IV

They went up to the gardens by boat. Their party numbered four, for Miss Hoppner had, when alone with Captain Joycelyn, so pouted that he had promised to bring with him a brother officer to add symmetry to the party. But if she fancied that this gentleman, who was one Ensign Cardew, was to be the companion of Mrs. Woffington, she soon became sensible of her mistake. By some strange error, for which only Peggy could account the couples got parted in the crowd, Peggy and the Captain disappearing mysteriously, and only meeting the Ensign and his companion at supper time.

The merriment of Peggy, at the supper, and the high spirits of Captain Joycelyn, who allowed himself to be spoon-fed by her with minced chicken, were powerless to disperse the cloud which hung over Miss Hoppner. She pouted at the supper, and pouted in the boat, and made only sarcastic replies to the exclamations of enjoyment addressed to her by the volatile Peggy.

The next day, before the rehearsal of the tragedy, Miss Hoppner said to Peggy, who was renewing her protestations of the enjoyment she had had on the previous evening:

“I think it right that you should know, Mrs. Woffington, that Captain Joycelyn some time ago made a proposal of marriage to me, which I accepted.”

“Good creature, what has that to do with me?” asked Peggy. “Captain Joycelyn certainly said nothing to me on that particular subject last night, and why should you do so now?”

“I am desirous of playing a fair game, madam,” cried Miss Hoppner.

“And I am not desirous of playing any game, fair or otherwise,” said Peggy. “Lud, Miss Hoppner, do you fancy that 't is my duty to prevent the straying of the lovers of the ladies of Mr. Garrick's company? I vow, I took upon me no such responsibility; I should have no time for my meals.”

The woman whom she addressed looked at her with flashing eyes, her hands tightly clenched, and her teeth set, for some moments. Once her lips parted; she seemed about to speak; but with an evident struggle she restrained herself. Then the fierce light in her eyes flamed into scorn.

“Words were wasted on such a creature,” she said in a whisper, that had something of a hiss in its tone, as she walked away.

Peggy laughed somewhat stridently, and cried:

“Excellently spoke, beyond doubt. The woman will be an actress yet.”

Not a word of complaint had Garrick reason for uttering in regard to the rehearsal of the scene in the tragedy, this day, and on their way homewards, he remarked to Peggy, smilingly:

“Perhaps in the future, my dear Peggy, you will acknowledge that I know something of the art and methods of acting, though you did not hesitate to join with Mr. Johnson in calling my theories fantastic.”

“Perhaps I may,” said Peggy, quietly; “but just now I protest that I have some qualms.”

“Qualms? Qualms? An actress with qualms!” cried Garrick. “What a comedy could be written on that basis! 'The Actress with Qualms; or, Letting I Dare Not wait upon I Would!' Pray, madam, do your qualms arise from the reflection that you have contributed to the success of a sister actress?”

“The tragedy has not yet been played,” said Peggy. “It were best not to talk of the success of an actress in a play until the play has been acted.”

That night, Mrs. Woffington occupied a box in the theater, and by her side was Captain Joycelyn. Miss Hoppner was in a box opposite, and by her side was her mother.

On Monday, Peggy greeted her quite pleasantly as she came upon the stage to rehearse the tragedy; but she returned the greeting with a glance of scorn, far more fierce than any which, in the character of Oriana, she had yet cast at her rival in the scenes of the play. Peggy's mocking face and the merry laugh in which she indulged did not cause the other to abate any of her fierceness; but when the great scene was rehearsed for the last time previous to the performance, Mrs. Woffington became aware of the fact that, not only was Miss Hoppner's representation of the passionate jealousy of the one woman real, but her own expression of fear, on the part of the other woman when she saw the flash of the dagger, was also real. With an involuntary cry she shrank back before the wild eyes of the actress, who approached her with the stealthy movement of a panther measuring its distance for a spring at the throat of its victim.

Garrick complimented both ladies at the close of the scene, but they both seemed too overcome to acknowledge his compliments.

“By my soul, Peggy,” said Garrick, when they met at the house in Bow street, “you have profited as much by your teaching of that woman as she has. The expression upon your face to-day as she approached you gave even me a thrill. The climax needed such a cry as you uttered, though that fool of a poet did not provide for it.”

She did not respond until some moments had passed, and then she merely said:

“Where are we to end, Davy, if we are to bring real and not simulated passion to our aid at the theater? Heavens, sir! we shall be in a pretty muddle presently. Are we to cultivate our hates and our jealousies and our affections for the sake of exhibiting them in turn?”

“'T would not be convenient to do so,” said Garrick. “Still, you have seen how much can be done by an exhibition of the real, and not the simulated passion.”

“Depend upon it, sir, if you introduce the real passions into the acting of a tragedy you will have a real and not a simulated tragedy on the stage.”

“Psha! that is the thought of—a woman,” said Garrick. “A woman seeks to carry an idea to its furthest limits; she will not be content to accept it within its reasonable limitations.”

“And, being a woman, 'tis my misfortune to think as a woman,” said Mrs. Woffington.

The theatre was crowded on the evening when “Oriana” appeared for the first time on the bills. Garrick had many friends, and so also had Margaret Woffington. The appearance of either in a new character was sufficient to fill the theatre, but in “Oriana” they were both appearing, and the interest of playgoers had been further stimulated by the rumors which had been circulated respecting the ability of the new actress whom Garrick had brought from the country.

When the company assembled in the green-room, Garrick gave all his attention to Miss Hoppner. He saw how terribly nervous she was. Not for a moment would she remain seated. She paced the room excitedly, every now and again casting a furtive glance in the direction of Mrs. Woffington, who was laughing with Macklin in a corner.

“You have no cause for trepidation, my dear lady,” said Garrick to Miss Hoppner.

0155

“Your charm of person will make you a speedy favorite with the playgoers, and if you act the stabbing scene as faithfully as you did at the last two rehearsals your success will be assured.”

“I can but do my best, sir,” said the actress. “I think you will find that I shall act the stabbing scene with great effect.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Garrick. “Your own friends in the boxes will be gratified.”

“I have no friends in the boxes, sir,” said the actress.

“Nay, surely I heard of at least one—a certain officer in the Royal Scots,” whispered Garrick.

“I know of none such, sir,” replied the actress, fixing her eyes, half closed, upon Peg Woffington, who was making a jest at Macklin's expense for the members of the company in the neighbourhood.

“Surely I heard—,” continued Garrick, but suddenly checked himself. “Ah, I recollect now what I heard,” he resumed, in a low tone. “Alas! Peggy is a sad coquette, but I doubt not that the story of your conquests will ring through the town after to-night.”

She did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were fixed upon Peggy Woffington, and in another moment the signal came that the curtain was ready to rise.

Garrick and Macklin went on the stage together, the former smiling in a self-satisfied way.

“I think I have made it certain that she will startle the house in at least one scene,” he whispered to Macklin.

“Ah, that is why Peggy is so boisterous,” said Macklin. “'Tis only when she is over-nervous that she becomes boisterous. Peggy is beginning to feel that she may have a rival.”

But if Peggy was nervous she certainly did not suggest it by her acting. She had not many opportunities for displaying her comedy powers in the play, but she contrived to impart a few touches of humour to the love scenes in the first act, which brightened up the gloom of the tragedy, and raised the spirits of the audience in some measure. Her mature style contrasted very effectively with the efforts of Miss Hoppner, who showed herself to be excessively nervous, and thereby secured at once the sympathies of the house. It was doubtful which of the two obtained the larger share of applause.

At the end of the act, Captain Joycelyn was waiting at the back of the stage to compliment Peggy upon her acting. Miss Hoppner brushed past them on her way to her dressing-room, without deigning to recognise either.

Curiously enough, in the next act the position of the two actresses seemed to be reversed. It was Mrs. Woffington who was nervous, whereas Miss Hoppner was thoroughly self-possessed.

“What in the world has come over you, my dear?” asked Garrick, when Peggy had made an exit so rapidly as to cause the latter half of one of her lines to be quite inaudible.

“God knows what it is!” said Peggy. “I have felt all through the act as if I were going to break down—as if I wanted to run away from an impending calamity. By heaven, sir, I feel as if the tragedy were real and not simulated!”

“Psha! You are but a woman, after all,” said Garrick.

“I fear that is the truth,” said she. “Good God! that woman seems to have changed places with me. She is speaking her lines as if she had been acting in London for years. She is doing what she pleases with the house.”

Garrick had to leave her to go through his great scene with the Oriana of the play, and Mrs. Woffington watched, as if spell-bound, the marvellous variety of his emotional expression, as, in the character of the Prince Orsino, he confessed to Oriana that he no longer loved her, but that he had given his heart to Francesca. She saw the gleam in the eyes of the actress of the part of the jealous woman as she denounced the perfidy of her lover, and bade him leave her presence. Then came Oriana's long soliloquy, in which she swore that the Prince should never taste the happiness which he had sought at her expense.

“I have a heart for murder, murder, murder!

My blood now surges like an angry sea,

Eager to grapple with its struggling prey,

And strangle it, as I shall strangle her,

With these hands hungering for her shapely

throat,

The throat on which his kisses have been flung.

Give her to me, just God, give her to me,

But for the time it takes to close my hand

Thus, and if justice reign supreme above,

The traitress shall come hither to her doom.”

(Enter Francesca.)

(Aside) “My prayer is answered. It is Jove's decree.” So the passage ran, and it was delivered by the actress with a fervour that thrilled the house.

After her aside, Oriana turned, according to the stage directions, to Francesca with a smile. In Miss Hoppner's eyes there was a light of triumph—of gratified revenge—and before it Margaret Woffington quailed. She gave a frightened glance around, as if looking for a way of escape; there was a little pause, and then upon the silence of the house there fell the half-hissed words of Oriana as she craned her head forward facing her rival:

“Thou think'st to ride in triumph o'er my

corse—

The corse which his indecent feet have spurned

Into the dust. But there's a God above!

I tell thee, traitress, 't is not I shall lie

For vulture-beaks to rend—but thou—thou—

thou!

Traitress abhorred, this knife shall find thy

heart!”

“My God! the dagger—it is real!” shrieked Peggy; but before she could turn to fly, the other had sprung upon her, throwing her partly over a couch, and holding her down by the throat while she stabbed her twice.

A hoarse cry came from Peg Woffington, and then she rolled off the couch and fell limply to the stage, the backs of her hands rapping helplessly on the boards as she fell.

The other actress stood over her for a moment with a smile; then she looked strangely at the dagger which glistened in her hand. Then, with a hysterical cry, she flung the weapon from her and fell back.

The curtain went down upon the roar of applause that came from every part of the theatre. But though the applause was maintained, neither of the actresses responded to the call. Several minutes had passed before Garrick himself appeared and made a sign that he wished to speak. When the house became silent, he explained to his patrons that both actresses had swooned through the great demands which the scene had made upon them, and would be unable to appear for the rest of the evening. Under these melancholy circumstances, he hoped that no objection would be made to the bringing on of the burletta immediately.

The audience seemed satisfied to forego the enjoyment of the ghost scenes of the tragedy, and the burletta was proceeded with.

It was not thought advisable to let the audience know that Mrs. Woffington was lying on a couch in her dressing room, while a surgeon was binding up a wound made in her side by the dagger used by the other actress. It was not until Garrick had examined the weapon that he perceived it was not a stage blade, but a real one, which had been used by Miss Hoppner. Fortunately, however, the point had been turned aside by the steel in Peg Woffington's stays, so that it had only inflicted a flesh wound.

In the course of a couple of hours Peggy had recovered consciousness, and, though very weak, was still able to make an effort to captivate the surgeon with her witty allusions to the privileges incidental to his profession. She was so engaged, when Garrick entered the room and told her that Miss Hoppner was weeping outside the door, but that he had given orders that she was not to be admitted.

“Why should the poor girl not be admitted?” cried Peggy. “Should such an accident as that which happened be treated as though it were murder? Send her into the room, sir, and leave us alone together.”

Garrick protested, but Peggy insisted on having her own way, and the moment Miss Hoppner was permitted to enter, she flung herself on her knees at the side of the couch, weeping upon the hand that Peggy gave to her.

When Garrick entered with Captain Joycelyn, a short time afterwards, Peggy would not allow him to remain in the room. The Captain remained, however, for some minutes, and when he left, Miss Hoppner was on his arm. They crossed the stage together, and that was the last time she ever trod that or any other stage, for Captain Joycelyn married her within a month.

“Ah, friend Davy,” cried Peggy to Garrick, “there was, after all, some sense in what Mr. Johnson said. We actors are, doubtless, great folk; but 't were presumptuous to attempt to turn Nature into the handmaid of Art. I have tried it, sir, and was only saved from disaster by the excellence of the art of my stays-maker. Nay, the stage is not Nature—it is but Nature seen on the surface of a mirror; and even then, I protest, only when David Garrick is the actor, and Shakespeare's the poet.”