Mrs. Barry

“ Mrs. Barry's ability and her strength of voice in expressing the passions led to the full development of the rant, which was the test of the dramatic actress as the aria is the test of the opera singer. Ordinarily in a tragedy, there were two: one, the melodious expression of unattainable love in the first part of the play, and the second in the death scene, usually of raving madness. In The Royal Mischief, there are at least six major rants, each more powerful and surprising than the one preceding it. If Mrs. Barry's ability was ever tested, it was with Mrs. Manley's Homais. ”

“ Barry shook like a child in the clutches of its master—“Yes, Barry; misery and death, and all the tortures of the damned. It’s to save you from this, my own brother, to try and turn your heart from that foul love of money, that your sister is now speaking to you from her grave.—Oh, Barry! try and cure it. Learn to give to others, and you’ll enjoy what you have yourself.—Learn to love others, and then you’ll know what it is to be loved yourself. Try, try to soften that hard heart. Marry at once, Barry, at once, before you’re older and worse to cure; and you’ll have children, and love them ”

“ It was plain at a glance that the girl was whole-heartedly happy, and whatever incongruity lay between her and these rough mountains he began to understand that her love for Barry and the child made ample amends. As for the other two, he always thought of them in the same instant, for if the child had her eyes and her hair from her mother, she had her nature from the man. They were together constantly, on walks up the mountain, when she rode Black Bart up the steep places: on dips into the valley, when he carried her before him on the stallion. ”

“ And now about Barry. I know how hard it is to have him leave you, and that under all your talk of trumpets blowing and flags flying, there's the ache and the heart-break. I cannot see why such things should come to you. The rest of us probably deserve what we get. But you—I should like to think of you always as in a garden—you have the power to make things bloom. ”

“ This woman is nothing to me and I am nothing to her but a friend. The ship is hers, and I am her servant, pledged to her service—that is all."
Velo shook his head. "Thou art more than a servant to her; thou art her toa (champion) , and we all have said from the first that she and thee would wed."
Again Barry laughed amusedly. "Thou wouldst marry me to her against my own will, Velo."
"She is beautiful, and a widow, and a fitting mate for a strong man like thee," replied Velo energetically. "I have seen many white women, but none so good to look upon as her. And she is a widow." ”

“ Even Barry, and Barry hated the idea at first of our having a lodger. But he likes you."
"And I like Barry," he said. "He is youth—incarnate."
"He's a dear," she agreed. Then a shadow came into her eyes. "But he's such a boy, and—and he's spoiled. Everybody's too good to him. Mother was—and father, though father tried not to be. And Leila is, and Constance—and Aunt Isabelle excuses him, and even Susan Jenks." ”

“ Barry was otherwise remarkable, she had "a modest gaiety in her manners and address;" and though in Belvidera, Lady Randolph, Rutland, Euphrasia, Monimia, and Desdemona, she defied rivalry, she really preferred to act Lady Townley, Beatrice, the Widow Brady, Rosalind, and Biddy Tipkin. She acted tragedy, to gratify the house; comedy, to please herself; and she had a supreme indifference for the patronage of Ladies of Quality if she could only win the plaudits of the public at large. ”

“ Barry did not exert himself at first. He wanted to test the stranger's cleverness, so he confined himself to entering one door of a department store or hotel, and hastily departing by another; leaping on a surface car just as it was starting, only to alight as swiftly a few blocks farther on, and take one going in the opposite direction.
These, and half a dozen other tricks of a like nature, he tried, only to end up at Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue with the blond fellow sticking to him like a leech.
"He's no slouch," Barry reflected, as he turned slowly eastward. ”

“ So Barry blushingly paid the guinea, and began to buy little things to make the rooms beautiful—a bamboo basket for flowers—a Sheffield tray—a quaint tea-caddy—an antique footstool for Leila's little feet.
Yet there were moments in the midst of his elation when some chill breath of fear touched him, and it was in one of these moods that he wrote out of his heart to his little bride.
"Sometimes, when I think of you, sweetheart, I realize how little there is in me which is deserving of that which you are giving me. When your letters come, I read them and think and think about them. ”

“ Barry is simply a man who is closer akin to the brute forces in nature. See! By the eternal heavens, he's dragging that beast—that dumb beast—back from the door of death!"
Barry had ceased his rapid manipulations, and turned the big dog back upon its side. Now the eyes of Black Bart opened, and winked shut again. Now the master kneeled at the head of the beast and took the scarred, shaggy head between his hands.
"Bart!" he commanded.
Not a stir in the long, black body. The stallion edged a pace closer, dropped his velvet muzzle, and whinnied softly at the very ear of the dog. ”

“ Mrs. Barry was a fine tragedian, both of the heroic and tender cast. Dryden pronounced her the best actress he had seen. It is said she was a mistress of Lord Rochester's when young; that it was to her his love-letters were addressed; and that she owed her celebrity to his instructions. She was not handsome, and her mouth was a little awry, but her countenance was very expressive. This is the actress, who, in the delirium of her last moments, is said to have alluded in an extempore blank verse to a manœuvre played by Queen Anne's ministry some time before:—
"Ha! ”

“ Barry," I interrupted. "Surely she must know."
"I think she does," he returned. "I think she knows more than we suspect."
I looked at him quickly, not quite making out the significance of the remark, but he said no more. For the present, at least, he left Adele Laidlaw quite as much an enigma as ever.
"I wish that you would make inquiries about regarding Mrs. Barry," he said finally as we reached the subway. "I'm going down again to the little room we hired and watch. You'll find me at the laboratory later tonight." ”

“ Barry dropped the gloves into his pocket and stood looking amusedly down the lane.
"Clever child!" he murmured. "Bright, quick-witted little girl! And now—I'll go back and give you your gloves."
Instead, however, he stood staring absently down the alley. He knew just what would happen when Pauline found that he had heeded only the letter of her request. The wistful, childish look of grieved wonder would widen her eyes for a moment, her lip would tremble ever so slightly, and then she would laugh and begin talking of something else. ”

“ Let the duty be performed by younger hands. Come, then, if you will allow me."
Barry stood silent during this little colloquy. His face, when Emily glanced at it, was as impassive as if he had been a stone image. He was putting great constraint upon himself, determined not to betray his feeling. If she could choose Revere, the acquaintance of a moment, and disregard him, the servant of years, let her do so. He would see. Not by word or look would he try to influence her. If he had ever heard of the Spartan with the wolf at his vitals, he would have realized what the story meant then. ”

“ You know you'll marry him, Mary."
"I shall not. I haven't the least idea of marrying Porter."
"Then why do you let him hang around you?"
"Barry," she was blazing, "I don't let him hang around. He comes as he has always come—to see us all."
"Do you think for a moment that he'd come if it weren't for you? He isn't craving my society, or Aunt Isabelle's, or Susan Jenks'."
Barry was glad to blame somebody else for something—he was aware of himself as the blackest sheep in the fold, but let those who had other sins hear them. ”

“ Barry staid but a few seasons behind him, for, in 1766, both he and Mrs. Barry played at the Opera House in the Haymarket, under Mr. Foot's management. Here it was Mrs. Barry [1] made her first appearance before a London audience. The character she chose was Desdemona, in which, though there is little for a performer to shew forth in, yet in this she shewed such judgment, tenderness, and expression, that Garrick, who was then in the pit, declared her an actress gifted with superior talent ”

“ I'm not a fit person to be his wife—my antecedents——”
“Bother your antecedents!” interrupted Miss Craven, with a somewhat shaky laugh. “My dearest girl, Barry isn't going to marry them, he's going to marry you. They can have been anything you like or imagine but it does not alter the fact that their daughter is the one woman on earth I want for Barry's wife.” She stooped and gathered the girl into her arms.
“Gillian, can you give us, Barry and me, this great happiness?” ”

“ No pictures crowded his brain. He was simply keyed to a high point of expectancy, and therefore, when the door was opened silently, he sprang up as if in acknowledgment of an alarm and faced Barry. The latter closed the door behind him and glided after the big dog. He had almost crossed the big room when Byrne was able to speak.
"Mr. Barry!" he called.
The man hesitated.
"Mr. Barry," he repeated.
And Dan Barry turned. It was something like the act of the wolf the moment before; a swift movement—a flash of the eyes in something like defiance.
"Mr. Barry, are you leaving us?" ”

“ Only by refusing to attach an undue value to the significance of what he had said could she arrest the dangerous trend of the conversation and bring it to a safer level.
She sat down slowly, re-arranging the simple tray with ostentatious care.
“You didn't force me to marry you, Barry,” she said quietly. “I knew what I was doing, I realised the difficulties that might arise. But you have nothing to reproach yourself with. You have been kind and considerate in everything. I am enormously grateful to you—and I am very content with my life. Please believe that. ”

“ However, good fortune still gave Miss Barry a fair chance of rescuing herself, and securing complete comfort and high respectability. She married well, being united to Colonel Baldwin, a gentleman of character and fortune:—but, alas! that delicacy of mind which is the best guardian of female conduct, had been irrecoverably lost by her pernicious education, and in a few years she relinquished her station in society. ”

“ For a moment the Imp of Mischief prompted Little to perilous speech. He caught Barry's glittering eye in time and merely replied: "Aye, aye, sir. Don't forget what you told me: with man, woman, or missionary, keep your gun butt handy. That bush looks shivery. Be good and look after yourself."
He swung off down the wharf path, and Barry stepped into the side trail. The sailor had not covered twenty feet, shivering involuntarily at the uncanny hush of the jungle, when he heard a faint rustling behind him. ”

“ If any performer was ever born for one particular part, Barry was for Othello. There is a length of periods, and an extravagance of passion in this part, not to be found in any other for so many successive scenes, to which Barry appeared peculiarly suitable: with equal happiness he exhibited the hero, the lover, and the distracted husband. He rose, through all the passions, to the utmost extent of critical imagination, yet still appeared to leave an unexhausted fund of expression behind. ”

“ I love you, do you hear? If you don't love me, why should I live?”
“Oh, Barry,” said the girl, in a hurried voice. “You must not talk like this. Come this way. I know this place.” She hurried out by a side door, down a corridor, and into a small parlour, with cosy corners, where they were alone.
“Now, Phyllis,” said Barry, facing her, with a settled fierceness in his voice and manner. “I am quite mad, I know, to love you, but I do. I can't help it any more than breathing. I have no right to tell you this, perhaps. I am nobody, and I have nothing to offer any girl. ”

“ Barry," said Mrs. Peyton, sitting back in her chair for the first time and moving her white hands in a pretty gesture of relief, "what do you make of it all?"
Barry, examining the feeble handwriting beneath a reading-glass, discerned what appeared to be a startling solution of the mystery; but, deeming it best for the moment to say nothing of this, he offered an obvious answer to her question:
"From what you have told me, Mrs. Peyton, it would seem that an unknown person, concealed in your house, is bent on frightening you away." ”

“ And again Cecil Laurens applauded this resolve. He had as deeply grained a prejudice against “that theater child” as had old Mrs. Barry herself, and desired just as ardently to keep Louise at Ferndale.
“I shall go to the White for a week myself just as soon as I get my business here over,” he said, and Mrs. Barry replied that she was very glad. It would be pleasanter for her and Louise having an old friend there.
But when this confidential conversation was over, Mrs. Barry began to think that her niece stayed upstairs a long time. She sent Ginny Ann to call her down. ”

“ Just in front of him, on chairs and even on benches, sat the majority of adult Alder,—facing these stood the wedding pair with the minister just in front of them. He could see the girl to one side of the minister's back, and she was very pretty, very femininely appealing, now, in a dress which was a cloudy effect of white; but Barry gave her only one sharp glance. His attention was for the men of the crowd. And although there were only backs of heads, and side glimpses of faces he hunted swiftly for Vic Gregg. ”