Charles Edward Pearce

“ Hannah was not a little afraid of what would happen when Mrs. Fenton set eyes on her wilful daughter. At the same time, Lavinia was not the same girl who at Bedfordbury used to run wild, half clad and half starved, and yet never looked like a beggar, so pretty and so attractive was she. Six months had developed her into a woman and the training of Miss Pinwell, the pink of gentility, had given her the modish airs of a lady of quality. True, her appearance just now had little of this "quality," her walk being in fact somewhat limping and one-sided. ”

“ The gallery was crammed with a mob—a host of footmen prone to unruly behaviour, butchers from Clare Market ready to applaud their favourite Jemmy Spiller, Covent Garden salesmen and porters—a miscellaneous rabble that might easily become turbulent.
In the pit were well to do tradesmen and their wives cheek by jowl with well seasoned playgoers who had seen every stage celebrity and every famous tragedy and comedy for the past quarter of a century, who were well versed in all the traditional "business" of the boards, who in fact were the real critics to be pleased—or offended. ”

“ If you'd run off out of restlessness or a mere whim or fit of temper, I doubt if she'd troubled about you further; but love—that was another thing altogether. Oh, and your courage in escaping from that dissolute rascal—that captured her. My dear, Queensberry's Duchess is your friend. She's as desirous as I am that you should be Polly Peachum in my 'Beggar's Opera,' and when I tell her about to-night she'll be overjoyed. You need not fear about the future save that it depends upon yourself. But Polly, what of the young playwright, Lancelot Vane? ”

“ Spiller's laughing eyes roamed over her from head to foot and his shrewd face wrinkled into the quizzical expression which had often times sent his audience into a roar. Lavinia laughed too.
"Aye, you haven't lost the trick of sending a look that goes straight as an arrow to a man's heart. Tell me, was it not you that Mr. Gay took under his wing? At the 'Maiden Head,' wasn't it?"
"Yes. I've much to thank Mr. Gay for and you as well, Mr. Spiller. You and your friends from the market saved me from a clawed face." ”

“ But perhaps you fancy yourself a Congreve or a Farquhar?"
"Neither Congreve nor Farquhar wrote tragedies, sir," retorted Vane stiffly.
"Indeed! What about Mr. Congreve's 'Mourning Bride?'"
"I prefer his comedies, sir."
"And so do I, but that's nothing to the point. May be you consider that you're equal to Mr. Otway or even Mr. Cibber, I leave Mr. Gay out of the count. He's written nothing that's likely to live and never will. He's too lazy."
"You dislike Mr. Gay, 'tis well known, because he's Mr. Pope's friend. ”

“ I swear I saw her go into the house."
"Ecod, I suppose I must believe you," rejoined Dorrimore sullenly. "But what do you make of it all? Did the old woman lie?"
"Without a doubt she did. If she's of Mother Needham's tribe she can lie like truth. Lies are half of the trade and the other half is to squeeze the cull of as much gold as he can be fooled out of. Can't you see sir, that her trick is to spring her price? I'll wager her fifty guineas has swollen to a hundred when next you see her. With traffickers in virgins the price grows as rapidly as Jonah's gourd." ”

“ Curll was the deadly enemy of Pope and his friends, and his unlimited scurrility drew from the poet of Twickenham a retaliation every whit as coarse and as biting as anything the bookseller's warped mind ever conceived.
Had Lavinia been told this was the notorious Curll, the name would have conveyed nothing. The quarrels of poets and publishers were to her a sealed book. All that she knew was that she disliked the man at first sight, while his vile speech made her ears tingle with shame. ”

“ This settled, the poet drew near Lavinia who all this time was waiting and wondering what this new adventure of hers would end in.
"Now Polly, my dear," said Gay, "if you behave yourself and don't have any more love affairs——"
"But did I not tell you, sir, I'd had none," interrupted Lavinia.
"Yes—yes, I remember quite well. We won't go into the subject again or we shall never finish. The varieties and nice distinctions of love are endless. A much more pressing question is nearer to hand—where are you going to live?" ”

“ At this Lavinia laughed outright. Her clothes were of good quality and of fashionable cut—the Duchess of Queensberry's maid had seen to that—her manner and air were those of a lady of quality—thanks to Miss Pinwell—but apart from these externals what was she? A coffee shop waitress—a strolling singer—a waif and stray whose mother would not break her heart if she got her living on the streets! ”

“ Shortly after Lavinia set out on her way to Grub Street. Lancelot Vane was pacing Moor Fields—a depressing tract of land, the grass trodden down here and there into bare patches, thanks to the games of the London 'prentices and gambols of children—in company with Edmund Curll, the most scurrilous and audacious of writers and booksellers who looked upon standing on the pillory, which he had had to do more than once, more as a splendid form of advertisement than as a degradation.
"You can write what I want if you chose—no man better," he was saying. Vane was listening not altogether attentively. ”

“ Gay turned his eyes to the open window.
"I don't want to think of the rascally knave or the rabble either. My thoughts are on yonder pretty little jade. Look for yourself, Bolingbroke. You're not so insensible to beauty as Lance Vane is at this moment."
"Faith, I hope not. Where's the charmer?" said Bolingbroke walking to the window.
"Stay. She's going to sing. She has the voice of a nightingale. I've heard her before. Lord! to think she has to do it for a living!"
"Humph. She has courage. Most girls would die rather than rub shoulders with that frousy, bestial, drunken mob." ”

“ How cruel to disturb the poor man's thoughts."
"Console yourself, Grace dear—you're never likely to do that."
The girls tittered at Lavinia's repartee. All knew that Grace Armitage was the vainest of the vain and believed every man who cast his eyes in her direction was in love with her. She went white with anger. But she was slow witted. She had no sarcastic rejoinder ready and if she had it was doubtful if she would have uttered it. Lavinia Fenton, the soul of sweetness and amiability, could show resolute fight when roused. Miss Armitage turned away with a disdainful toss of her head. ”

“ Clement's Church, loomed large and shadowy in the narrow roadway, narrowing still more towards Temple Bar past the ill-favoured and unsavoury Butcher's Row on the north side of the street, where the houses of rotting plaster and timber with overhanging storeys frowned upon the passer-by and suggested deeds of violence and robbery.
Butcher's Row and its evil reputation, even the ruffians and dissolute men lurking in the deep doorways did not frighten Lavinia so much as the silk-coated and bewigged cavaliers. The days of the Mohocks were gone it was true, but lawlessness still remained. ”

“ But a penniless scribbler has no choice if he has to live—that is if life be worth living, which I sometimes doubt."
"You shouldn't think like that. It's cowardly. A man should fight his way through the world. Now a woman...."
"She's armed better than a man. Her charm—her beauty—her wit. Nature bestows on her all conquering weapons."
"Which she as often as not misuses and turns against herself. But Mr. Vane," the note of bitterness had vanished; her voice was now earnest, almost grave, "you weren't despondent when you were facing an angry mob after doing me a service I shall never forget. ”

“ Hannah started visibly and fixed her eyes on the entrance.
"What's the matter, wench?" growled the man.
"I don't believe in ghosts," returned the girl, paling a little and her hands trembling in a fashion which rather belied her words, "or I'd say as I'd just seen Miss Lavinia's sperrit look in at the door. If it isn't her ghost it's her double."
"Why don't you run outside and settle your mind?"
"'Cause it's impossible it could be her. The girl's at boarding school." ”

“ Rofflash swearing that he'd do his best, took his departure and left the lady, like Archibald Dorrimore, to drink herself into insensibility.
"The devil looks after his own," chuckled Rofflash as he swaggered down the Strand. "It'll go hard if I don't squeeze fifty guineas out of that idiot Dorrimore over to-morrow night's work! He'd give that to have the pleasure of running the scribbler through the body. Lord, if I'd breathed a word of that to Sally! No fool like an old fool, they say. Bah! The foolishest thing in Christendom is a woman when she's in love." ”

“ The landlord brought the gin in a pewter pot and set it down on a ledge fixed to the chimney jamb.
"See here, landlord," growled Rofflash, "d'ye know Mr. Jarvis?"
"Sure, sir; 'tis he yonder with the lantern-jawed phizog."
"Aye. Watch your chance when he's not talking to the rest and bid him look where I'm sitting. There's a shilling ready for you if you don't blunder." ”

“ A few privileged people from the front of the house who found their way behind were equally enthusiastic. Even Mrs. Haughton—the Monimia of the play—deigned to smile approvingly.
"What did I tell thee, Polly?" she heard a pleasant if somewhat husky voice whisper in her ear.
She knew the tones and turned quickly. John Gay's kindly eyes were beaming upon her. He had come with Jemmy Spiller, and with a stout man from whose broad red face a look of drollery was rarely absent. This was Hippisley, a comedian with a natural humour which was wont to set an audience in a roar. ”

“ Gay crossed the room to his friends, and they talked together in low voices. Spiller and Leveridge had much to say—indeed it was to these two, who had practical knowledge of the theatre, to whom he appealed. Bolingbroke sat silently listening.
Gay's project concerning his new found protégée was such as would only have entered into the brain of a dreamy and impecunious poet. He saw in Lavinia Fenton the making of a fine actress—not in tragedy but in comedy—and of an enchanting singer. But to be proficient she must be taught not only music, but how to pronounce the English language properly. ”

“ Lavinia nodded.
"What, over a worthless young man who gets drunk at the first chance he has?"
Lavinia fired up.
"He's not worthless and he wasn't drunk."
"Hoity-toity. What a pother to be sure. Well, I'll warrant he is by this time."
"How do you know? If he is it won't be his fault. The others were drinking and filling his glass. I saw them, the wretches," cried Lavinia with heightened colour. "But it is nothing to me," she went on tossing her head. "Why should I bother if a man drinks or doesn't drink?"
"Why indeed," said Hannah ironically. ”

“ Rofflash watched her face, what he could see of it, for she had not unmasked, and noted the slight quiver of the lips and the rise and fall of her bosom.
"Faith mistress," he chuckled with a drunken leer, "if you're not as crazy over the beggarly scribbler as my young gallant is over the Fenton girl who lives in the Old Bailey—at a coffee house, forsooth! Why, to see the pother you're in one would think the hussy had put your nose out of joint. Perhaps she has. She's fetching enough." ”

“ Palmer was shrewd. He had an eye for contrast. He would have no finery and fallals, he said.
"Your songs are simple, so must your gown be. If the people take to you in the one they will in t'other."
So Lavinia made her appearance in a plain dress, apron, mob cap, and of course prodigious hoops. Her hair was arrayed neatly and not powdered. There was powder enough and to spare on the wigs of the beaux in front, and on the elaborate head-dresses of the belles. ”

“ As Lavinia and Gay passed through the dimly lighted vestibule to the entrance a man from among the audience stole after them. He was very pale and his pallor accentuated his projecting cheek bones and the hollows above, from the depths of which his large eyes gleamed with a glassy light. Evidently in ill health, he could hardly have kept pace with the couple he was shadowing had they not been walking very slowly.
"Everything is in our favour," Gay was saying. "Fortune has sent you here at the right moment. You can act and you can sing. ”

“ The plaintive melody with its well balanced phrasing took Lavinia's fancy, and absorbed in the music she forgot [Pg 126] her audience. She saw how the words were wedded to the notes and watched where the trills and graces came in. Pepusch played the air right through; waited a minute or so and recommenced.
Lavinia began. She sang like one inspired. Her pure and limpid tones gave fresh charm to the melody. She never had had any difficulty with the trill, so flexible was her voice naturally, and the graces which Purcell had introduced after the fashion of the day were given with perfect ease. ”

“ Trust Jeremy Rofflash for that. By God, sir, I'll swear there's no man in the world readier with a plan when its wanted. Look ye here, Mr. Dorrimore, I've the whole thing cut and dried in the hollow of my hand. To come to the point. The old harridan means to fleece you. I don't. Damme sir, I'm a man of my word. For a hundred guineas I'll let you into a secret and if I fail I won't ask you for a stiver. Is that fair or isn't it?"
"I'll swear you're no better than Mother Fenton, but I'd rather deal with a man than a woman. ”

“ Swear to be sensible and think no longer of the miserables. I don't believe you're much more than a year older than me. Life's all before you."
"Life? A very little bit of it, and what a life! Waiting for death. Shall I tell you what Dr. Mead, the great physician, told my father who asked him to see me? 'That young man hasn't long to live. I give him a year. Killed by the Newgate pestilence.' Now, what do you say, Miss Fenton?"
"Don't call me Miss Fenton," cried Lavinia, her voice quivering. "It makes us seem miles apart. You poor fellow! But doctors aren't always right." ”