I have now to tell of a project, daring and yet most simple, which was set on foot at this time, and unknown to any of those most concerned in it —— Lady Derwentwater went to her dying day in ignorance of it. True it is that by the act and overruling will of Providence the design was frustrated, but I firmly believe it would have succeeded save for this misfortune.
It was not hatched and invented by Mr. Hilyard, whose designs were truly ingenious, but magnificent, as becomes one who hath read the tragic pieces of Greece and Rome, and knows what a plot should be; crooked also, full of surprises, dangers, and demanding the assistance of a great number of people, as is the case always with high tragedy. A simple contrivance was not, in so great a matter, worthy of consideration. This design of which I speak was due to Jenny Lee alone, who must have all the credit, though, in her present condition, the poor creature cannot, I am sure, feel any glory in this, or in any other scheme. You shall presently hear what it was.
Mr. Hilyard, partly with a view of giving me what he called a just view of the noble art of acting, partly that he might lead me to regard Jenny with favour, and partly hoping to divert my mind from the continual contemplation of misfortune, persuaded me one evening to let him carry me to the play. A country-bred woman, who hath seen but one London theatre in her life, may without shame confess that it seemed to her like an enchanted island, and that, though the house was full of finely-dressed women and gallant gentlemen, she had no eyes for them, or for anything else, so long as the actors were on the stage. The piece performed was a very fine tragedy, namely, Dryden’s ‘Conquest of Granada,’ in which, Mr. Hilyard told me, Nelly Gwynne, the mother of the Duke of St. Albans, formerly played the part now given to Jenny. I confess, further, that I was astonished beyond measure to see this girl, only a short while since a mere slip of a lady’s-maid, with a curtsey to the ladies and a smile to the gentlemen who chucked her under the chin (as is a familiar though reprehensible custom in Northumberland), and humble to all, should be transformed into a Princess moving with majesty and heroic courage among the most frightful scenes of war and death. ’Twas truly wonderful!
‘There were many,’ said Mr. Hilyard, when we came away, ‘who could not listen to the play for looking at the lovely Incognita who was in the boxes’—— he meant me. ‘Thus will beauty prevail even over the splendour of the stage. And when the beaux flocked out and made a lane to see you pass, you looked neither to the right nor to the left, but passed through them all as cold and as heedless as Diana.’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘I was not thinking of them. How should I? My thoughts were with the unlucky Mahomet Boabdilen, the last King of Granada —— and with Jenny —— I mean ——’
‘Ah! Miss Dorothy, you will make poor Jenny happy only to let me tell her that she was able to turn your thoughts aside from the crowded house.’
I said that if so small a thing could make her happy, she was very welcome to her happiness.
‘But it is not all,’ he persisted. ‘Jenny humbly desires to pay her respects to you. To the rest of the world she is the Tragedy Queen or the Comic Muse, but to you she bids me say she is, and will always be, your faithful servant.’
‘Bring her to me, then,’ I replied, ‘in Heaven’s name!’
So he left me at my lodging and went away, I suppose to sup with the actress among her friends.
But next day, about ten in the forenoon, comes, if you please, Jenny herself, not in her own coach, because, I suppose, she did not desire to show off her newly-acquired splendour, but walking, and dressed, not richly, but plainly, though of good materials, and as a wealthy gentlewoman would desire to go abroad.
She made me a deep reverence, and hoped I was in health, and that his honour my brother was as well as the unfortunate posture of his affairs admitted. In the old times she stood while she answered my questions; but I could not think of allowing a person who could assume the splendid manners I had seen last night to stand, whatever her past history, wherefore, I bade her take a chair and be welcome, and congratulated her on her success.
‘I thank your ladyship,’ she replied; ‘I have succeeded far beyond my hopes. For at first I thought only to act in a barn, or at a fair, like the people I ran away with; it was grand to put on fine clothes and to speak fine verses; and it seemed delightful to be free and have no masters (yet now I have ten thousand). More than this I never thought to do. Yet you see me now at Drury Lane.’
‘Well, Jenny,’ I said, ‘Mr. Hilyard is never tired of singing thy praises; truly, for myself, I understand not acting; yet I saw thee last night, and, believe me, child, I marvelled greatly at thy cleverness, thy quickness, and thy courage. Enough said about Drury Lane; tell me now, Jenny, about Mr. Frank Radcliffe.’
She blushed a little —— but one cannot expect many blushes of an actress!
‘It is true,’ she said, ‘that I have always had power over Frank Radcliffe, and that of a kind which, except to those of my own people, must appear strange. Nay, I humbly confess that I deceived your ladyship at Dilston Hall when you surprised me exercising that power, because I was ashamed and afraid. Since then, however, I practise upon him in this way no more. It needs not —— Frank is in love with me, and will marry me, when he gets better of his cough.’
‘But Jenny, child, Mr. Frank Radcliffe is a gentleman.’
‘It is true, madam, and I am only an actress. But he will marry me as soon as he gets better.’
‘And then he is a Papist; and you are ——’
‘I am a gipsy, madam. But he will marry me as soon as he gets better. At present he is troubled with a hacking cough that gives him no rest night or day. But this will pass when the warm weather comes. And so, your ladyship, if you please there need be no more said on this head. For Frank will marry me, Papist o............