Читать книгу Fanny's First Novel - Frank Frankfort Moore - Страница 7

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THE scene ended by Mr. Garrick's victim groping through his tears for Mr. Garrick's hand. He grasped it emotionally, and though for some moments he was too greatly overcome to be able to utter a word, yet at last he managed to blurt out with affecting incoherence a few phrases.

“Say no more—say no more, sir,” he muttered. “I have a heart—a heart! I give you my word, whether you believe me or not, that I had no notion—but you have shown me what 'tis to be a woman. Oh, sir, there is no sweeter sex in the world! Deception! how a man's own heart may deceive him—ay, up to a certain point—but then—ah, you have taught me—but are you sure that the lady—what—have we not been going ahead too fast? What—what; are you convinced?”

“You may take my word for it, sir,” replied Garrick. “There are signs that all who run may read. What, do you suppose that all those persons of quality whose names you mentioned just now as having offered you their felicitations—do you suppose that they could all be in error?”

“Of course not—they must have seen—well, more than I saw,” said the man. “Matrimony! Lud! if an angel had come down to tell me that I should be contemplating such a change of life—and at my time of life too!—I should have——”

“What an angel may fail to convince a man of, a woman may succeed in doing, Mr. Kendal,” said Garrick sententiously. “But do not talk of your time of life as if you were an old or even a middle-aged man, sir. To do so were to make Dr. Burney and myself feel patriarchs.”

The mention of Dr. Burney seemed to cause the man to recollect how it was he came to be in Dr. Burney's house. He turned to Burney, saying:

“Dear sir, I pray that you will look on my visit with lenient eyes. I admit that I came hitherto be advised by you—my friend, Mr. Fulke Greville, holds your opinion in the highest esteem, as do I, sir; and it was actually on my mind to ask you if you thought it would be wiser for me to go abroad for a year or two, or simply to seek some place of retirement at home—say, Cornwall or the Hebrides—I gather from the account of Dr. Johnson's tour thither that there are many places difficult of access in the Hebrides—that was on my mind, Doctor, I blush to acknowledge, so greatly overcome was I by what had happened at the Wells.”

“Ah, with what great ease a man may slam the door that shuts out happiness from his life for evermore!” remarked Garrick.

“Even now—even now I feel timid,” said Mr. Kendal thoughtfully, and, when he had found which pocket his handkerchief was in, wiping some dew from his brow. “The truth is, Doctor, that I have allowed some people to assume that I am but forty-seven years old, while as a matter of fact I have been forty-eight for some time.”

“For some years?” asked young Burney, who did not know when he should keep silence.

“For some months, sir—only for some months, I give you my word.”

“Your deception in this matter could only have added to your reputation for accuracy,” said Garrick coolly. “For I vow that were you to confess that you were forty-eight, you would find none to believe you.”

The gentleman's eyes twinkled, he pursed out his lips, and once again manoeuvred to get a full-length view of himself in the long mirror. He put out his right leg and assumed the attitude of a dancing master giving the pas for the minuet de cour.

“Well, well,” he cried, “if that be your opinion—and I happen to know that 'tis shared by others—it might not be unwise to allow the assumption, erroneous though it be, to continue. We will not undeceive the good folk. And you do not think that a bachelor of forty-eight—What is the name of that play of Mr. Sheridan's that took the town a year ago?—ah, The School for Scandal—you are sure that our friends will not call me—What was the gentleman's name?”

“No one who knows how excellent are your principles will think of you either as Charles or Joseph, Mr. Kendal,” said Garrick.

“No, no; but the one who was in my mind was neither of the brothers. I was thinking of—was it not Sir Peter Teazle?”

Garrick as well as Burney laughed heartily, for the man at that moment suggested by his attitude and expression the Sir Peter Teazle of Kina, the actor.

“Make your mind easy on that score, sir,” said Dr. Burney. “It is not your purpose to wed so skittish a young person as Lady Teazle. That was where Sir Peter showed his folly.”

“No, no; Mrs. Nash is more mature, certainly, than Mrs. Abington looked in the part,” said Mr. Kendal confidently, and Lieutenant Burney was about to agree with him boisterously, but Garrick did not give him a chance.

“There is none that will not commend your choice, Mr. Kendal—ay, sir, and look on you with envy as well,” he cried.

“There can be no doubt about it,” said Mr. Kendal doubtfully. “The widow Nash is a monstrous fine woman.”

“Monstrous, I doubt not,” put in young Burney, now that he had the chance.

“All that I am uneasy about is the interpretation that she may put upon your sudden flight,” said Garrick. “You have, you will readily allow, sir, placed her in a somewhat difficult position at the Wells. While everyone who is anyone has been offering you congratulations upon the match, and a double portion to the lady, strange inquiries may be made as to your disappearance from the Wells; and she may not be able to give a satisfactory explanation at a moment's notice.”

“Egad! I never thought of that, sir,” said Mr. Kendal, after a pause. “I fear that I have placed her in a very awkward position.”

“Ay, sir; and the consequences may be that she will be snapped up by some adventurous person before you can put your fate to the test,” said the naval man, raising a warning finger. “I have heard of ladies throwing themselves into the arms of the next comer out of sheer chagrin at being disappointed by the man on whom they had set their affections.”

“That is a possibility that should not be neglected,” said Garrick. “But it was only on Monday that you fled. By rapid posting you may yet prevent such a calamity.”

He was beginning to tire of his game now that he had succeeded so well in it and so easily. The fooling of the man who had so completely succumbed to his art had no further interest for him. He only wanted to get rid of him. He was as capricious and as fickle as a child over the toys of its nursery.

“I shall lose no moment, be assured,” said Mr. Kendal. “I may still be in time. My hope in this direction is increased when I remember that the lady has been a widow for some years—to be exact, without being uncomplimentary, nine years. I remember when Mr. Nash died. 'Twas of pleurisy.”

“Do not reckon too confidently on that, sir,” said young Burney. “Nine years have not passed since she faced the company at the Wells, every one of which was surely pointing at her and asking in mute eloquence, 'What has become of Mr. Kendal?' But by posting without delay you may yet retrieve your error. Still, I confess to you that I have known of a lady who, out of sheer impatience at the delay of a lover whom she had hoped to espouse, married his rival after the lapse of twenty-four hours—ay, and when the belated gentleman arrived just after the ceremony, he furnished the wedding party with a succulent feast. She was the Queen of one of the islands that we visited in the company of Captain Cook, and the cockswain of our galley kept the pickled hand of the belated lover for many a day—the very hand which he had designed to offer the lady.”

“This simple and affecting narrative proves more eloquently than any phrases of mine could possibly do how a man may miss the happiness of his life by a hair's breadth,” said Garrick. “And the lesson will not be lost upon you, I am certain, sir.”

“Lud, Mr. Garrick, you do not mean to suggest that——”

“That the lady may make a meal off you on your late return, sir? Nay, Mr. Kendal. The Wells are still the Wells, not the South Seas; but on the whole I am disposed to believe that the scheme of revenge of the woman scorned is fiercer, though perhaps not, at first sight, so primeval, in the region of Chalybeate Waters than in a cannibal island of the South Seas. Therefore—there is no time to be lost. Fly to your charmer, sir, and throw yourself at her feet. She may be thinking over some punishment for your having placed her in a false position for some days; but do not mind that. You can always console yourself with the reflection that a rod in pickle is much more satisfactory than a hand in pickle. Fly, my dear friend, fly; every moment is precious. Take my word for it, joy awaits you at the end of your journey.”

“'Journeys end in lovers meeting,'” remarked Dr. Burney, with a slight suggestion of the setting of the words of the lyric by his old master, Dr. Arne.

At this moment a servant entered the room.

“The Streatham carriage is at the door, sir,” he announced.

Dr. Burney rose from his chair.

“I am forced to leave you, sir,” he said to Mr. Kendal. “But really there is naught further to consult on at present, and I know that you are impatient—it is but natural—to fly to the side of your charmer.”

“I am all impatience, sir; but with what words can I express my obligation to you, Doctor, for the benefit of your counsel?” cried Mr. Kendal.

Dr. Burney smiled.

“Nay, dear sir, I am but the lessee of the theatre where the comedy has been played,” said he; and he had good reason for feeling that he had defined with accuracy the position that he occupied. But Mr. Kendal was thinking too much about himself and the position he occupied to appreciate such nuances.

“I knew that I was safe in coming to a friend of Mr. Greville,” he said. “I care not if, as you suggest, you have become Mr. Garrick's successor at Drury Lane, though I thought that Mr. Sheridan——”

“Zounds, sir, you are never going to wait to discuss theatre matters,” cried Garrick. “Dr. Burney has been exercising his powers of oratory in vain upon you for this half hour if you tarry even to thank him. Post, sir, post at once to Tunbridge Wells, and send Dr. Burney your thanks when you have put the momentous question to the lady. Go, sir, without the pause of a moment, and good luck attend you.”

“Good luck attend you! Keep up your heart, sir: the lady may refuse you after all,” said young Burney; but the poor gentleman who was being hurried away was too much flurried to be able to grasp the young man's innuendo, though one could see by the look that came to his face that he had an uneasy impression that Lieutenant Burney's good wishes had not been happily expressed. The great thing, however, was that he was at the other side of the door, calling out his obligations to everyone, and striving to shake hands with them all at once and yet preserve the security of his hat, which he had tucked under his arm. So excited was he that he was only restrained at the last moment from mounting the Thrales' carriage which was awaiting Dr. Burney, and even when his mistake was explained to him, he took off his hat to the splendid footman who had guarded the door of the vehicle.

In the room where the comedy had been played, Garrick and Lieutenant Burney had thrown themselves into chairs with roars of laughter, when Dr. Burney returned from the hall, carrying his hat and cane. He was scarcely smiling.

“You have played a pretty prank upon an inoffensive gentleman, the pair of you!” said he. “I am ashamed that my house has been used by you for so base a purpose! The poor gentleman!”

“Psha! my dear Doctor, make your mind easy; the lady will teach that coxcomb a lesson that will be of advantage to him for the rest of his life,” said Garrick. “He has been the laughingstock of the Wells for the past fortnight, and no one laughed louder than the Widow Nash. She will bundle him out of her presence before he has had time to rise from his marrow-bones—he does not find the process a rapid one, I assure you. Oh, he was her bete noire even when he was most civil to her.”

“And it was you who concocted that plot of getting all your friends—Mrs. Cholmondeley, Mrs. Thrale and the rest—to make a fool of him, driving him away from the Wells to encounter a more irresistible pair of mocking demons in this room!” said Burney. “You cannot deny it, my friend, I know your tricks but too well.”

“I swear to you that I had no hope of encountering him in this house, my dear Doctor,” said Garrick. “I give you my word that I had laid my plans quite differently. My plot was a far more elaborate one, and Polly Cholmondeley had agreed to take part in it, as well as Dick Sheridan. They will be disappointed to learn that it has miscarried. Who could guess that he should come to you of all men in the world, Doctor? He has never been one of your intimates.”

“Only when I was living with Mr. Greville had we more than a superficial acquaintance,” replied Burney. “But that does not make me the less ashamed of having lent myself to your nefarious project. And you, James, you threw yourself with gusto into the fooling of the unhappy man—and woman too—and woman too, I repeat.”

“Pray do not distress yourself on her account, Doctor. She will send him off with a flea in his ear by to-morrow night, and she will take care to pose as the insulted widow of Mr. Nash, whose memory is dear to her,” said Garrick.

“Will she, indeed?” said Burney. “David Garrick, you are the greatest actor that has ever lived in England—probably in the world—but you are a poor comedian compared with such as are at work upon our daily life: we call them Circumstance, and Accident, and Coincidence. You know the couplet, I doubt not:

' Men are the sport of circumstances when

The circumstances seem the sport of men.'

You have sounded the depths of human impulses, so far as your plummet allows you, and womankind seems to you an open book——”

“An illuminated missal, with the prayers done in gold and the Lessons for the day in the most roseate tint, Doctor.”

“And the Responses all of a kind—the same in one book as another? But I make bold to believe, my friend, that every woman is a separate volume, of which only one copy has been printed; and, moreover, that every separate volume of woman is sealed, so that anyone who fancies he knows all that is bound up between the covers, when he has only glanced at the binding, makes a mistake.”

“Admirably put, sir, and, I vow, with fine philosophy,” said Garrick. “But what imports this nomination of a woman at the present moment, Doctor?”

“Its import is that you are over sanguine in your assurance that Mrs. Nash, widow, will reject Mr. Kendal, bachelor, when he offers her his hand after a dusty journey; and so good day to you, David Garrick, and I pray you to spend the rest of the day in the study of the history of those women who have opened the leaves of their lives a little way before the eyes of mankind.”

He had left the room and was within the waiting carriage and driving away before his son remarked:

“Mr. Garrick, it seems to me that my good father has spoken the wisest words that you or I have heard to-day or for many a day.”

“And i' faith, James, it seems to me that that remark of yours is the second wisest that has been uttered in this room,” said Garrick.

He went away without a further word—without even taking his leave of the two young women and their stepmother, who herself had been a widow before she had married Dr. Burney. He had once believed that nothing a woman—young or old—could do would surprise him; for some reason or other he was not now quite so confident as he had been. But he certainly did not think that one of the greatest surprises of the century should be due to the demure young woman who seemed the commonplace daughter of a very ordinary household, and who at the moment of his departure was darning a small hole in a kitchen table-cloth, under the superintendence of her admirable stepmother.