_ CHAPTER LIII. FANNY BEHIND THE SCENES.--REMINISCENCES OF YOUTH.--THE UNIVERSALITY OF TRICK.--THE SUPPER AT FANNY MILLINGER'S.--TALK ON A THOUSAND MATTERS, EQUALLY LIGHT AND TRUE.--FANNY'S SONG
The play was Pizarro, and Fanny Millinger acted Cora, Godolphin and Radclyffe went behind the scenes.
"Ah!" said Fanny, as she stood in her white Peruvian dress, waiting her turn to re-enter the stage,--"ah, Godolphin! this reminds me of old times. How many years have passed since you used to take such pleasure in this mimic life! Well do I remember your musing eye and thoughtful brow bent kindly on me from the stage-box yonder: and do you recollect how prettily you used to moralise on the deserted scenes when the play was over? And you sometimes waited on these very boards to escort me home. Those times have changed. Heigh-ho!"
"Ay, Fanny, we have passed through new worlds of feeling since then. Could life be to us now what it was at that time, we might love each other anew: but tell me, Fanny, has not the experience of life made you a wiser woman? Do you not seek more to enjoy the present--to pluck Tirne's fruit on the bough, ere yet the ripeness is gone? I do. I dreamed away my youth--I strive to enjoy my manhood."
"Then," said Fanny, with that quickness with which, in matters of the heart, women beat all our philosophy--"then I can prophesy that, since we parted, you have loved or lost some one. Regret, which converts the active mind into the dreaming temper, makes the dreamer hurry into activity, whether of business or of pleasure."
"Right," said Radclyffe, as a shade darkened his stern brow.
"Right," said Godolphin thoughtfully, and Lucille's image smote his heart like an avenging conscience. "Right," repeated he, turning aside and soliloquising; "and those words from an idle tongue have taught me some of the motives of my present conduct. But away reflection! I have resolved to forswear it. My pretty Cora!" said he, aloud, as he turned back to the actress, "you are a very De Stael in your wisdom: but let us not be wise; 'tis the worst of our follies. Do you not give us one of your charming suppers to-night?"
"To be sure: your friend will join us. He was once the gayest of the gay; but years and fame have altered him a little."
"Radclyffe gay! Bah!" said Godolphin surprised. "Ay, you may well look astonished," said Fanny, archly; "but note that smile--it tells of old days."
And Godolphin turning to his friend, saw indeed on the thin lip of that earnest face a smile so buoyant, so joyous, that it seemed as if the whole character of the man were gone: but while he gazed, the smile vanished, and Radclyffe gravely declined the invitation.
Cora was now on the stage: a transport of applause shook the house.
"How well she acts!" said Radclyffe warmly.
"Yes," answered Godolphin, as with folded arms he looked quietly on; "but what a lesson in the human heart does good acting teach us! Mark that glancing eye--that heaving breast--that burst of passion--that agonised voice: the spectators are in tears! The woman's whole soul is in her child! Not a bit of it! She feels no more than the boards we tread on: she is probably thinking of the lively supper we shall have; and when she comes off the stage, she will cry, 'Did I not act it well?'"
"Nay," said Radclyffe, "she probably feels while she depicts the feeling."
"Not she: years ago she told me the whole science of acting was trick; and trick--trick--trick it is, on the stage or off. The noble art of oratory--(noble forsooth!)--is just the same: philosophy, poetry--all, all hypocrisy. 'Damn the moon!' said B---- to me, as we once stood gazing on it at Venice; 'it always gives me the ague: but I have described it well in my poetry, Godolphin--eh?'"
"But--," began Radclyffe.
"But me no buts," interrupted Godolphin, with the playful pertinacity which he made so graceful: "you are younger than I am; when you have lived as long, you shall have a right to contradict my system--not before."
Godolphin joined the supper party. Like Godolphin's, Fanny's life was the pursuit of pleasure: she lavished on it, in proportion to her means, the same cost and expense, though she wanted the same taste and refinement. Generous and profuse, like all her tribe--like all persons who win money easily--she was charitable to all and luxurious in herself. The supper was attended by four male guests--Godolphin, Saville, Lord Falconer; and Mr. Windsor.
It was early summer: the curtains were undrawn, the windows were half opened, and the moonlight slept on the little grassplot that surrounded the house. The guests were in high spirits. "Fill me this goblet," cried Godolphin; "champagne is the boy's liquor; I will return to it con amore. Fanny, let us pledge each other: stay: a toast!--What shall it be?"
"Hope till old age, and Memory afterwards," said Fanny, smiling.
"Pshaw! theatricals still, Fan?" growled Saville, who had placed a large screen between himself and the window; "no sentiment between friends."
"Out on you, Saville," said Godolphin; "as well might you say no music out of the opera; these verbal prettinesses colour conversation. But your roues are so d----d prosaic, you want us to walk to Vice without a flower by the way."
"Vice indeed!" cried Saville. "I abjure your villanous appellatives. It was in your companionship that I lost my character, and now you turn king's evidence against the poor devil you seduced."
"Humph!" cried Godolphin gaily; "you remind me of the advice of the Spanish hidalgo to a servant: always choose a master with a good memory: for 'if he does not pay, he will at least remember that he owes you.' In future, I shall take care to herd only with those who recollect, after they are finally debauched, all the good advice I gave them beforehand."
"Meanwhile," said the pretty Fanny, with her arch mouth half-full of chicken, "I shall recollect that Mr. Saville drinks his wine without toasts--as being a useless delay."
"Wine," said Mr. Windsor, sententiously, "wine is just the reverse of love. Your old topers are all for coming at once, to the bottle, and your old lovers for ever mumbling the toast."
"See what you have' brought on yourself, Saville, by affecting a joke upon me," said Godolphin. "Come, let us make it up: we fell out with the toast--let us be reconciled by the glass.--Champagne?"
"Ay, anything for a quiet life,--even champagne," said Saville, with a mock air of patience, and dropping his sharp features into a state of the most placid repose. "Your wits are so very severe. Yes, champagne if you please. Fanny, my love," and Saville made a wry face as he put down the scarce-tasted glass; "go on--another joke, if you please; I now find I can bear your satire better, at least, than your wine."
Fanny was all bustle: it is in these things that the actress differs from the lady--there is no quiet in her. "Another bottle of champagne:--what can have happened to this?" Poor Fanny was absolutely pained. Saville enjoyed it, for he always revenged a jest by an impertinence.
"Nay," said Godolphin, "our friend does but joke. Your champagne is excellent, Fanny. Well, Saville, and where is young Greenhough? He is vanished. Report says he was marked down in your company, and has not risen since."
"Report is the civilest jade in the world. According to her all the pigeons disappear in my fields. But, seriously speaking, Greenhough is off--gone to America--over head and ears in debt--debts of honor. Now," said Saville, very slowly, "there's the difference between the gentleman and the parvenu; the gentleman, when all is lost, cuts his throat: the parvenu only cuts his creditors. I am really very angry with Greenhough that he did not destroy himself. A young man under my protection and all: so d----d ungrateful in him."
"He was not much in your debt--eh?" said Lord Falconer, speaking for the first time as the wine began to get into his head.
Saville looked hard at the speaker.
"Lord Falconer, a pinch of snuff: there is something singularly happy in your question; so much to the point: you have great knowledge of the world--great. He was very much in my debt. I introduced the vulgar dog into the world, and he owes me all the thousands he had the Honor to lose in good society!"
"Do you know, Percy," continued Saville, "do you know, by the way, that my poor dear friend Jasmin is dead? died after a hearty game of whist. He had just time to cry 'four by honours' when death trumped him. It was a great shock to me: he was the second best player at Graham's. Those sudden deaths are very awful--especially with the game in one's hands."
"Very mortifying, indeed," seriously said Lord Falconer, who had just been initiated into whist.
"'Tis droll," said Saville, "to see how often the last words of a man tally with his life; 'tis like the moral to the fable. The best instance I know is in Lord Chesterfield, whose fine soul went out in that sublime and inimitable sentence--'Give Mr. Darrell a chair.'"
"Capital," cried Lord Falconer. "Saville, a game at ecarte."
As the lion in the Tower looked at the lapdog, so in all the compassion of contempt looked Saville on Lord Falconer.
"Infelix puer!" muttered Godolphin; "Infelix puer atque, impar congressus Achilli."
"With all my heart," said Saville at last. "Yet, no--we've been talking of death--such topics waken a man's conscience, Falconer, I never play for less than----"
"Ponies!--I know it!" cried Falconer, triumphantly.
"Ponies--less than chargers!"
"Chargers--what are chargers?"
"The whole receipts of an Irish peer, Lord Falconer; and I make it a point never to lose the first game."
"Such men are dangerous," said Mr. Windsor, with his eyes shut.
"O Night!" cried Godolphin, springing up theatrically, "thou wert made for song, and moonlight, and laughter--but woman's laughter. Fanny, a song--the pretty quaint song you sang me, years ago, in praise of a town love and an easy life."
Fanny, who had been in the pouts ever since Saville had blamed the champagne--for she was very anxious to be of bon ton in her own little way--now began to smile once more; and, as the moon played on her arch face, she seated herself at the piano, and, glancing at Godolphin, sang the following song:--
LOVE COURTS THE PLEASURES.
I.
Believe me, Love was never made
In deserts to abide;
Leave Age to take the sober shade,
And Youth the sunny side.
II.
Love dozes by the purling brook,
No friend to lonely places;
Or, if he toy with Strephon's crook,
His Chloes are the Graces.
III.
Forsake 'The Flaunting Town!' Alas!
Be cells for saints, my own love!
The wine of life's a social glass,
Nor may be quaffed alone, love.
IV.
Behold the dead and solemn sea,
To which our beings flow;
Let waves that soon so dark must be
Catch every glory now.
V.
I would not chain that heart to this
To sicken at the rest;
The cage we close a prison is,
The open cage a nest. _