But when Molly returned, her distress was renewed: she brought her these words, written with a pencil upon the back of her own cover:

'I do not dare, cruellest of your s.e.x, to write you another letter; but if you would save me from the abyss of destruction, you will let me hear my final doom from your own mouth. I ask nothing more!

Ah! walk but one moment in the park, near the pales; deny not your miserable adorer this last single request, and he will fly this fatal climate which has swallowed up his repose for ever! But, till then, here he will stay, and never quit the spot whence he sends you these lines, till you have deigned to p.r.o.nounce verbally his doom, though he should famish for want of food!

ALPHONSO BELLAMY.'

Eugenia read this with horrour and compa.s.sion. She imagined he perhaps thought her confined, and would therefore believe no answer that did not issue immediately from her own lips. She sent Molly to him again with the same message; but Molly returned with a yet worse account of his desperation, and a strong a.s.surance, that if she would only utter to him a single word, he would obey, depart, and live upon it the rest of his life.

This completely softened her. Rather than imperiously suffer such a pattern of respectful constancy to perish, she consented to speak her own negative. But fearing she might be moved to some sympathy by his grief, she resolved to be accompanied by Camilla, and deferred, therefore, the interview till the next day.

Molly brought back his humble acknowledgments for this concession, and an account that, at last, slowly and sadly, he had ridden away.

Her feelings were now better satisfied than her understanding. She feared what she had granted was a favour; yet her heart was too tender to reproach a compliance made upon such conditions, and to prevent such evils.

CHAPTER VIII

_The disastrous Buskins_

Camilla, though her personal sorrows were blunted by the view of the calamities and resignation of her sister, was so little disposed for amus.e.m.e.nt, that she had accepted the invitation of Mrs. Arlbery, only from wanting spirit to resist its urgency. Mr. Tyrold was well pleased that such a recreation came in her way, but desired Lavinia might be of the party: not only that she might partake of the same pleasure, but from a greater security in her prudence, than in that of her naturally thoughtless sister.

The town of Etherington afforded no theatre; and the room fitted up for the night's performance could contain but two boxes, one of which was secured for Mrs. Arlbery and her friends.

The attentive Major was ready to offer his hand to Camilla upon her arrival. The rest of the officers were in the box.

The play was Oth.e.l.lo; and so miserably represented, that Lavinia would willingly have retired after the first scene: but the native spirits of Camilla revisited her in the view of the ludicrous personages of the drama. And they were soon joined by Sir Sedley Clarendel, whose quaint conceits and remarks a.s.sisted the risibility of the scene. She thought him the least comprehensible person she had ever known; but as he was totally indifferent to her, his oddity entertained without tormenting her.

The actors were of the lowest strolling kind, and so utterly without merit, that they had never yet met with sufficient encouragement to remain one week in the same place. They had only a single scene for the whole performance, which depictured a camp, and which here served for a street, a senate, a city, a castle, and a bed-chamber.

The dresses were almost equally parsimonious, everyone being obliged to take what would fit him, from a wardrobe that did not allow quite two dresses a person for all the plays they had to enact. Oth.e.l.lo, therefore, was equipped as king Richard the third, save that instead of a regal front he had a black wig, to imitate wool: while his face had been begrimed with a smoked cork.

Iago wore a suit of cloaths originally made for Lord Foppington: Brabantio had borrowed the armour of Hamlet's Ghost: Ca.s.sio, the Lieutenant General in the christian army, had only been able to equip himself in Osmyn's Turkish vest; and Roderigo, accoutred in the garment of Shylock, came forth a complete Jew.

Desdemona, attired more suitably to her fate than to her expectations, went through the whole of her part, except the last scene, in the sable weeds of Isabella. And Amelia was fain to content herself with the habit of the first witch in Macbeth.

The gestures, both of the gentlemen and ladies, were as outrageous as if meant rather to intimidate the audience, than to shew their own animation; and the men approached each other so closely with arms a-kimbo, or double fists, that Sir Sedley, with pretended alarm, said they were giving challenges for a boxing match.

The ladies also, in the energy of their desire not to be eclipsed, took so much exercise in their action, that they tore out the sleeves of their gowns; which, though pinned up every time they left the stage, completely exposed their shoulders at the end of every act; and they raised their arms so high while facing each other, that Sir Sedley expressed frequent fears they meant to finish by pulling caps.

So imperfect were they also in their parts, that the prompter was the only person from whom any single speech pa.s.sed without a blunder.

Iago, who was the master of the troop, was the sole performer who spoke not with a provincial dialect; the rest all betrayed their birth and parentage the first line they uttered.

Ca.s.sio proclaimed himself from Norfolk:

The Deuk dew greet yew, General, ----------- Being not at yew're lodging to be feund-- The senate sent above tree several quests, &c.

Oth.e.l.lo himself proved a true Londoner; and with his famed soldier-like eloquence in the senate-scene, thus began his celebrated defence.

Most potent, grawe, and rewerend Seignors, My wery n.o.ble and approwed good masters, That I have ta'en avay this old man's darter-- I vill a round, unwarnish'd tale deliver Of my whole course of love; vhat drugs, vhat charms, Vhat conjuration, and vhat mighty magic I von his darter with---- Her father lov'd me, oft inwited me---- ----My story being done, She gave me for my pains a vorld of sighs, She svore in faith 'tvas strange, 'tvas pa.s.sing strange, 'Tvas pitiful, 't'vas vondrous pitiful; She vish'd she had not heard it; yet she vish'd That Heawen had made her such a man.---- This only is the vitchcraft I have us'd; Here comes the lady, let her vitness it.

This happily making the gentle Desdemona recognised, notwithstanding her appearance was so little bridal, her Somersetshire father cried:

I preay you hear 'ur zpeak.

If a confez that a waz half the woer Deztruction on my head, if my bead bleame Light o' the mon!

His daughter, in the Worcestershire p.r.o.nunciation, answered:

n.o.ble father, Hi do perceive ere a divided duty; To you hi howe my life hand heducation, My life hand heducation both do teach me Ow to respect you. You're the lord hof duty; Hi'm itherto your daughter: but ere's my usband!----

The fond Oth.e.l.lo then exclaimed:

Your woices, lords! beseech you let her vill Have a free vay!-- -- --

And Brabantio took leave with

Look to'ur, Moor! if th' azt eyez to zee; A haz deceiv'd 'ur veather, and may thee.--

They were detained so long between the first and second act, that Sir Sedley said he feared poor Desdemona had lost the thread-paper from which she was to mend her gown, and recommended to the two young ladies to have the charity to go and a.s.sist her. 'Consider,' he said, 'the trepidation of a fair bride but just entered into her shackles. Who knows but Oth.e.l.lo may be giving her a strapping, in private, for wearing out her cloaths so fast! you young ladies think nothing of these little conjugal freedoms.'

Mrs. Arlbery, though for some time she had been as well diverted by the play as Camilla, less new to such exhibitions, was soon tired of the sameness of the blunders, and, at the end of the fourth act, proposed retiring. But Camilla, who had long not felt so much entertained, looked so disappointed, that her good humour overcame her fatigue, and she was insisting upon staying; when a gentleman, who visited them from the opposite box, proposed that the young ladies should be carried home by his mother, a lady who lived at Etherington, and was acquainted at the rectory, and who intended to stay out not only the play but the farce.

Lavinia consented; the son went with the proposition, and the business was soon arranged. Mrs. Arlbery, who had three miles to go beyond the parsonage-house, and who, though she delighted to oblige, was but little in the habit of practising self-denial, then consigned the young ladies to General Kinsale, to be conducted to the opposite box, and was handed by Colonel Andover to her coach.

The General guarded the eldest sister; the Major took care of Camilla: but they were all stopt in their pa.s.sage by the sudden seizure of a pickpocket, and forced hastily back to the box they had quitted.

This commotion, though it had disturbed all the audience, had not stopt the performance; and Desdemona being just now discovered in bed, Camilla, not to lose the interesting scene, persuaded her sister to wait till the play was over, before they attempted again to cross to the opposite box; into which, in a few minutes after, she saw Mandlebert enter.

They had both already seated themselves as much out of sight as possible; and Camilla now began to regret she had not accompanied Mrs.

Arlbery. She had thought only of the play and its entertainment, till the sight of Mandlebert told her that her situation was improper; and the idea only occurred to her by considering that it would occur to him.

Mandlebert had dined out with a party of men, and had stept in to see what was going forwards, without any knowledge whom he should meet: he instantly discerned Lavinia, and felt anxious to know why Camilla was not with her, and why she sat so much out of sight: but Camilla so completely hid herself, he could only see there was a female, whom he concluded to be some Etherington lady; and he determined to make further enquiry when the act should be over.

The performance now became so truly ludicrous, that Camilla, notwithstanding all her uneasiness, was excited to almost perpetual laughter.

Desdemona, either from the effect of a bad cold, or to give more of nature to her repose, breathed so hard, as to raise a general laugh in the audience; Sir Sedley, stopping his ears, exclaimed, 'O! if she snores I shall plead for her no more, if she tear her gown to tatters!

Suffocation is much too lenient for her. She's an immense horrid personage! nasal to alarm!'

Oth.e.l.lo then entered, with a tallow candle in his hand, staring and dropping grease at every step; and, having just declared he would not

Scar that vhiter skin of hers than snow,

perceived a thief in the candle, which made it run down so fast over his hand, and the sleeve of his coat, that, the moment not being yet arrived for extinguishing it, he was forced to lay down his sword, and, for want of better means, snuff it with his fingers.

Sir Sedley now protested himself completely disordered: 'I must be gone,' cried he, 'incontinently; this exceeds resistance: I shan't be alive in another minute. Are you able to form a notion of anything more annihilating? If I did not build upon the pleasure of seeing him stop up those distressing nostrils of the gentle Desdemona, I could not breathe here another instant.'

But just after, while Oth.e.l.lo leant over the bed to say--