Chapter XVIII

ROMEO AND JULIET ON THE STAGE, AND IN
LADY BELL TREVOR AND MISS GREATHEAD’S BOX.

Harry Fane found it easier to join Lady Bell in her box with Miss Greathead at Covent Garden than at the masquerade ball. Notwithstanding that, the tide which had turned and was bearing the great actress on to fortune, was so full in its rush, that the crowd at White’s was nothing to the jammed mass filling to suffocation the huge theatre.

In the private box Miss Greathead, the other “Lady of Quality,” was considerate and generous.

She had been telling Lady Bell that she remembered when Miss Kemble came to Miss Greathead’s mother’s house in the capacity of a waiting gentlewoman. She had struck everybody by her commanding beauty and her magnificent reading, and she had secured the friendship of each member of the family, so that though she soon quitted Guy’s Cliff to be married to her rejected lover, and to return to the boards—her true sphere—her friends continued to watch her struggles and her progress with interest and rejoicing. So long as she and they lived, Sarah Siddons would be welcome among the Greatheads.

Miss Greathead brought her story to a close abruptly, and made room for the young officer in naval uniform.

He looked a quiet, reserved, brave man, rather than a crowing, bullying cock of fashion. At the same time he had been indefatigable in scaling banisters and leaping partitions in order to reach the door of Lady Bell Trevor and Miss Greathead’s box. He deserved the seat which he had won next Lady Bell, though, poor fellow, he might not fill it long—and it might be to his loss that he filled it at all.

Miss Greathead in her woman’s heart, while she counselled expediency and condemned imprudence with the rest of the quality, guessed what sitting together for an hour or two was to a couple between whom there might soon roll the seas which divide an old world from a new, and these seas alive with transports, frigates, squadrons, hastening to meet the tug of war.

The pair were young fools (Miss Greathead was shocked at Lady Bell Trevor—the daughter of an earl, though a spendthrift earl, a jointured widow, though her jointure was not great, while the officer by his uniform was no more than a Captain, and was not a private “fortune,” else he could hardly have failed to be known by name to Miss Greathead—she could not think what Lady Bell meant by thus preparing misery for herself and another). But what would you have? such fools abounded, would not the world be worse if it wanted them? Mrs. Siddons was about to play just such another fool.

At least the sailor must fill his seat as a silent partner, for Mrs. Siddons’ acting, and the pit which hung breathless on her words, permitted no chatter in the boxes or elsewhere.

The play was that of _Romeo and Juliet_.[1]

[1] This is a double anachronism, Mrs. Siddons did not play in town
again till later, and did not play Juliet till later still.

When Mrs. Siddons took the part of Juliet, she ventured on a new and bold stroke in the middle of her success. Since Lady Bell, a fancy-free childish girl, though a fugitive wife, had been stirred to weep and smile, and hang breathless over the histories of Isabella, Mrs. Beverley, and Euphrasia, Mrs. Siddons had risen to a much loftier range of characters, to her mature masterpieces of Lady Macbeth, Constance, and Queen Katherine.

But for that very reason it appeared doubtful if she could descend from her height of ripe majestic matronhood to the dramatist’s idea of a single-hearted love-lorn Italian girl. Even Mrs. Siddons’ superbly developed personal traits might turn to faults and work against her in the attempt to personate the slender, tender daughter of the Capulets.

But no sooner did the enchantress come before her judges and begin to weave her spells, than the velvet eyes, with their rich lashes, the white pillars of arms with their regal sweep, became the fond dreamy eyes, the loving, clinging arms inspired by the soul of youthful, radiant, all-defying passion in Juliet.

These two—Lady Bell and Captain Fane—looked at and listened to their own story. True, they were not of sufficiently mighty quality to belong to great rival houses, but the couple belonged in a measure to different classes. Lady Bell might aspire to prospects as far ahead of the naval captain at her side, though he was born and bred in her rank, as were a Vice-Admiral’s commission, and Westminster Abbey.

The circumstance that the difference between Lady Bell and Captain Fane was comparatively slight, only rendered it more cruel if it were to part them, since it did anything save prevent the rose from smelling as sweet.

To sit together at such a play interpreted by so consummate an actress, and an actor who was not immeasurably behind her, was to sit like the guilty King and Queen of Denmark and witness their crime shadowed forth by the players. But whereas it was the past which was held up before the shrinking eyes of the Royal Danes, it seemed a dazzling glimpse of the future which was vouchsafed to these lovers.

The secret of Lady Bell and Captain Fane, so far as it had remained any secret to them, was spoken out in Shakespeare’s words and by Siddons’ and Kemble’s voices. The true lovers there of whom the others were but a vivid realization, sat with heaving breasts, flushed faces, and eyes fixed on the stage, and dared not glance at each other (did not need to for that matter), each to understand what the other felt—save once or twice.

At the masqued ball in the Capulets’ house, when fortune favoured the brave so signally as to find the daring intruder his fit partner in the daughter of the house, in a trice, Captain Fane and Lady Bell turned simultaneously to smile to each other and to afford the opportunity for the whisper on his part, “That fellow was in luck—he was not long in receiving his prize.”

At the first suggestion of a private marriage, Captain Fane again sought and received a look as by irresistible fascination. “Do you mark that?” said the swift meaning glance of his eyes, before which Lady Bell’s eyes swam and fell as they had never swum and fallen before.

There might have been many more pairs of lovers in the great crowded house that night, taking to themselves, and making a personal matter of the play and its playing, thus failing to view it in a speculative and critical light.

But there was absolutely nobody to whom Shakespeare and the Kembles were rant and fustian, who was moved to laugh when the players wept, or to joke and shrug when they raved.

There was something marvellous in the unanimity of the sympathy, in the multitude swayed like one man by the poet and the players, till the old Italian tragedy in its passion and its piteousness lived again.

Women clasped their hands and prayed for mercy on the young lovers, sobbed as Juliet drank the potion and composed herself to the semblance—too complete—of death,—and shrieked and swooned when Romeo met Paris at the tomb—when swords were crossed and the boy husband who believed himself widowed in the green accomplishment of his vows, piercing and pierced, fell for ever.

Men drew long breaths, and swore deep oaths, as over their professional contests, their tussles in Parliament, their meetings at Chalk Farm, their long seats at the green board.

We have it on recent record, that in one row in the orchestra there sat to see Mrs. Siddons play, men whose names are not forgotten, no, nor will be, “Reynolds, Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan, Windham, Fox.” These men were not babies, but “the tears were seen running down their dark faces.”

The theatre was a power in those days, and the excitement which crossed and suspended the excitement of gaming tables and lottery drawings, was in the main a wholesome and saving excitement. Mrs. Siddons made a figure in Lady Bell’s history which sounds strange nowadays. Not only did the actress chance to interfere between the girl and imminent destitution, an incident which might in itself be passed over like any other fortuitous incident, but at the crisis of Lady Bell’s history, John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons played Romeo and Juliet, before Captain Fane and Lady Bell, and the players had much to answer for.

A great deal which did come to pass might never have been. Human nature partially roused might have struggled in vain with its swaddling-bands, and sunk back into hopeless helplessness, unable to compass, within the course of a few days, its deliverance by one bold stroke. The opportunity once lost might never have returned. But in the very striking of the clock _Romeo and Juliet_ was played.

What hearts must have been stirred to their depths by the grand acting of the grand old players! What moral revolutions must have been wrought out, what life and death actions compelled—transforming ordinary men and women into heroes and heroines! It would be curious if it were possible to make such a reckoning.

It may be said to the sceptical of such influences who have only sought for them in the theatre of to-day, what woman shrieks and swoons in the theatre now? what man, even, is seized with strong hysterics, as happened once, among the throng who panted, sweated, and quivered to leap on the stage, rush to the rescue, or be in at the death?

We live in a hypercritical and cynical age, and are proud of the fact. We should never have been touched by Dr. Dodd’s enunciation of “Mesopotamia”—it is to be feared not even by George Whitfield’s breathing forth of “amen,” neither by the sham nor by the reality.

Besides, we are misled by visions of our ancestors taking snuff and looking on at executions, and think that they felt very little, and that in the wrong place. Whereas we are the very same men and women, except that we are triply bound by certain refinements and restraints, and are pleased to hug our bonds.

Lady Bell had cried with the best, palpitated and quaked over Romeo and Juliet. She had never once felt disturbed by the remembrance, as a modern playgoer would have felt disturbed—nay, would have taken credit for the feeling, that she had been behind the scenes with this Juliet, had helped her to nurse her children, add up her bills, and eat her prosaic meals.

Lady Bell was not so carping and invidious. She was more womanly; she was inclined to go to the opposite extreme in her reception of the play and in the effect which it had upon her.

“This Juliet was a sweet victim,” Miss Greathead had declared, wiping her eyes when all was over. “But one must confess she had little more than her deserts. How would it be with any girl in our days, who could be as disobedient and deceitful and monstrously rash as Mistress Juliet showed herself?”

“Oh, Miss Greathead,” protested Lady Bell, forgetting everything in the eagerness of her argument, “I don’t go in for the disobeying and deceiving her parents—only they were so mad in their feud, that what could she ever hope for from their reason or their duty? They drove her to the climax of her disobedience and deceit, and that after she had consented to be Romeo’s. Why, madam,” Lady Bell paused, clasped her hands expressively, and exclaimed irrestrainably, “I should have done the same.”

“What! swallowed that horrid drug, and taken the doubtful consequences—the only thing certain that she should overwhelm her father and mother and whole kindred in a horrid waste of grief? Then, when she did wake up in the dreadful shadowy tomb, because the first glimmer of light proved to her that the dangerous stratagem had been in vain, and she had lost her lover—— My dear, many a woman has to lose her lover,” Miss Greathead broke off, and fanned herself, while a quiver passed over her features. “Think of this American war, and the French wars, and the Scotch rebellion, and all that they cost. But to count the world lost, and refuse to live any longer without the one man! It was selfish and cowardly, as well as blasphemous, for her to fall on his sword, and make an end of it.”

Lady Bell shivered.

“There need not have been any use of violence,” she said, after a pause, speaking from the prompting of her heart—“unless, indeed, it was because the young Italian girl was too sorry for herself. A living death would soon have killed her; and if it had not, death in life would have been the greater tribute of the two.”

“Lady Bell,” said Captain Fane in her ear, taking her hand and holding it fast and tight, as they left the box and wended their slow way after Miss Greathead, whom a friend was conducting to a coffee-house for supper, “I have something to say to you, and you know it, while you have not the heart to deny me the liberty of saying it. I am sure of this much after to-night. Oh, the happiness of knowing that your heart is on my side! What are the heaviest obstacles after that gracious encouragement? But I must speak where we shall not be interrupted. Will you be my love, and will you meet me on the Mall, where I shall be walking by nine o’clock to-morrow morning, long before there will be any company abroad?”

Lady Bell hung her head and trembled, and would almost have drawn back, frightened at the result which she had helped to provoke.

“You will not be true to yourself and to me if you refuse me such an interview,” he put it. “I shan’t detain you a moment against your will; do you think I should, or wilfully expose you or your good name? Ah, never; you know me better than think that. But although you have no parents to control you, and are even independent of guardians, you are so young, my darling, that it is such a miserable match for you.”

“Hush, hush,” Lady Bell stopped him. “You don’t know how unworthy I am—what a vain, pleasure-loving, headstrong creature.”

“You shall have the best, the purest pleasure that I can procure for you,” bragged Harry. “But all your friends will oppose a marriage between us, especially at this time, when I may get orders any day to sail for America. Even my friends, Sir Peter and Lady Sundon, will be scandalized—as if their house had not proved a snare to me, and as if they were answerable for their pirate of a kinsman snatching at the treasure which he came across.”

“I am my own mistress,” said Lady Bell, giving a welcome specimen of the wilfulness of which she had spoken. “No one has any right to say anything to me against my choice—as if I would listen!—unless my dear Mrs. Sundon. Oh, I hope she will not think that we have been close and sly. I have writ and told her that I thought one gentleman very different from the rest whom I met in town, and that I imagined she would like him. Only I made a mistake; for I fancied at first that he would be more to her taste than mine. But, sir, I do not grant that you have any title to hear what I write in my private correspondence with my friend.” She made a faint attempt at playfulness.

“Don’t you?” questioned Harry, showing that, glum as he had sometimes been in Lady Bell’s company, his was not the faint heart which could not win a fair lady. “What presumption I have been guilty of! I leaped to the conclusion that there was to be no more secrets between us, and that you would write to me myself for my consolation in our parting.”

At that word of parting, Lady Bell came fluttering down from her proud little perch, and nestled to him in an instant.

“Harry,” she said, “I shall meet you to-morrow if you bid me. But take care what you bid me to do, for I trust you entirely.”

“God do so and more to me, if I fail you,” swore Harry Fane.

“And don’t mind any foolish pother people make. I shall not mind it much. Only I hope that they will not be very rude and disagreeable on your account. Here is the coffee-house; and mind, we must behave ourselves, unless we would have our engagement talked of all over the town before it is fairly concluded.”