Godolphin, Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

of our company. We have made an excellent harvest at A–, and we are now on our way to the theatre at B–; pretty theatre it is, too, and has been known to hold seventy-one pounds eight shillings.” Here the actor fell into a reverie; and Percy, moving nearer to the coach-door, glanced at the damsel, who returned the look with a laugh which, though coquettish, was too low and musical to be called cold.

      “So that gentleman, so free and easy in his manners, is not your husband?”

      “Heaven forbid! Do you think I should be so gay if he were? But, pooh! what can you know of married life? No!” she continued, with a pretty air of mock dignity; “I am the Belvidera, the Calista, of the company; above all control, all husbanding, and reaping thirty-three shillings a week.”

      “But are you above lovers as well as husbands?” asked Percy with a rakish air, borrowed from Saville.

      “Bless the boy! No: but then my lovers must be at least as tall, and at least as rich, and, I am afraid, at least as old, as myself.”

      “Don’t frighten yourself, my dear,” returned Percy; “I was not about to make love to you.”

      “Were you not? Yes, you were, and you know it. But why will you not sup with us?”

      “Why not, indeed?” thought Percy, as the idea, thus more enticingly put than it was at first, pressed upon him. “If you ask me,” he said, “I will.”

      “I do ask you, then,” said the actress; and here the hero of the company turned abruptly round with a theatrical start, and exclaimed, “To sup or not to sup? that is the question.”

      “To sup, sir,” said Godolphin.

      “Very well! I am glad to hear it. Had you not better mount and rest yourself in the coach? You can take my place—I am studying a new part. We have two miles farther to B– yet.”

      Percy accepted the invitation, and was soon by the side of the pretty actress. The horses broke into a slow trot, and thus delighted with his adventure, the son of the ascetic Godolphin, the pupil of the courtly Saville, entered the town of B–, and commenced his first independent campaign in the great world.

      CHAPTER V

THE MUMMERS.—GODOLPHIN IN LOVE.—THE EFFECT OF FANNY MILLINGER’S ACTING UPON HIM.—THE TWO OFFERS.—GODOLPHIN QUITS THE PLAYERS

      Our travellers stopped at the first inn in the outskirts of the town. Here they were shown into a large room on the ground-floor, sanded, with a long table in the centre; and, before the supper was served, Percy had leisure to examine all the companions with whom he had associated himself.

      In the first place, there was an old gentleman, of the age of sixty-three, in a bob-wig, and inclined to be stout, who always played the lover. He was equally excellent in the pensive Romeo and the bustling Rapid. He had an ill way of talking off the stage, partly because he had lost all his front teeth: a circumstance which made him avoid, in general, those parts in which he had to force a great deal of laughter. Next, there was a little girl, of about fourteen, who played angels, fairies, and, at a pinch, was very effective as an old woman. Thirdly, there was our free-and-easy cavalier, who, having a loud voice and a manly presence, usually performed the tyrant. He was great in Macbeth, greater in Bombastes Furioso. Fourthly, came this gentleman’s wife, a pretty, slatternish woman, much painted. She usually performed the second female—the confidante, the chambermaid—the Emilia to the Desdemona. And fifthly, was Percy’s new inamorata,—a girl of about one-and-twenty, fair, with a nez retrousse: beautiful auburn hair, that was always a little dishevelled; the prettiest mouth, teeth, and dimple imaginable; a natural colour; and a person that promised to incline hereafter towards that roundness of proportion which is more dear to the sensual than the romantic. This girl, whose name was Fanny Millinger, was of so frank, good-humoured, and lively a turn, that she was the idol of the whole company, and her superiority in acting was never made a matter of jealousy. Actors may believe this, or not, as they please.

      “But is this all your company?” said Percy.

      “All? no!” replied Fanny, taking off her bonnet, and curling up her tresses by the help of a dim glass. “The rest are provided at the theatre along with the candle-snuffer and scene-shifters part of the fixed property. Why won’t you take to the stage? I wish you would! you would make a very respectable—page.”

      “Upon my word!” said Percy, exceedingly offended.

      “Come, come!” cried the actress, clapping her hands, and perfectly unheeding his displeasure—“why don’t you help me off with my cloak?—why don’t you set me a chair?—why don’t you take this great box out of my way?—why don’t you–Heaven help me!” and she stamped her little foot quite seriously on the floor. “A pretty person for a lover you are!”

      “Oho! then I am a lover, you acknowledge?”

      “Nonsense!—get a chair next me at supper.”

      The young Godolphin was perfectly fascinated by the lively actress; and it was with no small interest that he stationed himself the following night in the stage-box of the little theatre at –, to see how his Fanny acted. The house was tolerably well filled, and the play was She Stoops to Conquer. The male parts were, on the whole, respectably managed; though Percy was somewhat surprised to observe that a man, who had joined the corps that morning, blessed with the most solemn countenance in the world—a fine Roman nose, and a forehead like a sage’s—was now dressed in nankeen tights, and a coat without skirts, splitting the sides of the gallery in the part of Tony Lumpkin. But into the heroine, Fanny Millinger threw a grace, a sweetness, a simple, yet dignified spirit of trite love that at once charmed and astonished all present. The applause was unbounded; and Percy Godolphin felt proud of himself for having admired one whom every one else seemed also resolved upon admiring.

      When the comedy was finished, he went behind the scenes, and for the first time felt the rank which intellect bestows. This idle girl, with whom he had before been so familiar; who had seemed to him, boy as he was, only made for jesting and coquetry, and trifling, he now felt to be raised to a sudden eminence that startled and abashed him. He became shy and awkward, and stood at a distance stealing a glance towards her, but without the courage to approach and compliment her.

      The quick eye of the actress detected the effect she had produced. She was naturally pleased at it, and coming up to Godolphin, she touched his shoulder, and with a smile rendered still more brilliant by the rouge yet unwashed from the dimpled cheeks, said—“Well, most awkward swain? no flattery ready for me? Go to! you won’t suit me: get yourself another empress.”

      “You have pleased me into respecting you,” said Godolphin.

      There was a delicacy in the expression that was very characteristic of the real mind of the speaker, though that mind was not yet developed; and the pretty actress was touched by it at the moment, though, despite the grace of her acting, she was by nature far too volatile to think it at all advantageous to be respected in the long run. She did not act in the afterpiece, and Godolphin escorted her home to the inn.

      So long as his ten guineas lasted—which the reader will conceive was not very long—Godolphin stayed with the gay troop, as the welcome lover of its chief ornament. To her he confided his name and history: she laughed heartily at the latter—for she was one of Venus’s true children, fond of striking mirth out of all subjects. “But what,” said she, patting his cheek affectionately, “what should hinder you from joining us for a little while? I could teach you to be an actor in three lessons. Come now, attend! It is but a mere series of tricks, this art that seems to you so admirable.”

      Godolphin grew embarrassed. There was in him a sort of hidden pride that could never endure to subject itself to the censure of others. He had no propensity to imitation, and he had a strong susceptibility to the ridiculous. These traits of mind thus early developed—which in later life prevented his ever finding fit scope for his natural powers, which made him too proud to bustle, and too philosophical to shine—were of service to him on this occasion, and preserved him from the danger into which he might otherwise have fallen. He could not be persuaded to act: the fair Fanny gave up the attempt in despair. “Yet stay