Peg Woffington Part 14

"Oh, do not tell me you have ever loved before me! I could not bear to hear it!" cried this inconsistent personage.

The other weak creature needed no more.

"I see plainly I never loved but you," said he.

"Let me hear that only!" cried she; "I am jealous even of the past. Say you never loved but me. Never mind whether it is true. My child, you do not even yet know love. Ernest, shall I make you love--as none of your s.e.x ever loved--with heart, and brain, and breath, and life, and soul?"

With these rapturous words, she poured the soul of love into his eyes; he forgot everything in the world but her; he dissolved in present happiness and vowed himself hers forever. And she, for her part, bade him but retain her esteem and no woman ever went further in love than she would. She was a true epicure. She had learned that pa.s.sion, vulgar in itself, is G.o.d-like when based upon esteem.

This tender scene was interrupted by the call-boy, who brought Mrs.

Woffington a note from the manager, informing her there would be no rehearsal. This left her at liberty, and she proceeded to take a somewhat abrupt leave of Mr. Vane. He was endeavoring to persuade her to let him be her companion until dinner-time (she was to be his quest), when Pomander entered the room.

Mrs. Woffington, however, was not to be persuaded, she excused herself on the score of a duty which she said she had to perform, and whispering as she pa.s.sed Pomander, "Keep your own counsel," she went out rather precipitately.

Vane looked slightly disappointed.

Sir Charles, who had returned to see whether (as he fully expected) she had told Vane everything--and who, at that moment, perhaps, would not have been sorry had Mrs. Woffington's lover called him to serious account--finding it was not her intention to make mischief, and not choosing to publish his own defeat, dropped quietly into his old line, and determined to keep the lovers in sight, and play for revenge.

He smiled and said: "My good sir, n.o.body can hope to monopolize Mrs.

Woffington. She has others to do justice to besides you."

To his surprise, Mr. Vane turned instantly round upon him, and, looking him haughtily in the face, said: "Sir Charles Pomander, the settled malignity with which you pursue that lady is unmanly and offensive to me, who love her. Let our acquaintance cease here, if you please, or let her be sacred from your venomous tongue."

Sir Charles bowed stiffly, and replied, that it was only due to himself to withdraw a protection so little appreciated.

The two friends were in the very act of separating forever, when who should run in but Pompey, the renegade. He darted up to Sir Charles, and said: "Ma.s.sa Pomannah she in a coach, going to 10, Hercules Buildings.

I'm in a hurry, Ma.s.sa Pomannah."

"Where?" cried Pomander. "Say that again."

"10, Hercules Buildings, Lambeth. Me in a hurry, Ma.s.sa Pomannah."

"Faithful child, there's a guinea for thee. Fly!"

The slave flew, and, taking a short cut, caught and fastened on to the slow vehicle in the Strand.

"It is a house of rendezvous," said Sir Charles, half to himself, half to Mr. Vane. He repeated in triumph: "It is a house of rendezvous." He then, recovering his _sang-froid,_ and treating it all as a matter of course, explained that at 10, Hercules Buildings, was a fashionable shop, with entrances from two streets; that the best Indian scarfs and shawls were sold there, and that ladies kept their carriages waiting an immense time in the princ.i.p.al street, while they were supposed to be in the shop, or the show-room. He then went on to say that he had only this morning heard that the intimacy between Mrs. Woffington and a Colonel Murthwaite, although publicly broken off for prudential reasons, was still clandestinely carried on. She had, doubtless, slipped away to meet the colonel.

Mr. Vane turned pale.

"No! I will not suspect. I will not dog her like a bloodhound," cried he.

"I will!" said Pomander.

"You! By what right?"

"The right of curiosity. I will know whether it is you who are imposed on, or whether you are right, and all the world is deceived in this woman."

He ran out; but, for all his speed, when he got into the street there was the jealous lover at his elbow. They darted with all speed into the Strand; got a coach. Sir Charles, on the box, gave Jehu a guinea, and took the reins--and by a Niagara of whipcord they attained Lambeth; and at length, to his delight, Pomander saw another coach before him with a gold-laced black slave behind it. The coach stopped; and the slave came to the door. The shop in question was a few hundred yards distant. The adroit Sir Charles not only stopped but turned his coach, and let the horses crawl back toward London; he also flogged the side panels to draw the attention of Mr. Vane. That gentleman looked through the little circular window at the back of the vehicle, and saw a lady paying the coachman. There was no mistaking her figure. This lady, then, followed at a distance by her slave, walked on toward Hercules Buildings; and it was his miserable fate to see her look uneasily round, and at last glide in at a side door, close to the silk-mercer's shop.

The carriage stopped. Sir Charles came himself to the door.

"Now, Vane," said he, "before I consent to go any further in this business, you must promise me to be cool and reasonable. I abhor absurdity; and there must be no swords drawn for this little hypocrite."

"I submit to no dictation," said Vane, white as a sheet.

"You have benefited so far by my knowledge," said the other politely; "let me, who am self-possessed, claim some influence with you."

"Forgive me!" said poor Vane. "My ang--my sorrow that such an angel should be a monster of deceit." He could say no more.

They walked to the shop.

"How she peeped, this way and that," said Pomander, "sly little Woffy!

"No! on second thoughts," said he, "it is the other street we must reconnoiter; and, if we don't see her there, we will enter the shop, and by dint of this purse we shall soon untie the knot of the Woffington riddle."

Vane leaned heavily on his tormentor.

"I am faint," said he.

"Lean on me, my dear friend," said Sir Charles. "Your weakness will leave you in the next street."

In the next street they discovered--nothing. In the shop, they found--no Mrs. Woffington. They returned to the princ.i.p.al street. Vane began to hope there was no positive evidence. Suddenly three stories up a fiddle was heard. Pomander took no notice, but Vane turned red; this put Sir Charles upon the scent.

"Stay!" said he. "Is not that an Irish tune?"

Vane groaned. He covered his face with his hands, and hissed out:

"It is her favorite tune."

"Aha!" said Pomander. "Follow me!"

They crept up the stairs, Pomander in advance; they heard the signs of an Irish orgie--a rattling jig played and danced with the inspiriting interjections of that frolicsome nation. These sounds ceased after a while, and Pomander laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I prepare you," said he, "for what you are sure to see. This woman was an Irish bricklayer's daughter, and 'what is bred in the bone never comes out of the flesh;' you will find her sitting on some Irishman's knee, whose limbs are ever so much stouter than yours. You are the man of her head, and this is the man of her heart. These things would be monstrous, if they were not common; incredible, if we did not see them every day. But this poor fellow, whom probably she deceives as well as you, is not to be sacrificed like a dog to your unjust wrath; he is as superior to her as you are to him."

"I will commit no violence," said Vane. "I still hope she is innocent."

Pomander smiled, and said he hoped so too.

"And if she is what you think, I will but show her she is known, and, blaming myself as much as her--oh yes! more than her!--I will go down this night to Shropshire, and never speak word to her again in this world or the next."

"Good," said Sir Charles.

"'Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte est pour le sot, L'honndete homine trompe s'eloigne et ne dit mot.'

Are you ready?"

"Yes."