Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 179: what you’re looking at

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166 ELLEN PERCY; OR, THE result.” “Call upon me?” she ejaculated, methought almost in terror: then, as if suddenly recollecting that she had spoken strangely and wildly, she said, * Not for the world, Miss Trafford, would I give you that trouble! Permit me to call here again to- morrow to know the result. Or if you would not deem it an importunity, I would see you this even- ing at the theatre 4 * Be it so,” I said. —send in your name “My name?” said the stranger almost va- cantly: but again catching herself up in the midst of her painfully wandering thoughts, she cried, “ Call at the stage-entrance 33 the name of Miss Howard be brought in to you, I may expect the favour of admission ?” I replied in the affirmative ; and I was thinking at the time that the unfortunate lady’s disinclina- tion for me to call upon her at her own residence, wherever it were, might possibly arise from the poverty of the abode to which circumstances had compelled her to retire. I therefore said with con- siderable diffidence and in as delicate a manner as possible, “ Perhaps you will not be offended with me if I offer you, Miss Howard, such temporary assistance as you may require, until * “No! no!” she vehemently ejaculated. “ But forgive my abruptness! Oh, Miss Trafford!” she added, now bursting into tears, “it is so long since the voice of sympathy made music in my brain or awoke the feelings of my heart, that it sounds strange indeed—and I scarcely know how to take it! All that has just occurred between us must seem most singular to you. I need not ask whether it be suspicious; for you with the sub- limest generosity have treated me as if I werea sister instead of a stranger. I cannot find words in which to thank you. But I can pray—Oh, yes! I can pray!—and in my prayers shall you be remembered !” She pressed my hand with the most gratefal fervour; drew down her veil, and precipitately left the room. It had struck me that she spoke of prayer in that sense in which it is one of the only resources of the unfortunate ; and this circum. stance tended to interest me still more deeply in her favour. Without tarrying for much reflection, I hastened to my chamber, put on my walking- apparel, aud proceeded to the theatre. My desti- nation was soon gained: I found that Mr. and Mrs. Norman had already left; but I learnt from @ subordinate that Mr. Richards was in his own room. The man added that the lessee was en- gaged with the principal gentlemen of the com- pany: but as I thought that they could only be in that room on professional business, I did not hesi- tate to proceed thither. I knocked at the door; and fancying that I was bidden to walk in, I opened it. But all in a moment my ears were assailed with such a Babel of human voices, that if the door when once unfastened had not rolled wide open of its own accord, I should have retired. As it was, however, the opening of that door re- vealed to me the scene that was taking place. All the principal actors engaged at the theatre—Mr. Norman excepted—were in violent altercation with the lessee. No, not exactly with him—but against him: for there he sat, in perfect silence,—his head CS aad =~ a, happy to call upon you to announce the favourable “ Yes, I will avail myself of your kindness ; and if MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS. bent down as if with the air of a man who bows to suffer the first gush of the hurricane to sweep over him ere he raises himself up to breast its re- maining fury when its first violence shall have been expended. One of the chief performers held in his hand a manuscript; and he was indignantly vociferating, “Is this a part to give to such as me—I who, if I had my due and if managers had not conspired against me, should be held equal to Macready? And you expect me to perform such apart as this? I, sir, to fall down a trap-door like a clown—to be caught in a blanket by a couple of drunken carpenters or careless supernumaries ! —not I indeed, sir !” | _“ And I should like to know, Mr. Richards,” exclaimed another gentleman, cocking his hat on one side of his head, and giving it a smash down in order to fix it the more tightly there—at the same time that he assumed the fiercest possible look,—* and I should like to know, Mr. Richards, whether when I engaged with you asa Walking Gentleman, I was expected to shoulder a musket as a recruit, play a big drum, and make grimaces over a mouth-organ ? for that is precisely the part which is assigned to me in this precious piece !” “ And I, sir,” vociferated another, buttoning up his frock-coat to his very throat, and tucking up the cuffs, as if he meant to wreak summary chas- tisement upon the lessee; “I should like to know, sir, whether when I engaged with you as a Gen- tleman for Utility, if was to be condemned to such vile uses as that to which my part in this piece would bring me down at last ?” “Sir—ahem!” said a stout, burly, plethoric gentleman, with a very red face and grey hair: “ahem, sir! I believe, sir—and in believing, sir, I think that I was engaged by you—ahem, sir !— through your stage-manager, Mr. Green, as a Heavy Man. Was it not so, sir? Ahem, sir? Well, sir—then by what singular conglomeration of circumstances—ahem, sir! by what mystification of the strangest events and confusion of all ideas of propriety, is it that I now find myself cast for a character—a character, sir—ahem, sir s “Hold your tongue, Arlington!” exclaimed Mr. Mellicent, now stepping forward and pushing the Heavy Man aside: “ your grievance is nothing to mine! Mr. Richards,” he continued, bowing in a grandiose style of scornful disdain to the lessee, “ would you be good enough to tell me, sir, why after being insulted by your manager Mr, Green, humbugged by your property-man Mr. Sutterby, and accused of being drunk by your base underling Mr. Tubbs, I should now experience the crowning degradation at your hands? [I believe, sir, that it is my avocation to tread the boards of your theatre as the First Walking Gentleman. But, sir - At this moment Mr. Grimshaw, the Clown— who had been standing a little apart, listening with comic seriousness to the wrangle—thought it expedient to alter his position and stand upon his head,—at the same time making the most hideous grimaces. The effect was so ludicrous that one after another, in rapid succession, the ire of the actors gave way; laugh upon laugh burst forth— Mr. Richards raised his head—and throwing him- self back in his seat, he joined in that chorus of cachinnations, “Come, my good fellows,” he exclaimed, when GOMmIGDOO oe eee ’ com