellow than the old. May I dwell upon these topics?’

‘Certainly, by all means.’

‘Well, I have met a good many Americans lately, and they have put new ideas into my head—’

‘Not before they were wanted!’ said Wentworth.

‘Speak for yourself, sir, if you please,’ said Buxton, with an assumed offended air.

‘Oh, I beg pardon! Pray proceed.’

‘I was going to say,’ said Buxton, ‘until interrupted in this unmannerly manner, you are enthusiasts, I am not. I doubt the dream of a new heaven and a new earth. It has done good in its time, I admit. It was the thought of the Messiah that was to come that nerved the heart of the Jew as he sat by the waters of Babylon and wept as he remembered Zion. Paul and the Apostles expected the new heaven and the new earth before they laid down their lives as martyrs for their inspiring faith. Upheld by the same living hope, tender and delicate maidens have gone to the grave exulting, and have glorified God at the stake or in the dungeon or on the scaffold. “The end of all things is at hand,” is ever the cry of the churches. It was that of Luther in his day, and is that of the Evangelicals in ours, who, if an earthquake destroys a town, or a deluge sweeps over the land, or the cholera breaks out in the East, or there are wars and rumours of wars, tell us these are the dread signs to mark the coming of the Son of Man with His saints to judge the earth. I feel rather inclined to believe with old Swedenborg that that day is past. The talk of a Millennium makes me sick. It is a delusion and a sham. Such men as Dr. Cumming, with their long array of dates and their wild dreams of the fulfilment of prophecy, make men like myself sceptics. It is clear to us that the odds, at any rate, are against the Christian.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Rose. ‘But this is a business scheme. We are not in search of the Millennium.’