Chapter 22

"MOLL'S SINGIN' BROUGHT HER LUCK AND MAY BE YOURS WILL TOO"

The months went over. Huddy's "travelling" theatrical troupe had been paying a round of visits to various towns in the home counties, performing in innyards, barns, any place suitable for the purpose and where no objections were raised by the justices. Actors and actresses were "rogues and vagabonds" when it suited prim puritans to call them so, and more than once Huddy and his company had to take a hurried departure from some town where play-acting was looked upon as ungodly and a device of Satan to ensnare the unsuspecting.

All this was in the day's work. Lavinia thought nothing of it. She had been in her youthful days harried from pillar to post and knew what it meant. The important thing to her was that she was getting a vast amount of stage experience, and as she was a quick "study" she had no difficulty in taking on a new role at a day's notice.

Lavinia remained with Huddy's until she had all the devices of the stage at her finger's ends. In a way theatrical training was easier then than now. Acting was largely a question of tradition. What Betterton, Wilks, Barton Booth, Mrs. Bracegirdle, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Oldfield did others had to do. Audiences expected certain characters to be represented in a certain way and were slow to accept "new readings." Comedy, however, had more latitude than tragedy, and as comedy was Lavinia's line her winsome face and pleasing smile and her melodious voice were always welcome, and when she had a "singing" part she brought down the house.

Of course the life was hard--especially when the share of the receipts which fell to the minor members was small--but it was full of variety and sometimes of excitement. If the work did not entirely drive away the remembrance of Lancelot Vane it enabled her to look upon the romance of her early maidenhood with equanimity. Her love affair had become a regret tinged with a pleasureable sadness.

She was beginning to be known in the profession. Now and again she wrote to her old friend Gay and he replied with encouraging letters. His opera was finished, he told her, Colley Cibber had refused to have anything to do with it and it was now in the hands of John Rich.

"I can see thee, my dear, in Polly Peachum. I've had you in mind in the songs. You're doing well, I hear, but I'd have you do better. The duchess has forgiven you. She is on your side against Rich, who does not care a farthing for the music. He would alter his mind could he but hear you. Huddy must let you go. The Duke's Theatre is waiting for you."

In all Gay's letters there was not a word about Lancelot Vane. Lavinia would like to have known the fate of his play and the next instant was angry with herself for still feeling an interest in her faithless swain.

"Let him waste himself on Sally Salisbury if he likes," she cried scornfully. "He's nothing to me."

Gay's assertion that Rich's theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields waited for her was soon verified. One of Rich's staff waited upon her when Huddy's company was playing at Woolwich, and she went off with him in high spirits and amid much growling from Huddy. Rich was pleased to express his approval of her appearance.

"I'll put on a play for you and that'll tell me if you knows your business," grunted the ungrammatical Rich.

The play was a poor thing--"The Wits," one of D'Avenant's comedies. The best part about it to Lavinia's fancy was the advertisement in the _Daily Post_ where she read "Ginnet by Miss Fenton." Ginnet was but a stage waiting maid and Lavinia had little to do and less to say. "The Wits" ran but one night, quite as long as it was worth.

"You'll do pretty well," said Rich, "but I can't say more'n that. My theatre shuts for the next three months. When the season starts I'll find you summat else."

"Three months!" exclaimed Lavinia ruefully. "And what am I to do all that time, Mr. Rich?"

"That's your business, miss. If I was you I'd try one of the summer theatres. There's the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. May be you might get a part. But mind this, you're to come back here in October. I'll put you into something as'll soot you."

What could Lavinia say to this? It was at once sweet and bitter. She had made good her footing at Rich's theatre and could she only tide over the summer months she would be on the stepping stones of success. But meanwhile? She took Rich's advice and went to the Little Theatre. She found she had not the ghost of a chance of an engagement. Drury Lane and the Duke's Theatres were closed (Covent Garden Theatre was not then built), and actors and actresses of established reputation were clamorous for something to do. Lavinia retired discomfited.

She had to go back to Huddy's, to the mumming booth and the innyard. There was no help for it. The summer passed, Rich opened the Lincoln's Inn Fields playhouse and sent for Lavinia. He gave her quite an important part and Lavinia was elated, albeit the play was one of Wycherley's most repulsive productions, "The Country Wife." But all through the winter season this part was her only opportunity for distinction. John Rich, like most actor managers, had but an eye for himself as the central figure and in his own special province--dancing and posturing. His "Harlequin" entertainment "The Rape of Proserpine" proved to be one of his biggest successes and ran uninterruptedly for three months.

Lavinia's line in the piece was simply to "walk on" among the "lasses" but she had the gratification of seeing her name announced in the advertisements--a sufficient proof that she was rising in Rich's estimation. She had at last a chance of showing what she could do. Her old acquaintance, Mrs. Egleton, took her benefit along with Hippisley, one of the best low comedians of the day, and selected Farquhar's "The Beaux' Stratagem"--partly so she said, for Lavinia's sake.

"You were made for Cherry, my dear," said she. "The part'll fit you as easily as an old glove."

And so it did, but the next night Rich went back to "The Rape of Proserpine" and the piece continued to run until the summer, and then the theatre closed as usual for three months.

"Whatever am I to do Mrs. Egleton?" she cried despairingly. "I suppose I could join Huddy's company again. Huddy I know would be glad enough to have me but----"

"Pray don't be silly," put in the experienced Mrs. Egleton. "It would be lowering yourself. Rich would think you're not worth more than he's been paying you and that's little enough--fifteen shillings a week. Good Lord, how does he imagine a woman of our profession can live on that?"

"It's because of our profession that he parts with so little. He has a notion that we can make it up," rejoined Lavinia sarcastically.

"You never said a truer word than that, my dear. Thank God I've my husband, but _you_--well you'd better take a husband too or as nearly as you can get to one."

Lavinia shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.

"Why not go to Hampstead? Heaps of money there and plenty of life. Bless my heart alive, with that taking face of yours the men would be after you like flies round a honey-pot."

"I've no fancy for figuring as a honey-pot, thank you."

"Well, I can think of nothing else."

The mention of Hampstead was suggestive, but not in the way insinuated by Mrs. Egleton. Half fashionable London flocked to Hampstead in the summer, ostensibly to drink the water of the medicinal spring, but really to gamble, to dance and to flirt outrageously. There was plenty of entertainment too, of various sorts.

Then she thought of Hannah's cousin, Betty Higgins at Hampstead. Lavinia had saved a little money while with Rich and Huddy and she could afford a small rent for lodgings while she was seeking how to maintain herself. Concerts were given at the Great Room, Hampstead Wells. She might appear there too. She would love it. She had seldom had an opportunity of singing in any of the parts she had played, and singing was what her soul delighted in.

She made her way to Hampstead. The heath was wild enough in those days--clumps of woodland, straggling bushes, wide expanses of turf, vast pits made by the gravel and sand diggers, the slopes scored by water courses with here and there a foot path--all was picturesque. The ponds were very much as they are now, save that their boundaries were not restrained and after heavy rains the water spread at its own free will.

The village itself on the slopes overlooking the heath was cramped, the houses squeezed together in narrow passages with openings here and there where glorious views of the Highgate Woods and the country beyond delighted the eye.

Lavinia inquired for Betty Higgins in the village, but without success. Indeed, the houses were not such as washerwomen could afford to live in. Then she went into the quaint tavern known as the Upper Flask and here she was told that a Mrs. Higgins who did laundry work was to be found in a cottage not far from Jack Straw's Castle on the Spaniards' road and thither Lavinia tramped, footsore and tired, for she had walked all the way from London.

Betty, a stout, sturdy woman was at her clothes lines stretched from posts on a patch of drying ground in front of her cottage. She opened wide her round blue eyes as Lavinia approached her.

"Are you Betty Higgins?" asked Lavinia.

"Aye, that's me sure enough; an' who may you be, young woman?"

"I'm Lavinia Fenton, a friend of your Cousin Hannah, who works for my mother at the coffee house in the Old Bailey."

"So you're the young miss as she told me of! Why, that be months an' months agone. An' you never comed. It put me about, it did."

"I'm very sorry. I never thought of that. But so many things I didn't expect prevented me coming."

"Have you seen Hannah? She's been a-grievin' about you, thinkin' as you might ha' come to harm."

"No, I haven't been near the Old Bailey," said Lavinia hesitatingly. "Perhaps you'll guess why. I dare say Hannah's told you about me and my mother."

"Oh, to be sure she has. May be you don't know then that your mother's got another husband?"

"I'm glad of it. She won't bother any more about me now."

"May be not. But what d'ye want?"

"I'd like to know if you can let me have a lodging. It'll suit me to live at Hampstead for a while."

"But s'posing as it don't suit me to have you?"

"Then I must go somewhere else. I think Hannah would be glad if I was with you."

"Aye, but you've been away from her goodness knows how long. What have you been a-doin' of all that while?"

"Play-acting. I had a part last week in a play at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre and Mr. Rich has promised me an engagement when the theatre opens for the winter season."

"Oh," said Mrs. Higgins with a sniff which might have signified pity or contempt, or both. "I dunno as I hold with play-actin'. Brazen painted women some o' them actresses is and the words as is put in their mouths to say--well--there----"

"I know--I know," returned Lavinia hurriedly and with heightened colour. "But that isn't their fault, and after all, it's not so bad as what one hears in front--in the gallery----"

"What, the trulls and the trapes and the saucy footmen! It made my ears tingle when Hannah took me to Drury Lane. I longed to take a stick in my hand an' lay it about 'em. So you're a play-actin' miss are ye? I'm sorry for it."

"I can't help that, Mrs. Higgins. One must do something--besides there's good and bad folk wherever you go."

"Aye, an' ye haven't got to go from here neither. A pack o' bad 'uns, men and women, come to Hampstead. They swarm like rats at Mother Ruff's, dancin' an' dicin, an' drinkin', an' wuss. I won't say as you don't see the quality at the concerts in the Great Room, but the low rabble--well, thank the Lord they don't come _my_ way."

Then Betty Higgins, who all this time had been eyeing the girl and apparently taking stock of her, suddenly harked back to the all important business which had brought Lavinia to her cottage.

"If I let ye a lodging what are ye a-goin' to do till October?"

"You spoke about the concerts at the Great Room just now," said Lavinia meditatively. "Do they have singing?"

"Singin'? Ah, an' such singin' as I never heard afore. I've never been inside, it's far too fine fur the likes o' me, but the windows are sometimes open an' I've listened an' paid nothin' fur it neither."

"I want to sing in that room, Mrs. Higgins. If I had a chance I believe I could please the fine gentlemen and their ladies and earn some money."

Betty Higgins stared aghast.

"What are ye a-talkin' about, child? _You_ sing? Where's your silk gown, your lace, your furbelows to come from?"

"I don't know, but I think something might be contrived."

Lavinia had Mrs. Houghton, who had been the leading lady in "The Orphan" and in "The Wits," in her mind. Mrs. Houghton was very friendly towards her and had no end of fine dresses.

"Oh, but singin'. Goodness me, child, you haven't heard 'em in the Great Room, all tralalas and twists and turns up and down, sometimes soft as a mouse and sometimes so loud as 'ud a'most wake the dead. I'd like to hear ye do all that, not mind ye, as I understand what it means, but its pure grand."

"I'll sing something to you Betty that you _can_ understand. What of 'My lodging, it is on the Cold Ground.' Would you like to hear that?"

"Wouldn't I! My mother was maid to Mistress Moll Davies, as King Charles was mad over, though for the matter o' that he was always a runnin' after the women. Anyway, it was that song and the way Moll sung it as won his heart. Ah, them days is past an' I'm afeared as I mustn't speak well of 'em or I'd be called a 'Jack,' clapped into Newgate or sent to Bridewell and lashed. But give me 'Lodging on the Cold Ground' an' I'll tell ye what I think. But I warn ye, mother copied Mrs. Davies an' 'll know how it ought to be sung."

Lavinia laughed to herself. She was quite sure if she could satisfy Mr. Gay and Dr. Pepusch she could please Betty Higgins.

"Them old songs," went on Betty, warming to her subject, "touches the 'eart and makes the tears come. But you don't hear 'em at the fine concerts. I'll go bail as there beant a woman now-a-days as can make a man fall in love with her 'cause of her singin'."

"I wonder," said Lavinia musingly.

"Well now, let me take in the clothes an' we'll have a dish o' tea an' a bite and then you shall sing your song."

"Yes, and I'll help you with the clothes."

Lavinia's offer pleased Betty, and the two were soon busy pulling the various garments and bits of drapery from the lines and gathering from the grass others that had been set to bleach in the wind and sun. This done they entered the cottage. The window was small and the light dim. A white-haired old woman was warming her hands and crooning over a wood fire.

"Eh, mother," cried Betty, "I've brought someone to sing to ye. 'Lodgin' on the Cold Ground,' do ye remember that old ditty?"

"Do I mind it? Why, to be sure. But who sings it now-a-days? Nobody."

"Well, ye're going to hear it, and ye'll have to say if this young miss here trolls it as well as Moll Davies used to."

"What stuff ye be talkin', Betty," retorted the old woman. "Nobody can. I can remember my mistress a-singin' it as well as if it was only yesterday."

"Do ye hear that--I've forgotten what name Hannah told me yours was?"

"Lavinia Fenton. But please call me Lavinia."

"So I will. Now sit ye down, Lavinia, and talk to mother while I brew the tea."

Lavinia was rather dismayed at finding she was to pit herself against the fascinating Moll whose charms had conquered the Merry Monarch--possibly no very arduous task.

The old lady was past eighty, but in possession of all her faculties. When she said she remembered Moll Davies' singing perfectly well she probably spoke the truth.

Tea was over. Betty cleared away and Lavinia at her request--to be correct--at her command, sang, keeping her eyes fixed on the old lady and so to speak singing _at_ her.

Before long the aged dame was mopping her eyes, and when Lavinia had finished the pathetic ballad she stretched out both her wrinkled hands towards the girl and in a quivering voice said:--

"Thank you, my dear. Lor' ha' mercy, it takes me back sixty year. I haven't heard that song since Mistress Davies sung it, an' lor' bless me, it might be her voice as I were a-listin' to. Aye, an' you're like her in face, though not in body. She was short an' a bit too plump, but she was the prettiest of wenches. Moll's singin' brought her luck and maybe yours will too."

Lavinia heard the old lady's praise with delight. Betty could say nothing. She was gazing spellbound at the nightingale. The charm of the girl's melodious and expressive voice had swept away all her prejudices. Lavinia should have a lodging and welcome. Betty went further. She did the laundry of Mrs. Palmer, the wife of the director of the concerts at the Great Room, and she undertook to tell the lady of the musical prodigy living in her cottage, and promised Lavinia to beg her ask her husband to hear the girl sing.