Part 10
"The answer is easy, friend Lionel; arrogance and drink have been the cause of your downfall. How could any manager continue to engage you? How many times has it happened that you have come to the theatre sodden with drink? How many representations have you spoiled by your bestial folly? They were patient with you. Oh yes, they were very patient; for they knew your gifts and recognized them. But you met friendly rebuke or warning with haughtiness and scorn. You would listen to no counsel; you would heed no warnings. The end should have been plain to you from the beginning, an you would not mend your ways. I told you how it needs must be; and now the time has come when you see it for yourself. Worse men are put in the parts that you excelled in, because they can be depended upon. No drunkard can ever become great. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Lionel Field."
At the sound of this new voice, speaking out of the shadows of the ingle-nook, a great hush had fallen upon the room. Grey leaned forward to obtain a view of the speaker, and the firelight played upon the striking features and iron-gray hair of a very remarkable-looking old man of leonine aspect, whose voice was of that penetrating quality which makes itself heard without being raised; and it was plain that something in the personality of the man lifted him above his fellows, for all listened in silence whilst he spoke, and even the arrogant young actor looked for the moment abashed.
"Who is it?" whispered Grey to the man next him; and the answer came readily, though spoken in a cautious whisper.
"His name is Jonathan Wylde. Once he, too, was a famous actor; but long illness crippled his limbs, and he has fallen into poverty. He is always called the Old Lion, and methinks the name suits him well. He is a very lion for courage, else would he not dare to rebuke Master Lionel Field. For he is one who is ready with his fist, or with knife or bludgeon, and it is ill work meeting him when he is in his cups."
Grey looked with interest and attention at the old man in the shadows; but he was leaning back again, and spoke no more. The talk surged round him again from the rest; they spoke of the plays that were being enacted at the various theatres, and of those who were playing the various _roles_. Some of them stood up and rolled forth bits of Congreve's witty and sparkling dramas, and disputed as to whether the "Old Bachelor" or the "Way of the World" were his happiest effort; whilst some declared that the "Double Dealer" was the best of all. They talked excitedly of the revival at Drury Lane of Farquhar's "Love and a Bottle," which had scored such a success some fourteen or fifteen years previously. And there were some who lauded and some who depreciated Colley Cibber and his "Careless Husband" and "Love's Last Shift," which were favourites throughout the town.
It was a new world to Grey; but he listened with a certain fascination, for the drama had always attracted him, and he watched the gestures of the actors and listened to their mouthing periods with something between wonder and amusement. He could understand that these men had been failures. Only Lionel Field appeared to have any true histrionic gift, and the cause of his downfall was plain to be read after the speech of the "Old Lion." From time to time, as the light flickered upon the striking face in the ingle, Grey caught a fine-lipped smile upon it, and once or twice he thought the old actor's eyes met his in a gleam of humour. But of that he could not be sure--it might be but the trick of the firelight; and presently wearied nature asserted itself, and the young man passed from drowsiness to actual sleep, and knew nothing more till a sharp grip upon his arm roused him to a sense of his surroundings.
It was the tapster who thus shook him; and when he opened his eyes, Grey saw--or thought, at least--that the room was empty. What the time was he had no idea; but it must be late, and he rose hastily to his feet with a muttered apology at having overstayed the closing time.
At that moment there emerged out of the shadows of the ingle-nook a bent figure, dignified even in its infirmity, and the voice which Grey had heard before spoke in quietly authoritative accents.
"Bring hither coffee and a dish of eggs for two. The wind and rain yet howl around the house. This gentleman will sup with me ere we go home. Go and serve us quickly, for we have both a good stomach, and would eat ere we depart hence."
The tapster vanished quickly to do the bidding of the guests, and Grey turned a wondering glance upon the Old Lion, whose face, framed in its shaggy gray hair, looked more leonine than ever, the bright eyes shining out of deep caverns from under bushy brows, the rugged features full of power, not unmixed with a curious underlying ferocity. But the glance bent upon Grey was kindly enough.
"Sit down, young man; I would know more of you. I have a gift for reading faces. I have marked yours ever since you entered this room. Tell me your name. Tell me of yourself, for you were not born to the state to which you have now fallen."
"My name is Grey," was the ready answer. Grey had dropped his title and patronymic with his fallen fortunes, and used his mother's name alone. "My father was a country gentleman. I was gently reared, and was at one time a scholar at Oxford, where I dreamed many dreams. Afterwards I travelled abroad, returning to find my father dead and my home in the hands of a kinsman to whom it was mortgaged by my father. The small fortune I received I squandered foolishly in a few weeks of gay living with young bloods of the town. I wakened from my dream to find myself well-nigh penniless, disgusted alike with myself and those I had called my friends. I have ever been something ambitious. I misdoubt me I am a fool; but I did think that I might win laurels upon the field of literature. I have never lost the trick of rhyming, and jotting down such things as pleased my fancy, whether in prose or in verse. Do I weary you with my tale?"
"No, sir--far from it. Let me hear you to the end. I did see you take forth a roll of paper from your breast as you came in. That action, together with your face, told me much. You have the gift of a creative fancy. You have written a poem or a play."
"Neither the one nor the other, but a romance," answered Grey, the colour flushing his face as it flushes that of a maiden when the love of her heart is named by her. "I scarce know how to call it, but methinks it savours more of a romance than of aught besides. When I was rudely awakened from my pleasure-loving life, saw the folly and futility thereof, and desired to amend, I did take a quiet lodging high up in a building off Holborn, and there I did set myself to the task, and right happy was I in it. I had a score of gold pieces still left me, and my needs I did think modest; though, looking back, they seem many to me now. The weeks fled by, and my work reached its close. When my romance was finished, my money was all but spent. For the past week or more I have been seeking a publisher for it. In my folly I did think that it would bring me gold as fast as I wanted. My eyes have been rudely opened these last days."
The Old Lion nodded his head many times.
"You made a mistake in seeking a publisher, young sir. You should first have sought a patron."
Grey's face flushed slightly, and he hesitated before he spoke.
"Others have said the same to me; but there are difficulties. I have not learned to go cap in hand to cringe for patronage to the great ones of the earth." But, as Grey saw a slight smile flicker in the old man's eyes, he added rather hastily, "And then I desire not to be known and recognized by those whom I did know ha my former life. There is scarce an antechamber in those fine houses where patrons dwell where I might not meet the curious and impertinent regard of those who would know me again. That I will not brook." And now Grey's eyes flashed, thinking of Lord Sandford, and how he would chuckle to hear how low his rival had fallen. "No; if I am to succeed at all, I must needs do so without a patron. If I fail, there is one resource left. Able-bodied paupers are sent to the wars. I can go thither and fight."
Again a smile flickered over the Old Lion's face; but the tapster was entering with the smoking viands, and the gleam in Grey's eyes bespoke the wolf within him.
"Set to, my friend, and make a good meal. When we have cleared the trenchers, you shall come with me to my lodging. I would hear the end of your tale; but that can wait till after supper."
*CHAPTER XI.*
*THE LION'S DEN.*
"Welcome to the Lion's Den!" spoke the man Wylde, as he threw open the door of a room which he had unlocked, and kicking a smouldering log upon the hearth, evoked a cheery blaze, by the aid of which he lighted a lamp that swung over a table littered with books, papers, and quills.
Grey stepped within the threshold, and looked about him with curious eyes. The house they had entered a few minutes before was a tall and narrow one in Harpe Alley, leading from Shoe Lane. It was not an old house, for it came within the area of the great fire of fifty years back, and had been rebuilt, like the whole of the surrounding buildings, with greater speed than discretion. Grey had once come across Sir Christopher Wren in his other life, and had talked with him of the short-sighted policy observed in the rebuilding of the city. The great architect declared that had his plans been carried out, London would have been the finest city in the world: but the haste and false economy of the citizens and city companies had thwarted his plans, and the old lines of narrow and crooked streets were kept as before, to the cost of succeeding generations.
This house had been hastily run up, like those surrounding it, and the tempest from without rattled and shook the walls and windows as though to drive them in. But the room itself, though no more than an attic, bore an air of comfort very pleasant to the eyes of the homeless Grey, whose own quarters only contained the barest necessities of life; for there were some rough shelves full of books in one corner, and a rug before the fire gave a look of comfort to the place. Two armchairs of rude pattern, but furnished with down cushions, seemed to invite repose; and everything was scrupulously clean, even to the boards of the floor.
"'A poor thing, but mine own,'" spoke the Old Lion, with his grim smile, as he motioned to Grey to take one chair, and he himself pulled up the other. "I have dwelt here two years and more now, and I have not been unhappy; albeit I never thought to end my days in a garret, as belike I shall do now."
"Fortune has been hard upon you," spoke Grey earnestly. "You have the gifts and the powers; it is cruel that your limbs should have become crippled."
"We must take the rough and the smooth of life as we find it," answered the other. "I have had my moments of rebellion--I have them still; but I seek the consolations of philosophy; and I have never yet wanted for bread or shelter. But there be times when the future looks dark before me. Those who remember me, and pity my misfortunes, drop away one by one. I lacked not for patrons at the first. When I could not longer tread the boards, I was ofttimes engaged to make men laugh or weep at some gay rout at a nobleman's house. Then, too, my jests and quips were in request at gay supper-parties, and I was paid to set the table in a roar, which in all sooth was not difficult when the wine-bottle was going round and round. Oh, I knew gay times for many a year after my stage career closed. But patrons have died off one by one. I am more crippled than I was, and the young wits are pushing to the front, whilst the Old Lion has been crowded out. My pen still serves me in a measure. I can turn an epigram, or write a couplet, or even make shift to pen a sonnet that lacks not the true ring. Grist yet comes to the mill, but more and more slowly. There come moments when I wonder what will be the end of the Old Lion's career--the poorhouse, or a death by slow starvation in some garret!"
"No, no," cried Grey almost fiercely; "that would be shame indeed. Surely, if nothing better turn up, there must be places of refuge for fallen genius. Have not almshouses been built, again and again, by the well-disposed for such men as sickness has laid aside? You smile, but in sooth it is so."
"Ay, and how many are there to claim the benefits of pious founders? Yet no matter. I brought you not here to talk of my troubles, but of yours. That romance of which you speak--"
"It would seem the world cares little for such things. I did hear the same tale everywhere. Was it a pamphlet I had to give them, a lampoon upon some great man, an attack against the Tories, the Whigs, the Dissenters? If so, they would read it; for there was great eagerness amongst the people to read such things, and no matter what side was attacked, there were hundreds eager to buy and to read. But a romance--no; that was a mistake altogether. A writer of successful pamphlets might perhaps find readers for a merry tale, or even a romance; but for an unknown aspirant to fame--no, that was another matter. No one would buy it; no one would even read it; though there were one or two who took it and glanced through some pages, praised the style and the easy flow of words, and advised me to take to pamphleteering, promising that they would read anything like that."
"That is it, that is it!" cried the Old Lion, rising and pacing up and down the room with his halting stride. "Write a filthy lampoon, a scurrilous libel, a fiery diatribe against any great or notable man, and all the world will read and set themselves agog to know the writer. Look at Swift, with his 'Tale of a Tub;' look at De Foe, with his crowd of pamphlets--men of talent, I do not doubt or deny, but full of gall and bitterness. Yet they are read by all the world. Fame, if not fortune, has come to them, and fortune will doubtless follow. The late King, they say, would have made Swift a bishop. The Queen will not: his ribald wit disgusts her; but he has admirers and patrons everywhere. It is the bold and unscrupulous who flourish like the grass of the field. True poetry and literary beauty are not asked, or even desired. A pen dipped in gall is a pen dipped in gold in these days of party strife. And the genius that wields not this bitter pen sits in dust and ashes, asking bread, and that well-nigh in vain."
"How should I write these party diatribes--I who know little of their cries? Whig or Tory, Tory or Whig--what care I? The Tory of one Parliament is the Whig of the next. Have not Lords Marlborough and Godolphin gone over to the Whigs? The Queen herself, they say, is changing slowly."
"Nay, the Queen herself will never change!" cried Wylde, with an emphatic gesture. "The Duchess has changed, and she seeks to use her influence with the Queen to make her change also, and give up her Tory advisers altogether. But she will not succeed. The Queen may be timid and gentle, but she has all her father's tenacity and obstinacy. Let my Lady of Marlborough look to it! She may strain the cord to breaking point. Already they say that the new favourite, Mrs. Masham, is ousting her kinswoman, the Duchess, from the foremost place in the Queen's affections. Favourites have fallen ere this through too great arrogance. The victories of Ramillies and Oudenarde, and the successes that have followed, make the Duke the idol of the nation and the favourite of the Queen yet; but the day may come when this may change, and then the high Tories may come in once more with a rush."
"I should be sorry for the Duke to lose favour," spoke Grey thoughtfully. "I did see him once, and had speech with him after the battle of Ramillies, and a more gracious and courtly gentleman it has never been my lot to meet."
Suddenly the Old Lion's eyes flashed fire.
"You have seen and had speech with the Duke on the field of Ramillies? You saw the battle, or something of it? Speak! Tell me all! I must hear this tale. It may mean much to us both."
"In sooth it is little I can tell you of the battle, for I was in the thick of it myself. It was by accident that my servant and I came upon the rival armies; and another happy accident gave me the chance of doing a small service for the Duke. After the battle, when we were hard by Louvain, he called me to him, and spoke many gracious words. I would fain hope that some day I may see him again."
"You had speech with him? You saw his manner and his port? Tell me--show me--how did he carry himself?"
Grey rose to his feet, laughing. He humoured the whim of the old actor. He was not lacking in the histrionic gift, and threw himself into his part with good will. He uttered quick commands, as though to his officers; he threw out his arms, as though directing one man here, another there. He recalled numbers of words spoken by the General, and these he reproduced faithfully and with an excellent imitation of Marlborough's polished, courteous, yet commanding air. Then he let his face soften, and addressed the old man as he himself had been addressed, with words of thanks and with promises of friendship. Finally, throwing off the mask, he broke into a laugh, and was astonished at the eager change which had come upon the Old Lion.
"Boy!" he cried, with a new access of energy, "I trow I see for both of us a way to fame and fortune."
Grey's eyes lighted as he eagerly asked his meaning.
"That is soon told. Have you heard how, after the victory of Blenheim, none could be found to hymn the praises of the great General till the poet Addison was introduced to notice, and penned his immortal lines? Now, since the victory of Ramillies, I have burned with desire to show the world by somewhat more than verse alone the power and genius of England's mighty soldier. See here!"
The old man rose and crossed to his table, where he fetched from a drawer a scroll covered with writing, which he put in the hands of his companion. Grey saw that it was a dialogue cast in dramatic form, and though he could not read it then and there, he could see, by casting his eyes over it, that there were many very fine periods in it, and that it was filled with descriptive passages of some great battle, and the energy and glory of the General in command. He raised his eyes inquiringly to the impassioned face of the author, which was working with excitement.
"See you not something of the form? It is a dramatic interlude. It should be played upon the stage during the intervals of the play. Time sits aloft, aged and grim, his scythe in his hand, his hour-glass beside him, and he speaks of the decay of mankind--that the world's greatness is vanishing, its men of genius growing ever fewer and fewer. That is my part. I take the _role_ of Time. To him then enters one in the guise of youth--one in the flush of manhood's prime--one who has seen great and doughty deeds, and comes to rehearse the same in the ears of old Time, to bid him change his tune, to tell him that giants yet live upon the earth. This youth comes with songs of victory; he speaks of what he has seen; he describes in burning words and glowing colours that last great fight wherein England's General put to flight the hosts of the haughty monarch of France. For months has this been written; for months have I gone about seeking the man to take the part of youth and manhood. But I have sought in vain. All those whom I would have chosen have other work to do, and did but laugh at me. Those who would gladly do my bidding, I will none of. You saw how they did mouth and rant to-night, thinking to show their talent, when they only displayed their imbecile folly. But here have I found the very man for whom I have long waited. You have youth, beauty--that manly beauty which transcends, to my thinking, the ephemeral loveliness of woman; you have the gift; you have seen the great hero: you have caught the very trick of his words and speech. Oh, I know it! Once did I hear him address the House of Lords, and when you spoke I seemed to see and hear him again. The great world of fashion will go mad over you. We shall draw full houses; we shall succeed. I know it! I feel it! The Old Lion is not dead yet! He shall roar again in his native forest. Say, boy, will you be my helper in this thing? And in the gains which we shall make we will share and share alike."
It was a very different sort of fame from anything Grey had pictured for himself, and for a moment he hesitated; for he realized that were this dramatic sketch to take hold of the imagination of the town, and draw fashionable audiences, he could scarcely avoid recognition, disguise himself as he might. But as against this there was the pressing need of the moment. He was well-nigh penniless; his romance seemed likely to be but so much waste paper. He was hiding now even from Dick, who periodically visited London to see him, lest the honest fellow should insist upon maintaining him from his own small hoard. Here was an opening, as it seemed, to something like prosperity; and the alternative of being drafted into the army as a pauper recruit was scarcely sufficiently attractive to weigh in the balance. Moreover, there was something so earnest and pathetic in the glance bent upon him by the Old Lion that he had not the heart to say him nay, and he held out his hand with a smile.
"I will be your helper; and as for the gains, let them be yours, and you shall give me what wage I merit. The play is yours, the thought is yours: it is for you to reap the harvest. I am but the labourer--worthy of his hire, and no more."
The compact was sealed, and the old man then insisted that Grey should take his bed for the night, as he must sit up and remodel his play upon lines indicated by the young man, who had seen the field of Ramillies and the disposition of troops. Grey furnished him with sundry diagrams and notes, and left him perfectly happy at his task, which would doubtless occupy him during the night, whilst the weary guest slumbered peacefully upon the humble bed in the little alcove beyond the larger room.
When Grey awoke next morning, the sun was shining; a frugal but sufficient meal was spread upon the table; a fire was blazing cheerily upon the hearth; and there was the Old Lion, with his manuscript before him, muttering beneath his breath, and throwing out his hand in telling gesture, making so fine a picture with his leonine face and shaggy mane of hair that Grey watched him awhile in silence before advancing.
"Good-morrow, and welcome to you, my son," was the greeting be received. "I have had a beautiful night. The muse was hot upon me. The rounded periods seemed to flow from my pen without effort. Let us to breakfast first; then shall you read what I have written, and together we will amend it, if need be. But first shall you remove hither from that unsavoury lodging of which you did speak. Here is money: pay your reckoning, and bring hither any goods and chattels you may value. We must dwell together these next weeks. We will work hard, and before the week closes I will have some manager here to listen to our rendering of this scene. We will have the world crowding to see and hear us yet!--King Fortune, I salute thee, and I thank thee from my heart that thou didst send this goodly youth to me, and didst prompt my heart from the first to take note of him and seek his friendship."