Philip Winwood Part 33

Philip's first month in England was spent in exploring London, sometimes with me, sometimes alone, for 'tis needless to say in whose society I chose to pa.s.s much of my time. What sights he saw; what unlikely corners he sought out because some poet had been born, or died, or drunk wine there; what streets he roamed: I am sure I never could tell. I know that all the time he kept eyes alert for a certain face, ears keen for a certain name; but neither in the streets, nor at the shops, nor in the parks, nor at the play, did he catch a glimpse of Margaret; nor in the coffee-house, or tavern, or gaming-place, or in the region of the clubs, did he hear a chance mention of the name of Falconer. And so, presently, we set about making the tour he had spoken of.

There was a poor family of Long Island loyalists named Doughty, that had settled in the seacoast town of Hastings in Suss.e.x, in order that they might follow the fisheries, which had been their means of livelihood at home. Considering that a short residence in the more mild and sunny climate of the Channel might be a pleasant change for my mother, and not disagreeable to f.a.n.n.y, we arranged that, during the absence of Phil and me, we should close our cottage, and the ladies should board with these worthy though humble people, who would afford them all needful masculine protection. Having seen them comfortably established, we set forth upon our travels.

We visited the princ.i.p.al towns and historic places of England and Scotland, Philip having a particular interest in Northamptonshire, where his father's line sprang from (Sir Ralph Winwood having been a worthy of some eminence in the reigns of Elizabeth and James),[10] and in Edinburgh, the native place of his mother. Cathedrals, churches, universities, castles, tombs of great folk, battle-fields--'twould fill a book to describe all the things and places we saw; most of which Phil knew more about than the people did who dwelt by them. From England we crossed to France, spent a fortnight in Paris, went to Rheims, thence to Strasburg, thence to Frankfort; came down the Rhine, and pa.s.sed through parts of Belgium and Holland before taking vessel at Amsterdam for London. "I must leave Italy, the other German states, and the rest till another time," said Philip. It seemed as if we had been gone years instead of months, when at last we were all home again in our cottage at Hampstead.

After my marriage, though Mr. Faringfield's handsome settlement would have enabled f.a.n.n.y and me to live far more pretentiously, we were content to remain in the Hampstead cottage. f.a.n.n.y would not hear to our living under a separate roof from that of my mother, whose constant society she had come to regard as necessary to her happiness.

Philip now arranged to pursue the study of architecture in the office of a pract.i.tioner of that art; and he gave his leisure hours to the improving of his knowledge of London. He made acquaintances; pa.s.sed much time in the Pall Mall taverns; and was able to pilot me about the town, and introduce me to many agreeable habitues of the coffee-houses, as if he were the elder resident of London, and I were the newcomer. And so we arrived at the Spring of 1786, and a momentous event.

CHAPTER XIX.

_We Meet a Play-actress There._

It was Philip's custom, at this time, to attend first nights at the playhouses, as well from a love of the theatre as from the possibility that he might thus come upon Captain Falconer. He always desired my company, which I was the readier to grant for that I should recognise the captain in any a.s.semblage, and could point him out to Phil, who had never seen him. We took my mother and f.a.n.n.y excepting when they preferred to stay at home, which was the case on a certain evening in this Spring of 1786, when we went to Drury Lane to witness the reappearance of a Miss Warren who had been practising her art the previous three years in the provinces. This long absence from London had begun before my mother and I arrived there, and consequently Philip and I had that evening the pleasurable antic.i.p.ation of seeing upon the stage a much-praised face that was quite new to us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT WAS PHILIP'S CUSTOM, AT THIS TIME, TO ATTEND FIRST NIGHTS AT THE PLAYHOUSES."]

There was the usual noisy throng of coaches, chairs, people afoot, lackeys, chair-men, boys, and such, in front of the playhouse when we arrived, and though we scanned all faces on whom the light fell, we had our wonted disappointment regarding that of Captain Falconer. We made our way to the pit, and pa.s.sed the time till the bell and the chorus "Hats off!" signalled the rising of the green curtain, in watching the chattering a.s.semblage that was every moment swelled from the doors; but neither among the lace-ruffled bucks and macaronis who chaffed with the painted and powdered ladies in the boxes, nor among those dashing gentry who ogled the same towering-haired ladies from the benches around us in the pit, did I perceive the elegant and easy captain. We therefore fell back upon the pleasure to be expected from the play itself, and when the curtain rose, I, for one, was resigned to the absence of him we had come partly in quest of.

No sooner had Miss Warren come upon the stage, in her favourite part of f.a.n.n.y in "The Clandestine Marriage," revived for the occasion, than I knew her as Madge Faringfield. I bent forward, with staring eyes and gaping mouth; if I uttered any exclamation it was drowned in the sound of the hand-clapping that greeted her. While she curtseyed and pleasantly smiled, in response to this welcome, I turned abruptly to Phil, my eyes betokening my recognition. He nodded, without a word or any other movement, and continued to look at her, his face wearing a half-smiling expression of gentle gladness.

I knew, from my old acquaintance with him, that he was under so great emotion that he dared not speak. It was, indeed, a cessation of secret anxiety to him, a joy such as only a constant lover can understand, to know that she was alive, well, with means of livelihood, and beautiful as ever. Though she was now thirty-one, she looked, on the stage, not a day older than upon that sad night when he had thrown her from him, six years and more before--nay, than upon that day well-nigh eleven years before, when he had bade her farewell to go upon his first campaign. She was still as slender, still had the same girlish air and manner.

Till the curtain fell upon the act, we sat without audible remark, delighting our eyes with her looks, our ears with her voice, our hearts (and paining them at the same time) with the memories her every movement, every accent, called up.

"How shall we see her?" were Phil's first words at the end of the act.

"We may be allowed to send our names, and see her in the greenroom,"

said I. "Or perhaps you know somebody who can take us there without any preliminaries."

"Nay," returned Philip, after a moment's thought, "there will be other people there. I shouldn't like strangers to see--you understand. We shall wait till the play is over, and then go to the door where the players come out. 'Twill take her some time to dress for going home--we can't miss her that way."

I sympathised with his feelings against making their meeting a scene for the amus.e.m.e.nt of frivolous lookers-on, and we waited patiently enough. Neither of us could have told, when the play was over, what was the story it presented. Even Madge's speeches we heard with less sense of their meaning than emotion at the sound of her voice. If this was the case with me, how much more so, as I could see by side-glances at his face, was it with Philip! Between the acts, we had little use for conversation. One of our thoughts, though neither uttered it, was that, despite the reputation that play-actresses generally bore, a woman _could_ live virtuously by the profession, and in it, and that several women since the famous Mrs. Bracegirdle were allowed to have done so. 'Twas only necessary to look at our Madge, to turn the possibility in her case into certainty.

When at last the play was ended, we forced our way through the departing crowd so as to arrive almost with the first upon the scene of waiting footmen, shouting drivers, turbulent chair-men, clamorous boys with dim lanterns or flaming torches, and such attendants upon the nightly emptying of a playhouse. Through this crush we fought our way, hastened around into a darker street, comparatively quiet and deserted, and found a door with a feeble lamp over it, which, as a surly old fellow within told us, served as stage entrance to the theatre. We crossed the dirty street, and took up our station in the shadow opposite the door; whence a few actors not required in the final scene, or not having to make much alteration of attire for the street, were already emerging, bent first, I suppose, for one or other of the many taverns or coffee-houses about Covent Garden near at hand.

While we were waiting, two chair-men came with their vehicle and set it down at one side of the door, and a few boys and women gathered in the hope of obtaining sixpence by some service of which a player might perchance be in need on issuing forth. And presently a coach appeared at the corner of the street, and stopped there, whereupon a gentleman got out of it, gave the driver and footman some commands, and while the conveyance remained where it was, approached alone, at a blithe gait, and took post near us, though more in the light shed by the lamp over the stage door.

"Gad's life!" I exclaimed, in a whisper.

"What is it?" asked Phil, in a similar voice.

"Falconer!" I replied, ere I had thought.

Philip gazed at the newcomer, who was heedless of our presence. Phil seemed about to stride forward to him, but reconsidered, and whispered to me, in a strange tone:

"What can he be doing here, where _she_--? You are sure that's the man?"

"Yes--but not now--'tis not the place--we came for another purpose--"

"I know--but if I lose him!"

"No fear of that. I'll keep track of him--learn where he's to be found--while you meet her."

"But if he--if she--"

"Wait and see. His being here, may not in any way concern her. Mere coincidence, no doubt."

"I hope to G.o.d it is!" whispered Phil, though his voice quivered.

"Nay, I'll believe it is, too, till I see otherwise."

"Good! And when I learn his haunts, as I shall before I sleep, you may find him at any time."

And so we continued to wait, keeping in the darkness, so that the captain, even if he had deigned to be curious, could not have made out our faces from where he stood. Philip watched him keenly, to stamp his features upon memory, as well as they could be observed in the yellow light of the sickly lamp; but yet, every few moments Phil cast an eager glance at the door. I grant I was less confident that Falconer's presence was mere coincidence, than I had appeared, and I was in a tremble of apprehension for what Madge's coming might reveal.

The captain, who was very finely dressed, and, like us, carried a cane but no sword, allowed impatience to show upon his usually serene countenance: evidently he was unused to waiting in such a place, and I wondered why he did not make free of the greenroom instead of doing so. But he composed himself to patience as with a long breath, and fell to humming softly a gay French air the while he stood leaning motionlessly, in an odd but graceful att.i.tude, upon his slender cane.

Sometimes he glanced back toward the waiting coach, and then, without change of position as to his body, returned his gaze to the door.

Two or three false alarms were occasioned him, and us, by the coming forth of ladies who proved, as soon as the light struck them, to be other than the person we awaited. But at last she appeared, looking her years and cares a little more than upon the stage, but still beautiful and girlish. She was followed by a young waiting-woman; but before we had time to note this, or to step out of the shadow, we saw Captain Falconer bound across the way, seize her hand, and bend very gallantly to kiss it.

So, then, it was for her he had waited: such was the bitter thought of Phil and me; and how our hearts sickened at it, may be imagined when I say that his hope and mine, though unexpressed, had been to find her penitent and hence worthy of all forgiveness, in which case she would not have renewed even acquaintance with this captain. And there he was, kissing her hand!

But ere either of us could put our thought into speech, our sunken hearts were suddenly revived, by Madge's conduct.

She drew her hand instantly away, and as soon as she saw who it was that had seized it, she took on a look of extreme annoyance and anger, and would have hastened past him, but that he stood right in her way.

"You again!" she said. "Has my absence been for nothing, then?"

"Had you stayed from London twice three years, you would have found me the same, madam," he replied.

"Then I must leave London again, that's all," said she.

"It shall be with me, then," said he. "My coach is waiting yonder."

"And my chair is waiting here," said she, s.n.a.t.c.hing an opportunity to pa.s.s him and to step into the sedan, of which the door was invitingly open. It was not her chair, but one that stood in solicitation of some pa.s.senger from the stage door; as was now shown by one of the chair-men asking her for directions. She bade her maid hire a boy with a light, and lead the way afoot; and told the chair-men to follow the maid. The chair door being then closed, and the men lifting their burden, her orders were carried out.

Neither Philip nor I had yet thought it opportune to appear from our concealment, and now he whispered that, for the avoidance of a scene before spectators, it would be best for him to follow the chair, and accost her at her own door. I should watch Falconer to his abode, and each of us should eventually go home independently of the other. Our relief to find that the English captain's presence was against Madge's will, needed no verbal expression; it was sufficiently manifest otherwise.

Before Philip moved out to take his place behind the little procession, Falconer, after a moment's thought, walked rapidly past to his coach, and giving the driver and footman brief orders, stepped into it. 'Twas now time for both Phil and me to be in motion, and we went down the way together. The chair pa.s.sed the coach, which immediately fell in behind it, the horses proceeding at a walk.

"He intends to follow her," said I.

"Then we shall follow both," said Phil, "and await events. 'Tis no use forcing a scene in this neighbourhood."

So Philip's quest and mine lay together, and we proceeded along the footway, a little to the rear of the coach, which in turn was a little to the rear of the chair. Pa.s.sing the side of Drury Lane Theatre, the procession soon turned into Bow Street, and leaving Covent Garden Theatre behind, presently resumed a Southwestward course, deflecting at St. Martin's Lane so as to come at last into Gerrard Street, and turning thence Northward into Dean Street. Here the maid led the chair-men along the West side of the way; but Philip and I kept the East side. At last the girl stopped before a door with a pillared porch, and the carriers set down the chair.