Madam,” said Mr. Daly, the manager, in his politest style, “no one could regret the occurrence more than myself”—he pronounced the word “meself”—“especially as you say it has hurt your feelings. Do n't I know what feelings are?”—he pronounced the word “failings,” which tended in some measure to alter the effect of the phrase, though his friends would have been inclined to assert that its accuracy was not thereby diminished.
“I have been grossly insulted, sir,” said Mrs. Siddons.
“Grossly insulted,” echoed Mr. Siddons. He played the part of echo to his stately wife very well indeed.
“And it took place under your roof, sir,” said the lady.
“Your roof,” echoed the husband.
“And there's no one in the world sorrier than myself for it,” said Mr. Daly. “But I do n't think that you should take a joke of the college gentlemen so seriously.”
“Joke?” cried Mrs. Siddons, with a passion that caused the manager, in the instinct of self-preservation to jump back. “Joke, sir!—a joke passed upon Sarah Siddons! My husband, sir, whose honour I have ever upheld as dearer to me than life itself, will tell you that I am not accustomed to be made the subject of ribald jests.”
“I do n't know the tragedy that that quotation is made from,” remarked Mr. Daly, taking out his snuff-box and tapping it, affecting a coolness which he certainly was far from possessing; “but if it's all written in that strain I'll bring it out at Smock Alley and give you an extra benefit. You never spoke anything better than that phrase. Pray let us have it again, madam—'my husband, sir,' and so forth.”
Mrs. Siddons rose slowly and majestically. Her eyes flashed as she pointed a shapely forefinger to the door of the greenroom, saying in her deepest tones:
“Sir! degrade the room no longer by your presence. You have yet to know Sarah Siddons.”
“Sarah Siddons,” murmured the husband very weakly. He would have liked to maintain the stand taken up by his wife, but he had his fears that to do so would jeopardise the success of his appearance at the manager's treasury, and Mr. Siddons now and again gave people to understand that he could not love his wife so well loved he not the treasury more.
Mr. Daly laughed.
“Faith, Mrs. Siddons,” said he, “'t is a new thing for a man to be ordered out of his own house by a guest. I happen to be the owner of this tenement in Smock Alley, in the city of Dublin, and you are my guest—my honoured guest, madam. How could I fail to honour a lady who, in spite of the fact of being the greatest actress in the world, is still a pattern wife and mother?”
Mrs. Siddons was visibly softening under the balmy brogue of the Irishman.
“It is because I am sensible of my duties to my husband and my children that I feel the insult the more, sir,” she said, in a tone that was still tragic.
“Sure I know that that's what makes the sting of it so bitter,” said Mr. Daly, shaking his head sadly. “It's only the truly virtuous, madam, that have feelings”—again he pronounced the word “failings.”
“Enough, madam,” he continued, after he had flourished his handkerchief and had wiped away an imaginary tear. “Enough! In the name of the citizens of Dublin I offer you the humblest apology in my power for the gross misconduct of that scoundrel in the pit who called out, 'Well done, Sally, my jewel!' after your finest soliloquy; and I promise you that if we can find the miscreant we shall have him brought to justice.”
“If you believe that the citizens of Dublin are really conscious of the stigma which they shall bear for ages to come for having insulted one whose virtue has, I rejoice to say, been ever beyond reproach, I will accept your apology, sir,” said Mrs. Siddons with dignity.
“I 'll undertake to swear that the citizens feel the matter quite as deeply as I do, Mrs. Siddons,” cried Mr. Daly, with both his hands clasped over his waistcoat. “I dare swear that they do not even now know the enormity of your virtue, madam. It will be my pleasing duty to make them acquainted with it; and so, madam, I am your grateful, humble servant.”
With a low bow he made his escape from the green-room, leaving Mrs. Sid-dons seated on a high chair in precisely the attitude which she assumed when she sat for the Tragic Muse of Reynolds.
“Thank heavens that 's over!” muttered the manager, as he hurried down Smock Alley to the tavern at the corner kept by an old actor named Barney Rafferty, and much frequented by the Trinity College students, who in the year 1783 were quite as enthusiastic theatre-goers as their successors are in the present year.
“For the love of heaven, Barney, give us a jorum,” cried Daly, as he entered the bar parlor. “A jorum of punch, Barney, for I 'm as dry as a lime kiln, making speeches in King Cambyses' vein to that Queen of Tragedy.”
“It'll be at your hand in a minute, Mr. Daly, sir,” said Barney, hurrying off.
In the parlour were assembled a number of the “college boys,” as the students were always called in Dublin. They greeted the arrival of their friend Daly with acclamation, only they wanted to know what had occurred to detain him so long at the theatre.
“Delay and Daly have never been associated before now when there's a jorum of punch in view,” remarked young Mr. Blenerhassett of Limerick, who was reported to have a very pretty wit.
“It's lucky you see me among you at all, boys,” said the manager, wiping his brow. “By the powers, I might have remained in the green-room all night listening to homilies on the virtue of wives and the honour of husbands.”
“And 't is yourself that would be nothing the worse for listening to a homily or two on such topics,” remarked young Blake of Connaught. “And who was the preacher of the evening, Daly?”
“None else than the great Sarah herself, my boy,” replied the manager. “Saint Malachi! what did you mean by shouting out what you did, after that scene?” he added.
“What did I shout?” asked Jimmy Blake. “I only ventured humbly to cry, 'Well done, Sally, my jewel'—what offence is there in that?”
“Ay, by Saint Patrick, but there's much offence in 't,” cried Daly. “Mrs. Siddons sent for me to my dressing-room after the play, and there I found her pacing the green-room like a lioness in her cage, her husband, poor man, standing by as tame as the keeper of the royal beast.”
A series of interested exclamations passed round the room, and the circle of heads about the table became narrower. “Mother o' Moses! She objected to my civil words of encouragement?” said Mr. Blake.
“She declared that not only had she been insulted, but her husband's honour had been dragged in the mire, and her innocent children's names had been sullied.”
“Faith, that was a Sally for you, Mr. Daly,” said young Home, the Dublin painter to whom Mrs. Siddons had refused to sit, assuring him that she could only pay such a compliment to Sir Joshua Reynolds.
“Boys, may this be my poison if I ever put in a worse half hour,” cried Daly, as he raised a tumbler of punch and swallowed half the contents.
“I 'd give fifty pounds to have been there,” said Home. “Think what a picture it would make!—the indignant Sarah, the ever courteous manager Daly, and the humble husband in the corner. What would not posterity pay for such a picture!”
“A guinea in hand is worth a purse in the future,” said one of the college boys. “I wish I could draw a bill on posterity for the payment of the silversmith who made my buckles.”
“Daly,” said Blake, “you're after playing a joke on us. Sally never took you to task for what I shouted from the Pit.”
Mr. Daly became dignified—he had finished the tumbler of punch. He drew himself up, and, with one hand thrust into his waistcoat, he said: “Sir, I conceive that I understand as well as any gentleman present what constitutes the elements of a jest. I have just conveyed to you a statement of facts, sir. If you had seen Sarah Siddons as I left her—egad, she is a very fine woman—you would n't hint that there was much jest in the matter. Oh, lord, boys”—another jug of punch had just been brought in, and the manager was becoming genial once more—“Oh, lord, you should have heard the way she talked about the honour of her husband, as if there never had been a virtuous woman on the boards until Sarah Siddons arose!”
“And was there one, Daly?” asked young Murphy, a gentleman from whom great things were expected by his college and his creditors.
“There was surely, my boy,” said Daly, “but I've forgot her name. The name's not to the point. I tell you, then, the Siddons stormed in the stateliest blank verse and periods, about how she had elevated the stage—how she had checked Brereton for clasping her as she thought too ardently—how she had family prayers every day, and looked forward to the day when she could afford a private chaplain.”
“Stop there,” shouted Blake. “You'll begin to exaggerate if you go beyond the chaplain, Daly.”
“It's the truth I've told so far, at any rate, barring the chaplain,” said Daly.
“And all because I saw she was a bit nervous and did my best to encourage her and give her confidence by shouting, 'Well done, Sally!'” said Blake. “Boys, it's not Sarah Siddons that has been insulted, it's Trinity College—it's the city of Dublin! by my soul, it's the Irish nation that she has insulted by supposing them capable of insulting a woman.”
“Faith, there 's something in that, Jimmy,” said half a dozen voices.
“Who is this Sarah Siddons, will ye tell me, for I 'd like to know?” resumed Blake, casting a look of almost painful enquiry round the room.
“Ay, that 's the question,” said Daly, in a tone that he invariably reserved for the soliloquy which flourished on the stage a century ago.
“We 're all gentlemen here,” resumed Mr. Blake.
“And that 's more than she is,” said young Blenerhassett of Limerick.
“Gentlemen,” said the manager, “I beg that you'll not forget that Mrs. Siddons and myself belong to the same profession. I cannot suffer anything derogatory”—the word gave him some trouble, but he mastered it after a few false starts—“to the stage to be uttered in this apartment.”
“You adorn the profession, sir,” said Blake. “But can the same be said of Mrs. Siddons? What could Garrick make of her, gentlemen?”
“Ahem! we know what he failed to make of her,” said Digges, the actor, who sat in the corner, and was supposed to have more Drury Lane scandal on his fingers' ends than Daly himself.
“Pooh!” sneered Daly. “Davy Garrick never made love to her, Digges. It was her vanity that tried to make out that he did.”
“He did not make her a London success—that's certain,” said Blake. “And though Dublin, with the assistance of the College, can pronounce a better judgment on an actor or actress than London, still we must admit that London is improving, and if there had been any merit in Sarah Siddons she would not have been forced to keep to the provinces as she does now. Gentlemen, she has insulted us and it's our duty to teach her a lesson.”
“And we're the boys to do it,” said one Moriarty.
“Gentlemen, I 'll take my leave of you,” said the manager, rising with a little assistance and bowing to the company. “It's not for me to dictate any course for you to pursue. I do n't presume to ask to be let into any of your secrets; I only beg that you will remember that Mrs. Siddons has three more nights to appear in my theatre, and she grasps so large a share of the receipts that, unless the house continues to be crowded, it's a loser I'll be at the end of the engagement. You'll not do anything that will jeopardise the pit or the gallery—the boxes are sure—for the rest of the week.”
“Trust to us, sir, trust to us,” said Jimmy Blake, as the manager withdrew. “Now, boys,” he continued in a low voice, bending over the table, “I've hit upon a way of convincing this fine lady that has taken the drama under her wing, so to speak, that she can't play any of her high tragedy tricks here, whatever she may do at Bath. She does n't understand us, boys; well, we'll teach her to.”
“Bravo, Jimmy!”
“The Blake's Country and the sky over it!”
“Give us your notions,” came several voices from around the table.
“She bragged of her respectability; of her armour of virtue, Daly told us. Well, suppose we put a decent coat on Dionysius Hogan and send him to propose an elopement to her to-morrow; how would that do for a joke when it gets around the town?”
“By the powers, boys, whether or not Dionysius gets kicked down the stairs, she'll be the laughing-stock of the town. It's a genius”—he pronounced it “jan-yus”—“that you are, Jimmy, and no mistake,” cried young Moriarty.
“We'll talk it over,” said Jimmy. And they did talk it over.
II
Dionysius Hogan was a celebrated character in Dublin during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The Irish capital has always cherished curious characters, for pretty much the same reason that caused badgers to be preserved; any man, or, for that matter, any woman, who was only eccentric enough, could depend on the patronage of the people of Dublin. Dionysius Hogan afforded his fellow-citizens many a laugh on account of his numerous eccentricities. He was a man of about fifty years of age, but his great anxiety was to appear thirty years younger; and he fancied he accomplished this aim by wearing in 1783 the costume of 1750, only in an exaggerated form. His chief hallucination was that several of the best known ladies in society were in love with him, and that it was necessary for him to be very careful lest he should compromise himself by a correspondence with some of those who had husbands.
0186
It need scarcely be said that this idea of his was not greatly discouraged by the undergraduates of Trinity College. It was not their fault if he did not receive every week a letter from some distinguished lady begging the favor of an interview with him. Upon many occasions the communications, which purported to come from married ladies, took the form of verses. These he exhibited with great pride, and only after extorting promises of profound secrecy, to his student friends.
It was immaterial that Dionysius found almost every week that he had been the victim of practical jokes; his belief in his own powers of captivating womankind was superior to every rebuff that he encountered. He exhibited his dapper little figure, crowned with the wig of a macaroni, to the promenaders in all the chief thoroughfares daily, and every evening he had some fresh story to tell of how he had been exerting himself to avoid an assignation that was being urged on him by a lady of quality sojourning not a hundred miles from the Castle.
The scheme which Mr. Blake had suggested to his fellow-students in the Smock Alley tavern found a willing agent for its realisation in Dionysius Hogan. Mrs. Siddons, her beauty and her powers, were, of course, the talk of the town during her first visit to Dublin. It only needed Jimmy Blake to drop a few dark hints in the hearing of Dionysius on the subject of a rumor that was current, to the effect that a certain well-known gentleman in Dublin had attracted the attention of the great actress, to make Dionysius believe that he had made a conquest of the Siddons.
For the remainder of the evening he took to dropping dark hints to this effect, and before he had slept that night there was no doubt on his mind that Sarah Sid-dons was another lady who had succumbed to his attractive exterior. To be sure, he had heard it said that she was as hard as marble; but then she had not seen him until she had come to Dublin. All women, he believed, had their weak moments, and there was no article of his creed more strongly impressed upon him than that the weak moment of many women was when they saw him for the first time.
When, on descending from his bedroom to his little sitting-room in his humble lodgings—for Mr. Hogan's income did not exceed eighty pounds a year—a letter was put into his hand bearing the signature “S. S.,” and when he found that above these initials there was a passionate avowal of affection and a strong appeal to him to be merciful as he was strong, and to pay the writer a visit at her lodgings before the hour of one, “when Mr. S. returns from the theatre, where he goes every forenoon,” poor Dionysius felt that the time had at last come for him to cast discretion to the winds. The beauty of Mrs. Siddons had had a powerful effect upon his susceptible heart when she had first come before his eyes on the stage of the Smock Alley theatre.
0192
On that night he believed that she had kept her eyes fixed upon him while repeating some of the beautiful soliloquies in “Isabella.” The artful suggestions of Jimmy Blake had had their effect upon him, and now he held in his hand a letter that left him no room to doubt—even if he had been inclined that way—the accuracy of the tale that his poor heart had originally told him.
He dressed himself with his accustomed care, and, having deluged his cambric with civet—it had been the favourite scent of thirty years before—he indulged in the unusual luxury of a chair to convey him to the lodgings of the great actress; for he felt that it might seriously jeopardise his prospects to appear in the presence of the lady with soiled shoes.
The house where Mrs. Siddons lodged was not an imposing one. She had arrived in Dublin from Holyhead at two o'clock in the morning, and she was compelled to walk about the streets in a downpour of rain for several hours before she could prevail upon any one to take her in. It is scarcely surprising that she conceived a strong and enduring prejudice against Dublin and its inhabitants.
On enquiring in a whisper and with a confidential smirk for Mrs. Siddons, he learned from the maid servant that the lady was in her room, and that Mr. Siddons had not returned from his morning visit to the theatre. The servant stated, however, that Mrs. Siddons had given the strictest orders to admit no one into her presence.
“Ah, discreet as one might have expected,” murmured Dionysius. “She does not mean to run the chance of disappointing me. Which is her parlour, child?”
“It's the first front, yer honour,” said the girl; “but, Lord save yer honour, she'd murther me if I let ye go up. Oh, it's joking ye are.”
“Hush,” whispered Dionysius, his finger on his lips. “Not so loud, I pray. She is waiting for me.”
“Holy Biddy! waiting for yer?” cried the maid. “Now do n't be afther getting a poor colleen into throuble, sir. I'm telling ye that it's killed entirely I'd be if I let ye go up.”
“Do n't be a fool, girl,” said Dionysius, still speaking in a whisper. “I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that Mrs. Siddons is awaiting me. Zounds! why do I waste time talking to a menial? Out of my way, girl.”
He pushed past the servant, leaving her somewhat awe-stricken at his grand manner and his finery, and when she recovered and made a grab for his coat tails, he was too quick for her. He plucked them out of her reach, and she perceived that he had got such a start of her that pursuit would be useless. In a few moments he was standing before the door of the room on the first floor that faced the street.
His heart was fluttering so that he had scarcely courage to tap upon the panel. He had tapped a second time before that grand contralto, that few persons could hear without emotion, bade him enter. He turned the handle, and stood facing Mrs. Siddons.
0197
She was sitting in a gracefully majestic attitude by the side of a small table on which a desk was placed. Mrs. Siddons never unbent for a moment in private life.
She assumed majestic attitudes in the presence of the lodging-house servant, and spoke in a tragic contralto to the linen-draper's apprentice. She turned her lovely eyes upon Dionysius Hogan as he stood smirking and bowing at the door. There was a vista of tragedy in the delivery of the two words—
“Well, sir?”
It took him some moments to recover from the effect the words produced upon him. He cleared his throat—it was somewhat husky—and with an artificial smirk he piped out:
“Madam—ah, my charmer, I have rushed to clasp my goddess to my bosom! Ah, fair creature, who could resist your appeal?”
He advanced in the mincing gait of the Macaronis. She sprang to her feet. She pointed an eloquent forefinger at a spot on the floor directly in front of him.
“Wretch,” she cried, “advance a step at your peril!” Her eyes were flashing, and her lips were apart.
His mincing ceased abruptly; and only the ghost of a smirk remained upon his patched and painted face. It was in a very fluty falsetto that he said:
“Ah, I see my charmer wants to be wooed. But why should Amanda reproach her Strephon for but obeying her behests? Wherefore so coy, dear nymph? Let these loving arms—”
“Madman—wretch—”
“Nay, chide me not, dear one. 'T is but the ardour of my passion that bids me clasp thee, the fairest of Hebe's train. We shall fly together to some retreat—far from the distractions—”
“Oh, the man is mad—mad!” cried the lady, retreating a step or two as he advanced.
“Only mad with the ardour of my passion,” whispered Dionysius.
“Oh, heaven! that I should live to hear such words spoken in my presence!” cried Mrs. Siddons, with her hands clasped in passionate appeal to a smiling portrait of the landlady's husband that hung over the fireplace. Then she turned upon Dionysius and looked at him.
Her eyes blazed. Their fire consumed the unfortunate man on whom they rested. He felt himself shrivelled up and become crisp as an autumn leaf. He certainly trembled like one, as a terrible voice, but no louder than a whisper, sounded in his ears: “Are you a human being or the monster of a dream, that you dare to speak such words in my hearing? What wretch are you that fancies that Sarah Siddons may be addressed by such as you, and in language that is an insult to a pure wife and mother. I am Sarah Siddons, sir! I am a wife who holds her husband's honour dearer than life itself—I am a mother who will never cause a blush of shame to mantle the brow of one of her children. Wretch, insulter, why are mine eyes not basilisks, with death in their glance to such as you?”
Down went Dionysius on his knees before that terrible figure that stretched out wild quivering hands above his head. Such gestures as hers would have fitted the stage of Drury Lane.
In the lodging-house parlour they were overwhelming.
“For God's sake, spare me, spare me!” he faltered, with his hands clasped and his head bent before that fury.
“Why should I spare such a wretch—why should I not trample such a worm into the dust?”
She took a frantic step toward him. With a short cry of abject terror he fell along the floor, and gasped. It seemed to him that she had trampled the life out of his body.
She stood above him with a heaving bosom beneath her folded arms.
There was a long pause before he heard the door open. A weight seemed lifted off him. He found that he could breathe. In a few moments he ventured to raise his head. He saw a beautiful figure sitting at the desk writing. Even in the scratching of her pen along the paper there was a tone of tragedy.
He crawled backward upon his hands and knees, with his eyes furtively fixed upon that figure at the desk. If, when he had looked up he had found her standing with an arm outstretched tin the direction of the door, he felt that he would have been able to rise to his feet and leave her presence; but Mrs. Siddons' dramatic instinct caused her to produce a deeper impression upon him by simply treating him as if he were dead at her feet—as if she had, indeed, trampled the life out of his body.
He crept away slowly and painfully backward, until he was actually in the lobby. Then by a great effort he sprang to his feet, rushed headlong down the stairs, picked himself up in the hall, and fled wildly through the door, that chanced to be open, into the street. He overthrew a chairman in his wild flight, and as he turned the corner he went with a rush into the arms of a young man, who, with a few others by his side, was sauntering along.
0205
“Zounds, sir! what do you mean by this mode of progression?” cried the young man, holding him fast.
Dionysius grasped him limply, looking at him with wild, staring eyes.
“For God's sake, Mr. Blake, save me from her—do n't let her get hold of me, for the love of all the saints.”
“What do you mean, you fool?” said Jimmy Blake. “Who is anxious to get hold of you?”
But no answer was returned by poor Dionysius. He lay with his head over Blake's shoulder, his arms swaying limply like two pendulums.
“By the powers, he has gone off in a swoon,” said young Blenerhassett. “Let us carry him to the nearest tavern.”
In less than half an hour Dionysius had recovered consciousness; but it required a longer space of time, and the administration of a considerable quantity of whisky, to enable him to tell all his story. He produced the letter signed “S. S.” which he had received in the morning, and explained that he had paid the visit to Mrs. Siddons only with a view of reasoning her out of her infatuation, which, he said with a shadowy simper, he could not encourage.
“I had hardly obtained access to her when she turned upon me in a fury,” said he. “Ah, boys, those eyes of hers!—I feel them still upon me. They made me feel like a poor wretch that's marched out in front of a platoon to be shot before breakfast. And her voice! well, it sounded like the voice of the officer giving the word of command to the platoon to fire. When I lay ready to expire at her feet, every word that she spoke had the effect of a bayonet prod upon my poor body. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! I'll leave it to yourself, Mr. Blake: was it generous of her to stab me with cold steel after I was riddled with red-hot bullets?”
“I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hogan,” replied Blake, “that I can't take a lenient view of your conduct. We all know what you are, sir. You seek to ingraft the gallantries of the reign of his late Majesty upon the present highly moral age. Mrs. Siddons, sir, is a true wife and mother, besides being a most estimable actress, and you deserved the rebuff from the effects of which you are now suffering. Sir, we leave you to the gnawings of that remorse which I trust you feel acutely.”
Mr. Blake, with his friends, left the tavern room as Dionysius was beginning to whimper.
In the street a roar of laughter burst from the students.
“Mother o' Moses!” cried Moriarty. “'T is a golden guinea I'd give to have been present when the Siddons turned upon the poor devil.”
“Then I 'll give you a chance of being present at a better scene than that,” said Blake.
“What do you mean, Jimmy?” asked Moriarty.
“I mean to bring you with me to pay a visit to Mrs. Siddons this very minute.”
“'T is joking you are, Jimmy?”
“Oh, the devil a joke, ma bouchai! Man alive, can't you see that the fun is only beginning? We'll go to her in a body and make it out that she has insulted a friend of ours by attributing false motives to him, and that her husband must come out to the Park in the morning.”
“That's carrying a joke a bit too far,” said Mr. Blenerhassett. “I'll not join in with you there.”
“Nobody axed ye, sir,” said Blake. “There are three of us here without you, and that's enough for our purpose.”
“If Mr. Siddons kicks you into the street, or if Sally treats you as she did that poor devil in the tavern, 't is served right that you'll be,” said Blenerhassett, walking off.
“We'll have a scene with Sarah Siddons for our trouble, at any rate,” laughed Blake.
The three young men who remained when the more scrupulous youth had departed, went together to Mrs. Siddons' lodgings. They understood more than Dionysius did about the art of obtaining admittance when only a portress stood in the way—a squeeze, a kiss, and a crown combined to make the maid take a lenient view of the consequences of permitting them to go up the stairs.
When, after politely rapping at the door of the parlour, the three entered the room, they found the great actress in precisely the same attitude she had assumed for her last visitor. The dignity of her posture was not without its effect upon the young men. They were not quite so self-confident as they had been outside the door. Each of them looked at the other, so to speak; but somehow none of the three appeared to be fluent. They stood bowing politely, keeping close to the door.
“Who are these persons?” said Mrs. Siddons, as if uttering her thoughts. “Am I in a civilised country or not?”
“Madam,” said Blake, finding his voice, at last, when a slur was cast upon his country. “Madam, Ireland was the home of civilisation when the inhabitants of England were prowling the woods naked, except for a coat of paint.”
Mrs. Siddons sprang to her feet.
“Sir,” she cried, “you are indelicate as well as impertinent. You have no right to intrude upon me without warning.”
“The urgency of our mission is our excuse, madam,” said Blake. “The fact is, madam, to come to the point, the gentleman who visited you just now is our friend.”
“Your friend, sir, is a scoundrel. He grossly insulted me,” said Mrs. Siddons.
“Ah, 't is sorry I am to find you do n't yet understand the impulses of a warmhearted nation, madam,” said Blake, shaking his head. “The gentleman came to compliment you on your acting, and yet you drove him from your door like a hound. That, according to our warmhearted Irish ways, constitutes an offence that must be washed out in blood—ay, blood, madam.”
“What can be your meaning, sir?”
“I only mean, madam, that your husband, whom we all honour on account of the genius—we do n't deny it—the genius and virtue of his wife, will have to meet the most expert swordsman in Ireland in the Phonix Park in the morning, and that Sarah Siddons will be a widow before breakfast time.”
There was a pause before there came a cry of anguish more pitiful than any expression of emotion that the three youths had ever heard.
“My husband!” were the words that sounded like a sob in their ears.
Mrs. Siddons had averted her head. Her face was buried in her hands. The wink in which Jimmy Blake indulged as he gave Moriarty a nudge was anything but natural.
“Why was I ever tempted to come to this country?” cried the lady wildly.
“Madam, we humbly sympathise with you, and with the country,” said Blake. He would not allow any reflection to be cast on his country.
She took a few steps toward the three young men, and faced them with clasped hands. She looked into the three faces in turn, with passionate intreaty in her eyes. “Have you no pity?” she faltered.
“Yes,” said Blake, “that we have; we do pity you heartily, madam.”
“Are you willing to take part in this act of murder—murder?” cried Mrs. Siddons, in a low voice that caused the flesh of at least two of her audience to creep. “Are you blind? Can 't you see the world pointing at you as I point at you, and call you murderers?” She stood before them with her eyes half closed, her right hand pointing to each of them in turn as she prolonged the word, suggesting a thousand voices whispering “murderers!” There was a long pause, during which the spell-bound youths, their jaws fallen, stared at that terrible figure—the awful form of the Muse of Tragedy. Drops of perspiration stood on the forehead of young Moriarty. Blake himself gave a gasp. “Have you no compassion?” Mrs. Sid-dons continued, but in another tone—a tone of such pathos as no human being could hear unmoved. Clasping her hands, she cried: “My poor husband! What harm has he done? Is he to be dragged from these arms—these arms that have cherished him with all the devotion that a too-loving wife can offer? Is he to be dragged away from this true heart to be butchered? Sirs, we have children—tender little blossoms. Oh, cannot you hear their cries? Listen, listen—the wailing of the babes over the mangled body of their father.”
Surely the sound of children's sobbing went around the room.
One of the young men dropped into a chair and burst into tears.
Blake's lips were quivering, as the streaming eyes of the woman were turned upon him.
“For heaven's sake, madam!” he faltered—“for heaven's sake—oh, my God! what have we done?—what have we done? Worse than Herod! the innocent children!—I hear them—I hear them! Oh, God forgive us! God forgive us for this cruel joke.”
He broke down utterly. The room now was certainly filled with wild sobbing and the sound of convulsive weeping.
For several minutes the three emotional Irishmen sat weeping. They were in the power of the woman, who, at the confession of Blake, had become perfectly self-possessed in a moment. She stood watching them, a scornful smile upon her lips. She knew that the magic which she had at her command could enchain them so long as she wished. She was merciful, however.
“If you consider your jest sufficiently successful, gentlemen,” said she, “perhaps you will oblige me by withdrawing. I have letters to write.”
The spell that she had cast around them was withdrawn.
Blake sprang to his feet and drew his handkerchief across his eyes.
“Mrs. Siddons—madam,” said he, “we have behaved like fools—nay, worse, like scoundrels. We are not bold enough to ask your pardon, madam; but believe me, we feel deeply humiliated. You may forgive us, but we shall never forgive ourselves. Madam, you are the greatest actress in the world, and you may expect the finest benefit ever given to an actress in this city.”
But in spite of the fact that Mrs. Siddons' benefit the following night was all that Mr. Blake predicted it would be, she wrote some very hard words about Dublin to her friend, Mr. Whately, of Bath.
