"Peg, I forbid you to leave the room!"

But the command came too late. Whether Peg had not heard or had seen fit not to hear, she had quitted the room. Scarcely had the door closed ere Mowbray stooped and murmured her name.

She had risen and recoiled across the room.

"Oh, my lord, this is wrong!" she cried.

"Mowbray's wish makes wrong right," he replied. "What do you fear,--the man who loves you to distraction?"

Resolutely she fixed her eyes on his, striving to read therein, beyond the disarray of his senses, the true thought which animated him.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"You love me? You have already said the same thing to twenty others,--to Bella Vereker, for instance!"

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"I have never owned a second love! Neither she, nor any one else. You are my first love, and you shall be the only one!"

"I do not believe you. You are not telling me truth."

"Certainly I am," he exclaimed. "You shall be Lady Mowbray in the sight of G.o.d and man, with the reversion of the office which my mother holds at court."

This was no illusion! Esther began to weaken, vanity being in reality her vulnerable point.

At this moment a heavy knocking sounded upon the door, so resonant, so brutal that they both trembled.

"They are about to begin!" cried a voice in the pa.s.sage. Perhaps it may seem singular to those who have not experienced similar situations, that such an incident can save a young girl; that the sentiment of secondary but immediate duty can brusquely awaken her at the moment that the notion of primal duty is losing its hold upon her. Esther recovered her presence of mind upon the instant.

"I am on in the first scene!" she cried. "Quick, my costume!"

She threw open the door. The callboy had disappeared, but one of the company who was to play the part of Hero, already dressed, was just descending to the greenroom.

"Are they beginning?" Esther demanded.

"Not yet."

"But I have just been called."

"Who could have done it? Some joke of course. You have a quarter of an hour yet."

"But I am alone!"

"Then I will help you."

During this dialogue Mowbray made good his escape. The blow had been struck! Who had struck it at the decisive moment? Who had dared to s.n.a.t.c.h his prey from him? Could it be Lebeau? He again! At the thought Mowbray's face grew dark with hatred.

CHAPTER IX.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Slowly the curtain rose. In the great hall of the palace the good Lord Leonato, sovereign of a fantastic country which only Shakespeare knew, having at his two sides his daughter Hero and his niece Beatrice, with all his court about him, receives the messenger who comes to announce the victory of his troops and their imminent return.

Such is the spectacle from the auditorium; but the spectacle of the auditorium, seen from the stage, is otherwise curious; to modern eyes it would seem like a glimpse of fairyland.

A myriad candles shed from on high upon four thousand spectators a flood of soft, white light. The snowy wainscoting relieved with gold, the toilets of the men and women, the naked shoulders, the diamonds, the orders,--all seemed to stand forth in relief against the pervading brilliance. Soft pink, pearl-gray, pigeon-breast, sea-green, pale blue, violet, faint gold, the clear white of silk, the dull white of satin, the cream white of old laces, every shade which could reflect the light, are mingled in one delicious harmony. Through the silence which falls upon the audience the soft _frou-frou_ of silk and the flutter of fans are alone audible. Every face is turned towards the stage, attentive, smiling, already charmed. In that age of extreme sociability one did not go to the theatre to enjoy individual, egotistical comfort in a corner, but to share in common a pleasure which increased by the fact that it was shared. Those were looked for at Drury Lane whom one had met at Almack's, at the Pantheon, at Ranelagh, those whom one had seen thirty years earlier at Vauxhall and Marylebone Gardens.

From a box Prince Orloff displays his gigantic figure, his diamonds, and his handsome face, which had vanquished a Czarina. It was here that an adroit pickpocket, only two years before, had failed to relieve him of his famous snuff-box, valued at a million francs.

Not far from him Lord Sandwich, the Jemmy Twitcher of the popular song and the _bete noir_ of all London, appears quite consoled for the tragic death of his lady-love, Miss Reay, who had been a.s.sa.s.sinated within the year by an amorous clergyman. The grim figure of Charles James Fox looms in the back of another box, the front of which is occupied by the d.u.c.h.ess of Rutland and the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, the irresistible Georgiana, who will soon become his election broker and buy up votes for him (_Honi soit qui mal y pense!_) at the price of a kiss.

A little farther away, following the circular rank of columns, sit the inseparable trio, Lady Archer, Lady Buckinghamshire and Mrs. Hobart, the three wild faro-players whom the Lord Chief Justice menaced with the pillory, and whom the caricaturist Gillray nailed there for all time.

Lady Vereker has also come to applaud her little friend. In the second tier of boxes is enthroned Mrs. Robinson, fresh from teaching the Prince of Wales his first lesson in love. That man, whose fund of small-talk seems inexhaustible and insolent, but whose intelligent face catches every eye, is Sheridan, who has become director of Drury Lane by buying up Garrick's share. At his side lounges the exquisitely languid figure of a young woman, of late Miss Linley, the singer, now Mrs. Sheridan; for he has acquired her, thanks to his audacity, having run away with her in the face and eyes of her family and no end of suitors, while upon the adventure he has founded a comedy, the success of which is his wife's dowry.

In the gallery are seen more _beaux_ than women, the _elegantes_ and c.o.xcombs, who are still termed _macaronis_, although the word is beginning to pa.s.s out of vogue. Rings, frills, and ruffles, the cut of coat and waistcoat, the latest suggestion in breeches,--all is with them a matter of profound meditation, from the buckle upon their shoes to the tip of their curled heads. Their hair is a ma.s.s of snow, conical in shape, about which floats the odor of iris and bergamot. Sellwyn, forever dreaming of his little marchioness, sits beside Reynolds, who holds his silver ear-trumpet towards the stage. Near them is Burgoyne, who consoles himself for his great military disaster at Saratoga by writing comedies. He has chosen the better part of the vanquished, which is to cry louder than anybody else and accuse everybody. For the one hundredth time he is explaining to Capt. Vancouver that the true author of the capitulation in America was not he, Burgoyne, who signed it, but that infernal Lord North, who gave the commands to the Liberal officers at Westminster in order to be rid of them, and then laughed in his sleeve at their reverses.

Before the royal box stand two Guards, armed from head to foot, immovable as statues. The king in his Windsor uniform, red with blue facings, his hair bound by a simple black ribbon, toys with a lorgnette, and leans his great awkward body forward with a curious and amused air. "Farmer George," though frequently cross and disagreeable, appears in excellent humor this evening. Undoubtedly his cabbage plants are doing well, or perhaps he has succeeded in making a dozen b.u.t.tons during the day, since the manufacture of b.u.t.tons and the culture of vegetables, which he sells to the highest bidder, are his favorite pastimes. Stiff and straight in her low-cut corsage, a true German in matters of etiquette, which she imposes with pitiless rigor upon all about her, little Queen Charlotte amply compensates for the free and easy habits of her husband by the severity of her mien. With head erect, though slightly thrown backward, squinting eyes, and pointed chin, swaying her fan to and fro with a rapid, uncompromising movement, there is no doubt that the worthy dwarf, who has already given the king thirteen princes and princesses, is still a most energetic little person.

On either side sit the Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick. The former realizes to the eye the type of the genuine Prince Charming, exquisite to a degree, but unsatisfactory with all his beauty, freshness and grace. The delicious envelope lacks soul. Later history will write against his name, "deceiver, perjurer and bigamist." But he is only eighteen years of age now, every heart is his, and yonder his first sweetheart regards him with ardent eyes. He takes no heed of it, however; in fact, a slight pout of annoyance sullies his otherwise delightful features. Prince Frederick is heir to the throne of Hanover, and his father's favorite. The destiny of that blockhead is to be duped by women, despised by his wife, and whipped by the French,--a fate which, nevertheless, has not denied him a triumphal statue perched upon the apex of a column, as though he had been a Trajan, a Nelson, or a Bonaparte.

In the shadow of the queen's chair is the tabouret of Lady Harcourt, her maid-of-honor and friend; while all in a row behind the princes stand the gentlemen-in-waiting.

Every one was in his place, including our friend, Mr. O'Flannigan.

Installed in his hole, he held, spread out before him, a large portfolio containing the precious ma.n.u.script of the play, bearing erasures and corrections in Garrick's own hand.

A youthful voice, pure and vibrant, is heard, and the silence becomes still more profound. It is Beatrice who speaks by the mocking lips of Esther.

She requests news of Bened.i.c.k from the messenger who has returned from the battle, but in the way that one would ask tidings of an enemy. Soon Bened.i.c.k himself appears, whereupon begins a remarkable a.s.sault of sarcasm. Both provoke each other and defy love.

"I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow," she says, "than a man swear he loves me."

"G.o.d keep your ladyship still in that mind," retorts Bened.i.c.k, "so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face."

"Scratching could not make it worse, an' 'twere such a face as yours were."

"Well, niece," says the uncle Leonato by and by, "I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband."

"Not till G.o.d make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust, to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none; Adam's sons are my brethren, and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kindred." And later when they press her she replies:--

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man I am not for him."

Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon, sportively offers himself.

"Will you have me, lady?"