John Halifax, Gentleman Read online

  “Who CAN he be, John? Isn’t it wonderful?”

  But John never heard me. His whole attention was riveted on the speaker. Such oratory—a compound of graceful action, polished language, and brilliant imagination, came to him as a positive revelation, a revelation from the world of intellect, the world which he longed after with all the ardour of youth.

  What that harangue would have seemed like, could we have heard it with maturer ears, I know not; but at eighteen and twenty it literally dazzled us. No wonder it affected the rest of the audience. Feeble men, leaning on forks and rakes, shook their old heads sagely, as if they understood it all. And when the speaker alluded to the horrors of war—a subject 72which then came so bitterly home to every heart in Britain—many women melted into sobs and tears. At last, when the orator himself, moved by the pictures he had conjured up, paused suddenly, quite exhausted, and asked for a slight contribution “to help a deed of charity,” there was a general rush towards him.

  “No—no, my good people,” said Mr. Charles, recovering his natural manner, though a little clouded, I thought, by a faint shade of remorse; “no, I will not take from any one more than a penny; and then only if they are quite sure they can spare it. Thank you, my worthy man. Thanks, my bonny young lass—I hope your sweetheart will soon be back from the wars. Thank you all, my ‘very worthy and approved good masters,’ and a fair harvest to you!”

  He bowed them away, in a dignified and graceful manner, still standing on the hay-cart. The honest folk trooped off, having no more time to waste, and left the field in possession of Mr. Charles, his co-mate, and ourselves; whom I do not think he had as yet noticed.

  He descended from the cart. His companion burst into roars of laughter; but Charles looked grave.

  “Poor, honest souls!” said he, wiping his brows—I am not sure that it was only his brows—“Hang me if I’ll be at this trick again, Yates.”

  “It was a trick then, sir,” said John, advancing. “I am sorry for it.”

  “So am I, young man,” returned the other, no way disconcerted; indeed, he seemed a person whose frank temper nothing could disconcert. “But starvation is—excuse me,—unpleasant; and necessity has no law. It is of vital consequence that I should reach Coltham to-night; and after walking twenty miles one cannot easily walk ten more, and afterwards appear as Macbeth to an admiring audience.”

  “You are an actor?”

  73“I am, please your worship—

  ‘A poor player,

  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

  And then is seen no more.’”

  There was inexpressible pathos in his tone, and his fine face looked thin and worn—it did not take much to soften both John’s feelings and mine towards the “poor player.” Besides, we had lately been studying Shakspeare, who for the first time of reading generally sends all young people tragedy-mad.

  “You acted well to-day,” said John; “all the folk here took you for a methodist preacher.”

  “Yet I never meddled with theology—only common morality. You cannot say I did.”

  John thought a moment, and then answered—

  “No. But what put the scheme into your head?”

  “The fact that, under a like necessity, the same amusing play was played out here years ago, as I told you, by John Philip—no, I will not conceal his name, the greatest actor and the truest gentleman our English stage has ever seen—John Philip Kemble.”

  And he raised his hat with sincere reverence. We too had heard—at least John had—of this wonderful man.

  I saw the fascination of Mr. Charles’s society was strongly upon him. It was no wonder. More brilliant, more versatile talent I never saw. He turned “from grave to gay, from lively to severe”—appearing in all phases like the gentleman, the scholar, and the man of the world. And neither John nor I had ever met any one of these characters, all so irresistibly alluring at our age.

  I say OUR, because though I followed where he led, I always did it of my own will likewise.

  The afternoon began to wane, while we, with our two companions, yet sat talking by the brook-side. Mr. Charles had 74washed his face, and his travel-sore, blistered feet, and we had induced him, and the man he called Yates, to share our remnants of bread and cheese.

  “Now,” he said, starting up, “I am ready to do battle again, even with the Thane of Fife—who, to-night, is one Johnson, a fellow of six feet and twelve stone. What is the hour, Mr. Halifax?”

  “Mr. Halifax”—(I felt pleased to hear him for the first time so entitled)—had, unfortunately, no watch among his worldly possessions, and candidly owned the fact. But he made a near guess by calculating the position of his unfailing time-piece, the sun.—It was four o’clock.

  “Then I must go. Will you not retract, young gentlemen? Surely you would not lose such a rare treat as ‘Macbeth,’ with—I will not say my humble self—but with that divine Siddons. Such a woman! Shakspeare himself might lean out of Elysium to watch her. You will join us?”

  John made a silent, dolorous negative; as he had done once or twice before, when the actor urged us to accompany him to Coltham for a few hours only—we might be back by midnight, easily.

  “What do you think, Phineas?” said John, when we stood in the high-road, waiting for the coach; “I have money—and—we have so little pleasure—we would send word to your father. Do you think it would be wrong?”

  I could not say; and to this minute, viewing the question nakedly in a strict and moral sense, I cannot say either whether or no it was an absolute crime; therefore, being accustomed to read my wrong or right in “David’s” eyes, I remained perfectly passive.

  We waited by the hedge-side for several minutes—Mr. Charles ceased his urging, half in dudgeon, save that he was too pleasant a man really to take offence at anything. His conversation was chiefly directed to me. John took no part therein, but strolled about plucking at the hedge.

  75When the stage appeared down the winding of the road I was utterly ignorant of what he meant us to do, or if he had any definite purpose at all.

  It came—the coachman was hailed. Mr. Charles shook hands with us and mounted—paying his own fare and that of Yates with their handful of charity-pennies, which caused a few minutes’ delay in counting, and a great deal of good-humoured joking, as good-humouredly borne.

  Meanwhile, John put his two hands on my shoulders, and looked hard into my face—his was slightly flushed and excited, I thought.

  “Phineas, are you tired?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Do you feel strong enough to go to Coltham? Would it do you no harm? Would you LIKE to go?”

  To all these hurried questions I answered with as hurried an affirmative. It was sufficient to me that he evidently liked to go.

  “It is only for once—your father would not grudge us the pleasure, and he is too busy to be out of the tan-yard before midnight. We will be home soon after then, if I carry you on my back all the ten miles. Come, mount, we’ll go.”

  “Bravo!” cried Mr. Charles, and leaned over to help me up the coach’s side. John followed, and the crisis was past.

  But I noticed that for several miles he hardly spoke one word.

  76CHAPTER VI

  Near as we lived to Coltham, I had only been there once in my life; but John Halifax knew the town pretty well, having latterly in addition to his clerkship been employed by my father in going about the neighbourhood buying bark. I was amused when the coach stopped at an inn, which bore the ominous sign of the “Fleece,” to see how well accustomed he seemed to be to the ways of the place. He deported himself with perfect self-possession; the waiter served him respectfully. He had evidently taken his position in the world—at least, our little world—he was no longer a boy, but a man. I was glad to see it; leaving everything in his hands, I lay down where he placed me in the inn parlour, and watched him giving his orders and walking about. Sometimes I thought his eyes were restless and unquiet, but his manner was as c
omposed as usual.

  Mr. Charles had left us, appointing a meeting at Coffee-house Yard, where the theatre then was.

  “A poor barn-like place, I believe,” said John, stopping in his walk up and down the room to place my cushions more easy; “they should build a new one, now Coltham is growing up into such a fashionable town. I wish I could take you to see the “Well-walk,” with all the fine people promenading. But you must rest, Phineas.”

  77I consented, being indeed rather weary.

  “You will like to see Mrs. Siddons, whom we have so often talked about? She is not young now, Mr. Charles says, but magnificent still. She first came out in this same theatre more than twenty years ago. Yates saw her. I wonder, Phineas, if your father ever did.”

  “Oh, no my father would not enter a play-house for the world.”

  “What!”

  “Nay, John, you need not look so troubled. You know he did not bring me up in the Society, and its restrictions are not binding upon me.”

  “True, true.” And he resumed his walk, but not his cheerfulness. “If it were myself alone, now, of course what I myself hold to be a lawful pleasure I have a right to enjoy; or, if not, being yet a lad and under a master—well, I will bear the consequences,” added he, rather proudly; “but to share them—Phineas,” turning suddenly to me, “would you like to go home?—I’ll take you.”

  I protested earnestly against any such thing; told him I was sure we were doing nothing wrong—which was, indeed, my belief; entreated him to be merry and enjoy himself, and succeeded so well, that in a few minutes we had started in a flutter of gaiety and excitement for Coffee-house Yard.

  It was a poor place—little better than a barn, as Mr. Charles had said—built in a lane leading out of the principal street. This lane was almost blocked up with play-goers of all ranks and in all sorts of equipages, from the coach-and-six to the sedan-chair, mingled with a motley crowd on foot, all jostling, fighting, and screaming, till the place became a complete bear-garden.

  “Oh, John! take care!” and I clung to his arm.

  “Never mind! I’m big enough and strong enough for any crowd. Hold on, Phineas.” If I had been a woman, and the 78woman that he loved, he could not have been more tender over my weakness. The physical weakness—which, however humiliating to myself, and doubtless contemptible in most men’s eyes—was yet dealt by the hand of Heaven, and, as such, regarded by John only with compassion.

  The crowd grew denser and more formidable. I looked beyond it, up towards the low hills that rose in various directions round the town; how green and quiet they were, in the still June evening! I only wished we were safe back again at Norton Bury.

  But now there came a slight swaying in the crowd, as a sedan-chair was borne through—or attempted to be—for the effort failed. There was a scuffle, one of the bearers was knocked down and hurt. Some cried “shame!” others seemed to think this incident only added to the frolic. At last, in the midst of the confusion, a lady put her head out of the sedan and gazed around her.

  It was a remarkable countenance; once seen, you could never forget it. Pale, rather large and hard in outline, an aquiline nose—full, passionate, yet sensitive lips—and very dark eyes. She spoke, and the voice belonged naturally to such a face. “Good people, let me pass—I am Sarah Siddons.”

  The crowd divided instantaneously, and in moving set up a cheer that must have rang through all the town. There was a minute’s pause, while she bowed and smiled—such a smile!—and then the sedan curtain closed.

  “Now’s the time—only hold fast to me!” whispered John, as he sprang forward, dragging me after him. In another second he had caught up the pole dropped by the man who was hurt; and before I well knew what we were about we both stood safe inside the entrance of the theatre.

  Mrs. Siddons stepped out, and turned to pay her bearers—a most simple action—but so elevated in the doing that even it, I thought, could not bring her to the level of common humanity. 79The tall, cloaked, and hooded figure, and the tones that issued thence, made her, even in that narrow passage, under the one flaring tallow-candle, a veritable Queen of tragedy—at least so she seemed to us two.

  The one man was paid—over-paid, apparently, from his thankfulness—and she turned to John Halifax.

  “I regret, young man, that you should have had so much trouble. Here is some requital.”

  He took the money, selected from it one silver coin, and returned the rest.

  “I will keep this, madam, if you please, as a memento that I once had the honour of being useful to Mrs. Siddons.”

  She looked at him keenly, out of her wonderful dark eyes, then curtsied with grave dignity—“I thank you, sir,” she said, and passed on.

  A few minutes after some underling of the theatre found us out and brought us, “by Mrs. Siddons’ desire,” to the best places the house could afford.

  It was a glorious night. At this distance of time, when I look back upon it my old blood leaps and burns. I repeat, it was a glorious night!

  Before the curtain rose we had time to glance about us on that scene, to both entirely new—the inside of a theatre. Shabby and small as the place was, it was filled with all the beau monde of Coltham, which then, patronized by royalty, rivalled even Bath in its fashion and folly. Such a dazzle of diamonds and spangled turbans and Prince-of-Wales’ plumes. Such an odd mingling of costume, which was then in a transition state, the old ladies clinging tenaciously to the stately silken petticoats and long bodices, surmounted by the prim and decent bouffantes, while the younger belles had begun to flaunt in the French fashions of flimsy muslins, shortwaisted—narrow-skirted. These we had already heard Jael furiously inveighing against: for Jael, Quakeress 80as she was, could not quite smother her original propensity towards the decoration of “the flesh,” and betrayed a suppressed but profound interest in the same.

  John and I quite agreed with her, that it was painful to see gentle English girls clad, or rather un-clad, after the fashion of our enemies across the Channel; now, unhappy nation! sunk to zero in politics, religion, and morals—where high-bred ladies went about dressed as heathen goddesses, with bare arms and bare sandalled feet, gaining none of the pure simplicity of the ancient world, and losing all the decorous dignity of our modern times.

  We two—who had all a boy’s mysterious reverence for womanhood in its most ideal, most beautiful form, and who, I believe, were, in our ignorance, expecting to behold in every woman an Imogen, a Juliet, or a Desdemona—felt no particular attraction towards the ungracefully attired, flaunting, simpering belles of Coltham.

  But—the play began.

  I am not going to follow it: all the world has heard of the Lady Macbeth of Mrs. Siddons. This, the first and last play I ever witnessed, stands out to my memory, after more than half a century, as clear as on that night. Still I can see her in her first scene, “reading a letter”—that wondrous woman, who, in spite of her modern black velvet and point lace, did not act, but WAS, Lady Macbeth: still I hear the awe-struck, questioning, weird-like tone, that sent an involuntary shudder through the house, as if supernatural things were abroad—“THEY MADE THEMSELVES—AIR!” And still there quivers through the silence that piteous cry of a strong heart broken—“ALL THE PERFUMES OF ARABIA WILL NEVER SWEETEN THIS LITTLE HAND!”

  Well, she is gone, like the brief three hours when we hung on her every breath, as if it could stay even the wheels of time. But they have whirled on—whirled her away with them into 81the infinite, and into earthly oblivion! People tell me that a new generation only smiles at the traditional glory of Sarah Siddons. They never saw her. For me, I shall go down to the grave worshipping her still.

  Of him whom I call Mr. Charles I have little to say. John and I both smiled when we saw his fine, frank face and manly bearing subdued into that poor, whining, sentimental craven, the stage Macbeth. Yet I believe he acted it well. But we irresistibly associated his idea with that of turnip munching and hay-cart oratory. And when, during the first co
lloquy of Banquo with the witches, Macbeth took the opportunity of winking privately at us over the foot-lights, all the paraphernalia of the stage failed to make the murderous Thane of Cawdor aught else than our humorous and good-natured Mr. Charles. I never saw him after that night. He is still living—may his old age have been as peaceful as his youth was kind and gay!

  The play ended. There was some buffoonery still to come, but we would not stay for that. We staggered, half-blind and dazzled, both in eyes and brain, out into the dark streets, John almost carrying me. Then we paused, and leaning against a post which was surmounted by one of the half-dozen oil lamps which illumined the town, tried to regain our mental equilibrium.

  John was the first to do it. Passing his hand over his brow he bared it to the fresh night-air, and drew a deep, hard breath. He was very pale, I saw.

  “John?”

  He turned, and laid a hand on my shoulder. “What did you say? Are you cold?”

  “No.” He put his arm so as to shield the wind from me, nevertheless.

  “Well,” said he, after a pause, “we have had our pleasure, and it is over. Now we must go back to the old ways again. I wonder what o’clock it is?”

  82He was answered by a church clock striking, heard clearly over the silent town. I counted the strokes—ELEVEN!

  Horrified, we looked at one another by the light of the lamp. Until this minute we had taken no note of time. Eleven o’clock! How should we get home to Norton Bury that night?

  For, now the excitement was over, I turned sick and faint; my limbs almost sank under me.

  “What must we do, John?”

  “Do! oh! ’tis quite easy. You cannot walk—you shall not walk—we must hire a gig and drive home. I have enough money—all my month’s wages—see!” He felt in his pockets one after the other; his countenance grew blank. “Why! where is my money gone to?”