The Magnificent Montez Part 5

Then, when the curtain fell, they would be privileged to go behind the scenes and chat with the coryphees.

On the evening of Lola's debut one of the omnibus-boxes was occupied by Lord Ranelagh, a raffish mid-Victorian roue, who had brought with him a select party of "Corinthians" in frilled s.h.i.+rts and flowered waistcoats. It was observed that he paid but languid attention to the opera. As soon, however, as the promised novelty, _El Oleano_, was reached, he exhibited a sudden interest and pushed his chair forward.

"We shall see some fun in a moment," he whispered. "Mind you fellows keep quiet until I give the word."

II

A little ominous, perhaps, that the Haymarket entrepreneur should bear the same name as the Calcutta judge who had unsuccessfully sought her hand. But Lola experienced no qualms. As she stood at the wings, in a black satin bodice and much flounced pink silk skirt, waiting for her cue, Lumley pa.s.sed her with a nod of encouragement.

"Capital," he said, rubbing his whiskers. "Most attractive. You'll be a big success, my dear."

As he moved off, a bell tinkled in the prompt corner. In response, the conductor lifted his baton; the heavy curtains were drawn aside; and, under a cross-fire of opera gla.s.ses, Lola bounded on to the stage and executed her initial piroutte. There was a sudden hush, as, at the finish of the number, she stepped up to the footlights and awaited the verdict. Had she made good, or not? In a moment, however, she knew that all was well, for a storm of applause and clapping of hands filled the air. Lumley, from his place in the wings, beamed approval.

His enterprise was to be rewarded. The debutante was a success. No doubt about it. She should have a contract from him before any other manager should step in and snap her up.

We do not believe (scribbled a critic, hurriedly jotting down his impressions, to be expanded when he got back to his office) that Donna Lola smiled once throughout her performance. As she withdrew, numbers of bouquets fell on to the stage. But the proud one of Seville did not deign to return to pick them up, and one of the gentlemen in livery was deputed for that purpose. When, however, her measure was encored, she stepped down from her pinnacle and actually condescended to accept an additional bouquet that had been tossed by a fair one from a box.

Her Majesty's Theatre (added a colleague) may now be said to be in its full zenith of grandeur and perfection of beauty and splendour, and variety and fame of the ballet. A new Spanish Donna has been introduced. Although the visitation was unheralded by the customary flourish of trumpeting _on dits_, it was extremely successful. The young lady came and saw and conquered. Many floral offerings were shot at her as a compliment, and the useful M. Coulos--ever at hand in such an emergency--a.s.sisted very industriously in picking them up. As for _El Oleano_, this is a sort of cachucha; and it certainly gives Donna Lola Montez an opportunity of introducing herself to the public under a very captivating aspect.... A lovely picture she is to contemplate. There is before you the very perfection of Spanish beauty--the tall handsome figure, the full l.u.s.trous eye, the joyous animated countenance, and the dark raven tresses. You gaze upon the Donna with delight and admiration.

It was just after the third item on her programme and while she stood before the curtain, bowing and smiling her acknowledgments, that there was an unexpected interruption. An ominous hiss suddenly split the air. The sound came from the occupants of the stage box in which Lord Ranelagh and his party had ensconced themselves. As at a prearranged signal, the occupants of the opposite box took it up and repeated it.

The audience gasped in astonishment, and looked to Lord Ranelagh for a solution. He supplied one promptly. "Egad!" he exclaimed in a loud voice, "that's not Lola Montez at all. It's Betsy James, an Irish girl. Ladies and gentlemen, we're being properly swindled!"

"Swindled" was an ugly word. The pit and gallery, feeling that they were in some mysterious fas.h.i.+on being defrauded, followed the cue thus given them, and a volume of hisses and cat-calls sprang from the throats that, a moment earlier, had bellowed vociferous cheers. The great Michael Costa, who was conducting, dropped his baton in astonishment, and, refusing to pick it up again, left his desk. There is a theory that it was this untoward incident that led him to transfer himself from the Haymarket to Covent Garden. Quite possible.

Musicians are temperamental folk.

It was left for Lumley to deal with the situation. He did so by ringing down the curtain, while Lola, in tears and fury, rushed off to her dressing-room.

III

Perhaps they left early, but none of the critics saw anything of this _denouement_. What, however, they did see they described in rapturous, not to say, florid terms:

We saw, as in a dream (declared one of them), an Elssler or a Taglioni descend from the clouds, under the traits of a new dancer, whose fervent admirers lavished on her all the enthusiasm and applause with which the rare perfection of her predecessors has been rewarded.

On Sat.u.r.day last, between the acts of the opera, Donna Lola Montez was announced to appear on the programme at Her Majesty's. A thousand ardent spectators were in feverish anxiety to see her. Donna Lola enchanted everyone. There was throughout a graceful flowing of the arms--not an angle discernible--an indescribable softness in her att.i.tude and suppleness in her limbs which, developed in a thousand positions (without infringing on the Opera laws), were the most intoxicating and womanly that can be imagined. We never remember seeing the _habitues_--both young and old--taken by more agreeable surprise than the bewitching lady excited.

She was rapturously encored, and the stage strewn with bouquets.

Lord Ranelagh and his friends must have grinned when they read this gush.

"I saw Lumley immediately after the fall of the curtain," says a reporter who was admitted behind the scenes. "He was surrounded by the professors of morality from the omnibus-box, who said that Donna Lola was positively not to reappear. They pointed out to him that it was absolutely essential to have none but exemplary characters in the ballet; but they did not tell him where he would procure females who would have no objection to exhibiting their legs in pink silk fles.h.i.+ngs. As Lumley could not afford to offend his patrons, he was compelled to accept the _fiat_ of these virtuous scions of a moral and ultra-scrupulous aristocracy. Carlotta Grisi might have had a score of lovers; but, then, she had never turned up her charming little nose at my Lord Ranelagh."

It was an age when the theatre had to kow-tow to the patron. Unless My Lord approved, Mr. Crummles had no choice but to ring down the curtain. As the Ranelagh faction very emphatically disapproved, Lumley was compelled to give the recruit her marching-orders.

Lola's _premiere_ had thus become her _derniere_.

By the way, a Sunday paper, writing some time afterwards, was guilty of a serious slip in its account of the episode, and mistook Lord Ranelagh for the Duke of Cambridge. "The newcomer," says this critic, "was recognised as Mrs. James by a Prince of the Blood and his companions in the omnibus-box. Her beauty could not save her from insult; and, to avenge themselves on Mr. Lumley, for some pique, these chivalrous English gentlemen of the upper cla.s.ses hooted a woman from the stage."

What was behind Lord Ranelagh's cowardly attack on the debutante?

There was a simple explanation, and not one that redounded to his credit in any way. It was that, during her "Bohemian" period, he had endeavoured to fill the empty niche left in her affections by the departure of that light-o'-love, Captain Lennox, and had been repulsed for his pains. A bad loser, my Lord nursed resentment. He would teach a mere ballet-dancer to snap her fingers at him. His opportunity came sooner than he imagined. He made the most of it.

Fond as he was of biting, Lord Ranelagh was, some years afterwards, himself bitten. He took a prominent part in an unsavoury scandal that fluttered mid-Victorian dovecotes, when a Bond Street "beauty specialist," known as Madame Rachel, was clapped into prison for swindling a wealthy and amorous widow. This was a Mrs. Borrodaile, whom "Madame" had gulled by declaring that Lord Ranelagh's one desire was to share his coronet with her. Although the raffish peer denied all complicity, he did not come out of the business too well.

"The peculiar prominence he has attained," remarked an obituarist, "has not always been of an enviable description. There are probably few men who have had so many charges of the most varied and disagreeable nature made against them. The resultant obloquy to which he had thus been exposed is great, nor has it vanished, as it properly should have done, with the charges themselves."

This, however, was looking ahead. The comments of 1843 came first. "In the clubs that night," we read, "the bucks and bloods laughed heartily when they discussed the mishap of the proud beauty who had scorned the advances of my Lord." Lola Montez, however, did not regard it as anything at which to laugh. She may, as she boasted, have had a dash of Spanish blood in her veins, but she certainly had none of George Was.h.i.+ngton's, for she immediately sat down and wrote a circular letter to all the London papers. In this she sought to correct what she described as a "false impression." Swallowing it as gospel, a number of them printed it in full:

_To the Editor_.

SIR:

Since I had the honour of dancing at Her Majesty's Theatre, on Sat.u.r.day, the 3rd inst. (when I was received by the English public in so kind and flattering a manner) I have been cruelly annoyed by reports that I am not really the person I pretend to be, but that I have long been known in London as a woman of disreputable character. I entreat you, Sir, to allow me, through the medium of your respected journal, to a.s.sure you and the public, in the most positive and unqualified manner, that there is not a word of truth in such a statement.

I am a native of Seville; and in the year 1833, when ten years old, was sent to a Catholic lady at Bath, where I remained seven months, and was then taken back to my parents in Spain. From that period, until the 14th of April, when I landed in England, _I have never set foot in this country, and I never saw London before in my life_.

In apologising for the favour I ask you, I feel sure that you will kindly consider the anxiety of myself and my friends to remove from the public any impression to my disadvantage. My lawyer has received instructions to proceed against all the parties who have calumniated me.

Believe me to be your obedient and humble servant,

LOLA MONTEZ.

_June 13, 1843._

Ballet-dancers cannot, when making their debuts, be expected to remember everything; and this one had obviously forgotten her sojourn in India, just as she had forgotten her marriage to Thomas James (and the subsequent Consistory Court action), as well as her amorous dalliance with Captain Lennox during the previous year.

"In spite of the encouraging reception accorded Donna Lola Montez, she has not danced again," remarked a critic in the _Examiner_. "What is the reason?"

Lumley could have supplied the information. He did so, some years afterwards, in his book, _Reminiscences of the Opera_:

It is not my intention to rake up the world-wide stories of this strange and fascinating woman. Perhaps it will be sufficient to say frankly that I was, in this instance, fairly "taken in." A n.o.ble Lord (afterwards closely connected with the Foreign Office) had introduced the lady to my notice as the daughter of a celebrated _Spanish_ Patriot and martyr, representing her merits as a dancer in so strong a light that her "appearance" was granted.

... But this spurious Spanish lady had no real knowledge of that which she professed. The whole affair was an imposture; and on the very night of her first appearance the truth exploded. On the discovery of the truth, I declined to allow the English adventuress, for such she was, another appearance on my boards. In spite of the expostulations of the "friends" of the lady--in spite of the deprecatory letters in which she earnestly denied her English origin--in spite even of the desire expressed in high places to witness her strange performance--I remained inflexible.

The "n.o.ble Lord" thus referred to in this pompous disclaimer was Lord Malmesbury.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Viscount Ranelagh, who organised a cabal against Lola Montez_]

IV

If she had a quick temper, Lola Montez had a good heart, and was always ready to lend a helping hand to others. In this connection Edward Fitzball, a hack dramatist with whom things were not going well, has a story of how she volunteered to a.s.sist in a benefit performance that was being got up to set him on his legs. It was difficult to secure attractions; and the beneficiare, realising that, as was the custom in such cases, he would have to make good any deficit himself, was feeling depressed.

"This benefit," he says, "which I fully expected would prove to be a decided loss, annoyed me sadly. I was sauntering along Regent Street when I met Stretton, the popular singer, whose own benefit was just coming off. He said that he had secured every attraction worthy of the public, and that there was no hope for me, 'unless,' he added, 'you could secure Lola Montez.'

"'Pray, who is that?' I said in my ignorance.

"'Lola Montez is a lady who appeared the other night at Her Majesty's Theatre as a dancer, but, due to some aristocratic disturbance, has left in disgust. The papers were full of it. I offered her 50 to dance for me, and met with a decided refusal. Hence, I see no hope for you.'"

Fitzball, however, thinking it worth while taking a chance, hurried to Lola's lodgings and begged her to contribute to the programme he was offering. He had not expected to be successful, since he knew that she was smarting under a sense of injury. To his surprise and delight, however, she promised her services, and refused to accept any payment.