Chapter 20

"WHAT DID I TELL THEE, POLLY?"

Lavinia went to her first rehearsal in a strange confusion of spirits, but came through the ordeal successfully. She was letter perfect, and she remembered all Spiller's instructions. Mr. Huddy was pleased to say that he thought she would do.

She left the theatre for her lodgings in Little Queen Street in a flutter of excitement. Otway's "Orphan" might be dull and lachrymose, the part of Serina might be insignificant, but to Lavinia the play was the most wonderful thing. It meant a beginning. She had got the chance she had longed for. She saw herself in imagination a leading lady.

But when she returned to her lodgings a reaction set in. She was depressed. Life had suddenly become drab and dull. She was thinking of Lancelot Vane, but not angrily, as was the case the previous night when she walked away her head high in the air after seeing Sally Salisbury--of all women in the world!--in his arms. She was in a tumult of passion, and when that subsided tears of indignation rushed to her eyes. She made no excuses for her recreant lover, no allowances for accidents and misadventures. She did not, indeed, think he had set out to insult her, but the unhappy fact was patent that he knew the wanton Sally, and that he had a tender regard for her. Lavinia's reading of the thing was that in her anxiety she had arrived at the trysting place too soon. Ten minutes later and Vane would have got rid of his old love and taken on with his new one. Oh, it was humiliating to think of!

Lavinia walked away in her rage. By the time she reached Little Queen Street, the storm had passed. She had arrived at the conclusion that all men were faithless, selfish, dishonourable. For the future she would have naught to do with them.

The excitement of the rehearsal, the sense of independence she felt when all was got through with credit, lent her buoyancy, but it did not last. The dream she had once had of playing to an audience and seeing only Lancelot Vane in the first row of the pit applauding and eager to congratulate her, was gone. She was done with him for ever. So she told herself. And to strengthen this resolve she recalled his weaknesses, his vacillation, his distrust in himself, his lapses into inebriety. Yet no sooner had she gone over his sins than she felt pity and inclined to forgiveness. But not forgiveness for his faithlessness. That was unpardonable.

Mrs. Egleton, her fellow lodger, had the night before gone to bed sober and was inclined to be complaisant and to interest herself in Lavinia. She was pleased to hear that Huddy had praised her.

"If he asks you to join his company, don't you refuse," said Mrs. Egleton. "He's got a rough tongue when he's put out, but he knows his business. Three months' experience will do wonders. I must come and see you on _the_ night. When is it to be?"

Lavinia said she hadn't the least idea.

"Oh, well, you'll soon know."

Mrs. Egleton was right. In the next issue of the _Daily Post_ appeared this advertisement:--

"At the desire of several persons of quality for the benefit of Mr. Huddy, at the New Theatre in the Haymarket. To-morrow being Thursday, the 24th day of February, will be presented a tragedy called 'The Orphan; or, the Unhappy Marriage,' written by the late Mr. Otway, with a new prologue to be spoken by Mr. Roger, who plays the part of Chamont. The part of Acasto by Mr. Huddy; Monimia, Mrs. Haughton; the page, Miss Tollet; and the part of Serina by a gentlewoman who never appear'd on any stage before. With singing in Italian and English by Mrs. Fitzgerald. And the original trumpet song of sound fame, as set to musick by Mr. Henry Purcel, to be performed by Mr. Amesbury."

Lavinia read this over twice and thrilled with delight. She ran with the paper to Mrs. Egleton.

"Mercy on me, child!" cried the actress. "So you're a gentlewoman, are you?"

"The paper says I am, so I suppose it's true," said Lavinia, casting down her eyes demurely.

"If you are, it'll be a wonder. Not many women players are, I may tell you for your satisfaction. Who was your father?"

"I don't know. I can't remember him."

"Well, you're in the fashion there. Few of us are better off than you. But what matters father or mother? You're in the world, and after all that's as much as you need trouble about. As for your mother--but I won't bother you about _her_. A mother's not much good to her daughter. She mostly looks to make money out of her by a rich marriage, not that she's over particular about the marriage so long as there's plenty of coin."

Lavinia did not contradict Mrs. Egleton's cynical views. From her own experience she knew it was very often true.

The 24th was a fortnight ahead--plenty of time for the play to be in readiness. Huddy had no fear about the performance. What concerned him more nearly was his "benefit" money. He busied himself in canvassing his patrons and the disposal of tickets.

The night came. Lavinia was wrought to a high pitch of excitement, but her excitement was pleasurable. The scenery, albeit it would be scoffed at nowadays, was to her magnificent. The costumes were gorgeous. It was nothing that they smelt musty from having laid long in the theatre wardrobe. The incongruity of many of the garments gave her no pang of uneasiness. "The Orphan" was of no particular period. Dresses which had done duty in Shakespearean tragedies, in classical plays of the Cato type, in the comedies of the Restoration dramatists, were equally admissible. The circumscribed space afforded the players by the intrusion on the stage of the seats for the "quality" did not embarrass her. The combined odours of oranges and candle snuff had their charm.

The house was full, but in the dim and smoky candlelight the faces of the audience were little better than rows of shadowy masks. The pit occupied the entire floor of the house right up to the orchestra. Here the critics were to be found. The pit could make or mar the destiny of plays, and the reputation of players. Dozens of regular playgoers knew the traditions of the theatre better than many actors and actresses. They were sticklers for the preservation of the stage "business" to which they had been accustomed. They knew certain lines of their favourite plays by heart, and how those lines ought to be delivered.

The curtain rose. Acasto, Monimia, Chamont mouthed their various parts, and did exactly what was expected from them. Curiosity was excited only when Serina, the daughter of Acasto, in love with Chamont, made her appearance. Lavinia's winsome face, her eyes half tender, half alluring, her pretty mouth with not an atom of ill nature in its curves, her sympathetic voice, at once attracted the audience. It was a pity, everyone felt, she had so little to say and do. Her few lines expressed but one sentiment--her love for Chamont.

Lavinia played the part as if she felt it, which was indeed the fact, for she was thinking of Lancelot Vane all the time. When she came to her final words in the fifth act--

"If any of my family have done thee injury, I'll be revenged and love thee better for it"

the house thundered its applause, so naturally and with such genuine pathos were they delivered.

The curtain fell. The gallants who had seats on the stage crowded round the "young gentlewoman" and showered compliments. A few privileged people from the front of the house who found their way behind were equally enthusiastic. Even Mrs. Haughton--the Monimia of the play--deigned to smile approvingly.

"What did I tell thee, Polly?" she heard a pleasant if somewhat husky voice whisper in her ear.

She knew the tones and turned quickly. John Gay's kindly eyes were beaming upon her. He had come with Jemmy Spiller, and with a stout man from whose broad red face a look of drollery was rarely absent. This was Hippisley, a comedian with a natural humour which was wont to set an audience in a roar.

Lavinia blushed with pleasure and cast a grateful look at Spiller, whose hints had proved so valuable.

"Was I not right, Spiller?" went on Gay. "You've read my opera, what there is of it that's finished. Won't Polly Peachum fit her like a glove?"

"Aye, if she can sing as prettily as she acted to-night," said Spiller, with a quizzical glance at the girl.

"Sing? My lad, she has the voice of a nightingale. Pepusch agrees with me. I'll swear there's no singing woman outside the King's Theatre--or inside, for the matter of that--who can hold a candle by the side of her. Have you forgotten the pretty baggage who so charmed us at the Maiden Head?"

"Not I, faith. I was but jesting. And so you've fixed upon her. But I hear that Mr. Rich has set his face against so many songs. He won't take your Polly merely because she can sing."

"Mr. Rich is a fool--in some things," rejoined Gay hastily. "He can dance, I grant you, and posture as no other man can, and he thinks he can act! I heard him once at a party of friends. My good Spiller, if his vanity ever prompted him to air his voice on the stage, the people would think he was mocking them, and one half would laugh and the other half boo and hiss."

"I know--I know. Still, he holds command, and he likes his own way, no man better."

"No doubt, but whatever a man wills he has to give up when a woman says yea or nay. My good duchess means to have a word with him over the songs."

"If that's so John Rich had better capitulate at once. He's as good as beaten."

Lavinia could only catch a word of this talk here and there. She was being pestered by half a dozen sparkish admirers who were somewhat taken aback when they discovered that the "gentlewoman who had never appear'd on any stage before" could more than hold her own in repartee and give the fops of fashion as good as or better than they gave. How could they tell that the sprightly young budding actress had graduated in the wit and slang of the streets?

But she was pestered and peeved all the same, for she dearly wanted to talk to Gay and Spiller. At last the modish gadflies got tired of having their smart talk turned against them, and one by one fell off, especially as Huddy, whose blunt speech was not much to their taste, came up and intruded without apology into their vapid banter.

"The gal's done well, Spiller," said Huddy, "and I'm obleeged to ye. Now I want to get on the road and waste no time about it. I ought to be at Woolwich afore a fortnight's over, then Dartford, Gravesend, Rochester, Maidstone, and so away on to Dover. What d'ye say, miss? I can give ye a good engagement--no fixed salary in course--sharing out, that's the rule with travelling companies--Mr. Spiller knows what I'm a'telling you is right."

Lavinia hardly knew what to say to this, and she turned to Spiller for advice. Huddy saw the look of doubt on her face, and went on with his argument.

"It's this way, miss. I don't say as you didn't play to-night to my satisfaction--thanks to my rehearsing of you--but you've got a lot to learn, and, by God, you won't learn it better anywhere in the world than with me. Ask Mr. Spiller--ask Mr. Hippisley. They know what's what, and they'll tell you the same."

Spiller nodded.

"You've made a good beginning, but the more practice you have the better. Isn't that so, Mr. Gay? Mr. Gay has great hopes of you, my dear and--but you'd better hear what he has to say."

"Oh, I should dearly love to," murmured Lavinia.

They were now in the green room. Mrs. Fitzgerald was on the stage singing "in English and French," and her shrill tones penetrated the thin walls greatly to Gay's discomfort. The lady's voice was not particularly sweet.

"Let us walk apart, Polly," said he. "We shan't hear that noise so keenly."

He took her arm and placed it beneath his.

"Spiller's right, my dear. I have great hopes of you, but your chance won't come for months. The time won't be lost if you work hard at everything Huddy puts in your way. You'll have plenty of variety, but you won't earn much money. The sharing out system puts the lion's portion into the manager's pocket. But that can't be helped. Still, if you want money--the duchess----"

"Oh, Mr. Gay," broke in Lavinia anxiously, "I've been sorely worried thinking of her grace. Have you told her?--I mean about me running away from school and--and----"

Gay laughed and playfully pinched her cheek.

"The love story, eh? Yes, I told the duchess, and she was vastly entertained. She's a woman of infinite spirit and she likes other women to have spirit too. She's not without romance--and I wouldn't give a thank-you for her if she were. If you'd run off out of restlessness or a mere whim or fit of temper, I doubt if she'd troubled about you further; but love--that was another thing altogether. Oh, and your courage in escaping from that dissolute rascal--that captured her. My dear, Queensberry's Duchess is your friend. She's as desirous as I am that you should be Polly Peachum in my 'Beggar's Opera,' and when I tell her about to-night she'll be overjoyed. You need not fear about the future save that it depends upon yourself. But Polly, what of the young playwright, Lancelot Vane?"

"I don't want to hear anything about him!"

"What! Have you and he tiffed? Well, 'tis a way that true love works. But let me tell you I've handed his play to Mr. Cibber, though much I doubt its good fortune. Honestly, my child, though some of the lines are good, others are sad stuff."

"I don't wish Mr. Vane any ill will, but it is no affair of mine whether his play be good or bad."

"Mercy on me! But you told me he wanted to write in a part for you."

"If he does I won't play it. Mr. Vane is nothing to me."

"Oh, so _that_ love's flown away, has it? Was there anybody in this world or any other so full of vagaries and vapours as Master Cupid?"

Lavinia was in a tumult of doubt and contrary inclinations. She hated to discuss Lancelot Vane! She wanted to talk about him! She was suffering from the most puzzling of emotions--the mingled pain and pleasure of self-torture.

Gay neither gratified nor disappointed her. He simply remarked that it was well she now had nothing to distract her mind and that she would be able to devote herself entirely to her new life, and after counselling her not to argue about terms with Huddy, he led her back to the manager, and it was settled that she should join his travelling company.

Lavinia was overwrought, and that night slept but little. It was hard to say whether the thoughts of her future on the stage, her dreams of distinction with Gay's opera, or her wounded love and pride occupied the foremost place in her mind. She resolved over and over again that she would forget Lancelot Vane. She meant to steel herself against every kind of tender recollection. She was certain she hated him and dropped off to sleep thinking of the one kiss they had exchanged.

The next morning she was fairly tranquil. She had not, it is true, dismissed Vane entirely from her thoughts, but she had arrived at the conclusion that as it was all over between them it really was of no consequence whether he had jilted her for Sally Salisbury. That he should bestow even a look on so common a creature was a proof of his vulgar tastes. Oh, he was quite welcome to Sally if his fancy roamed in so low a direction. She felt she was able to regard the whole business with perfect equanimity.

Her landlady that day bought a copy of the _Daily Post_ and she sent it upstairs to Lavinia. Newspaper notices of theatrical performances were rarities in those days. Lavinia did not expect to see any reference to Mr. Huddy's benefit, and her expectations were realised. What she _did_ see sent the blood rushing to her face and her hands fumbled so that she could hardly hold the paper. Then she went deadly pale, she tore the paper in half and--a rare thing for Lavinia to do--she burst into tears.