Garrick's Pupil Part 22

The preceding events had occurred upon the night of the 2d and 3d of June. The next day, Sat.u.r.day, the city was comparatively quiet.

A feeling of a.s.surance pervaded all cla.s.ses; once again it was believed that the riots were over. On Sunday morning several priests ventured to celebrate ma.s.s with closed doors before their little nervous congregations, who trembled at the slightest sound from outside and apprehensively watched the doors, thinking of the catacombs without possessing the courage of the early Christians. But on that same Sunday, in the afternoon, the disorders began again and increased until nightfall. On Monday matters were aggravated.

The blind fury of the rioters augmented with their number. It was now directed against the wealthy Catholics and such influential personages as had cast their vote in favor of tolerance. Savile House in Leicester Fields was a.s.saulted and the proprietor, Sir George Savile, one of the most enlightened, amiable, and humane men of his time, nearly lost his reason and his life. The mob broke into the residence of Lord Mansfield, who escaped, half-naked, with his family, by the rear entrance. They then built an immense pile of his furniture in the street and set fire to it. Barnard's Inn and the Langdale distillery in Holborn yielded to the flames. Several entire districts fell a prey to the insurgent population. A dome of smoke hung over the city from Leicester Fields to London Bridge, which by night flared like a vault of flame.

However, no one seemed moved as yet. Curious idlers flocked to the scene. Between a game of "quadrille" and a sitting at the magnetizer's, the fair gamesters, with their idle, foppish escorts, arrived by the coachful upon the theatre of riot and conflagration. It frequently chanced that they were set upon and robbed, the men of their purses and snuff-boxes, the women of their watches and jewels. Sometimes the traces were cut and the horses sent flying off in terror, while the coach was tossed upon the blazing pile. Amidst all this the peaceful watchman pa.s.sed with slow, methodical gait, appearing to see nothing, quite as if all were calmness about him, and swinging his sickly little lantern here and there in the blinding glare of the fires.

Whether through inertia or policy, magisterial authority moved neither hand nor foot. Col. Woodford having given his soldiers command to fire upon the mob, popular exasperation rose to such a degree that he was obliged to hide himself for several days. While the Guards were leading their prisoners to Newgate they were a.s.sailed with every description of missile. One of them being wounded in the face and maddened by the sight of blood, was about to fire upon the crowd, when his captain exclaimed, "In Heaven's name, do not fire!" Such management as this made the fortune of the insurrection.

If any one considered that King George's ministers were cowards who had lost their heads, he was seriously mistaken. These gentlemen, with truly British phlegm, listened to the cries of "Death!" raised against them much in the spirit that Fielding, playing besique behind the scenes of Drury Lane, lent one ear to the public hissing his plays. The recital of an eye-witness describes some strange pranks during the sittings of the Council. He affirms that there was more claret discussed than resolutions.

"Though I," said Lord North, indicating his colleague with pretended terror, "go about armed to the teeth, I am more afraid of Saint John's pistol than anything else!" Thereupon they ascended to the roof of the house. Thence they observed the conflagration, noted its phases and progress, and exchanged conjectures upon the direction of the wind and upon its probable effects.

"And now, gentlemen," concluded the minister, "let us return and finish our wine."

This government, discredited on account of its external showing, cared not to a.s.sume the odium of an energetic repression. Curious as it may seem, it was upon the opposition that it sought to s.h.i.+ft the responsibility. It was said that Lord North held an interview with Fox in the lobby of Drury Lane Theatre. A plenary reunion of the Privy Council was held under the presidence of the king, which only occurs at serious crises and in times of great peril to the monarchy. The judges were convoked in order to pa.s.s their opinions upon the course of procedure to be pursued and to give their advice upon the legal side of the question. It was Burke, the great Liberal orator, who proposed to proclaim the martial law.

In fact, the most alarming tidings were received hour by hour. The Fleet and Newgate prisons had been forced, and had vomited their prisoners upon the pavements of London. At Rag Fair and similar localities the orgy was at its height, the license of the mob unbridled. It was no longer a question of papism and tolerance: it was a social revolution, greatest of all misfortunes, which had begun; it was the subversion of law, the accession of crime. It was reported that a formidable army was forming for the a.s.sault of the Bank of England. Inasmuch as the bank was the vital centre, the very heart of the country, the ministers awoke from their lethargy. As if by enchantment several regiments entered London from all sides and encamped with their cannon in Hyde Park. A plan had been decided upon for the total annihilation of the revolt.

Lord Amherst mounted his horse, and when by the ruddy light of the conflagration the aged courtier was seen advancing it was generally understood that that cla.s.s of society, until now so disdainfully indulgent, had taken a hand, and would show itself pitiless in the defence of its property and life. Soon the firing resounded far and wide,--at Blackfriars, at Saint George's Fields, near the Mansion House; the victims lay about in heaps, while the Thames received many corpses and more than one living sacrifice.

On that terrible night, during which the horrors of civil war were added to those of incendiarism, while so many men animated by the spirit of vengeance and the hope of pillage rushed upon one another, a little band of kind-hearted folk, moved by so much suffering, patrolled the streets, bearing relief to the victims. It was Levet, the surgeon of the poor, who urged them on, and case in hand led that dangerous campaign in the interest of humanity.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

As he trudged along Cheapside with his troop, who carried the litters and ladders, he recognized Francis Monday walking in the opposite direction, and called out to him,--

"Is that you, Frank?"

The young man quickly raised his head, perceiving his former savior, whom he frequently went to see and for whom he cherished a grateful friends.h.i.+p.

Perhaps it is time that the young artist's conduct at the Pantheon ball was explained.

As must have been already divined, he loved Esther Woodville--loved her with an exclusive, profound pa.s.sion which was born on the same day that the girl made her appearance upon the stage of Drury Lane. Standing in a corner of the _parterre_, Frank had experienced those devouring sensations which have disturbed twenty-year-old hearts ever since the world began.

The pa.s.sion which actresses inspire in young men of indigent circ.u.mstances and timid disposition is the most romantic and delightful of all, since it unites every impossibility and chimera.

The footlights seem an obstacle which it is impossible to surmount; possession appears an infeasible, madly absurd dream, the very thought of which produces vertigo. The unrecognized lover is not jealous of the comrades who elbow his idol and speak familiarly with her; he does not even consider the admirer or husband who awaits her behind the scenes.

They find in her but a woman like unto all other women. The mistress of his heart is in his sight Juliet, Imogen, Ophelia, Desdemona. She imparts her youth and beauty to the _role_, lends poetry and pa.s.sion to it. From such a _melange_ is born a perfectly adorable creature who only exists for a few hours for the public, but continues to live for the lover long after the curtain has fallen and when the actress has washed off her paint and is supping with a hearty appet.i.te.

In this fas.h.i.+on had Frank loved Miss Woodville until the day that he had met her face to face in Reynolds's studio. From that moment the young girl replaced the artist in his mind, and he fell to loving her in another guise. Their lengthy chat on the day that Sir Joshua was absent from the studio had for the time being awakened certain hopes in his heart. Why should he not love her? Why should she not grow to regard life with his eyes? Little by little, however, without the slightest event interposing to undeceive him, he realized how poorly calculated were his modest lot and unceasing struggle with poverty to tempt a girl reared amidst adulation and covetousness, amidst circ.u.mstances which could not fail to nurture her vanity and her taste for luxury.

Many times had she returned to Sir Joshua's, and each time she had addressed him some few rapid words, always with a touch of embarra.s.sment,--annoyed, as he fancied, at the recollection of that hour of freedom and intimacy, desirous perhaps of effacing it from her memory. The thought smote him to the heart, and, though accustomed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, resignation came hard.

Proportionally as the great painter advanced in his work, Frank secretly copied the portrait of Esther. One morning, while busily engaged at his task, the source of mingled pleasure and pain, a light chuckling caused him to start suddenly and turn.

"You accursed gypsy!" he cried, turning pale with anger, "who permitted you to enter here? How dare you spy upon me?"

It was Rahab, who, together with her numerous vocations, joined that of model, and frequently posed for Sir Joshua. More than once, annoyed at the procrastination or laziness of his fair clients, the painter had set the head of some patrician dame or artist upon Rahab's beautiful body, a genuine living manikin whom he could pose and drape according to his fancy. Rahab had also consented to pose for Frank; and, although she professed disdain for Christians, her hard, ironical eyes sometimes softened as they rested upon the young man.

To-day she was not stirred by his anger, but with a shrug of her shoulders remarked:--

"Poor boy! She will never be yours."

"Why not? Tell me, since you pretend to read the future."

"Because she loves Lord Mowbray."

And, turning upon her heel, she danced away, humming some gypsy ditty.

That name filled the boy's soul with discouragement. Lord Mowbray! A cold-hearted libertine, the most corrupt, 'twas said, of all the Prince of Wales's new _coterie_. And it was towards him that Esther's heart had been attracted! And the pa.s.sing sympathy which he had inspired in her was due, perhaps, to his resemblance to that man! His grief was profound; he had experienced nothing akin to it since the day in his babyhood when he had lost his precious goldpiece.

Revolving these facts in his mind, he had gone to the Pantheon. Why should he go to a masquerade? By what sentiment was he actuated? Some vague desire to console his aching heart by a vulgar adventure? The hope of meeting Esther there? No: rather that instinct which sometimes impels the downcast to air their woes in the midst of a crowd. And while he stood absently watching that wild scene, that dance of fools, a hand was laid upon his shoulder.

Rahab again! What would she with him, this compatriot of the Sphinx, with her fathomless black eyes and enigmatical smile?

"The one you love is here!" she breathed.

"What! Esther?"

"Brown domino with blue ribbons. Seek and you shall find. Is not that what you say?"

"Yes; but explain."

"The moments are precious. In a few minutes Esther will be lost, lost forever. Hasten, if you wish to save her. In saying this I betray some one whom I ought to serve, but I am a woman and I pity you."

He would have questioned her further, but she slipped away and vanished among the groups of maskers.

As deeply moved and agitated as he had just been indifferent and discouraged, Frank traversed the ballroom, searching in every direction for the domino which had been described to him. All at once he uttered a stifled cry; he had discovered the object of his quest. He hastened forward and was at her side in a moment. She was alone, but her eyes, seen through the openings in her velvet mask, seemed to be anxiously watching.

"Esther," he said to her, "a danger menaces you. What it may be I know not, having only received a hint of it: but permit me to follow your footsteps that I may watch over and save you; for save you I must in spite of yourself."

He had seized the young woman's hand and was pressing it between his own, without for a moment doubting that the true Esther stood before him.

The unknown answered never a word, but yielded her hand to his clasp as though she derived some pleasure from the contact with this feverish love. A man approached them and for an instant raised his mask. Frank recognized him; it was Lebeau, Lord Mowbray's intimate companion. The young man turned upon him with a menacing air, determined to prevent his companion from following him.

"Is your ladys.h.i.+p ready?" inquired Lebeau.

"Quite ready. Good night, Mr. Monday."

The voice of Lady Vereker! Frank remained riveted to the spot in amazement. So, then, the gypsy had tricked him. He left the Pantheon and gained his lonely garret room, vainly seeking some solution of the adventure.

Next day Mr. Fisher did not appear, as was his custom, in order to serve Sir Joshua. However, the riot had ceased, and to all outward appearance London had regained her wonted tranquillity. Soon it would be known that Mr. Fisher had pa.s.sed the night searching for Miss Woodville, who, according to report, had been carried off by Lord Mowbray. The accident was of too common occurrence to arouse spirited comment, especially at so serious a time. The invasion of Parliament, or what almost amounted to an invasion, was an affair of far greater importance than the abduction of an _ingenue_. On this account Ralph, who gayly recounted the news to the young artist, was stupefied to see him seize his hat and rush forth into the street.

Frank hastened directly to Fisher's house, who had at once shut himself up in prudent reserve; but, pressed by questions and touched by the young man's emotion, he ended by narrating the night's events and proposing that he should call upon Mrs. Marsham. The good woman had wept incessantly and was in a fine frenzy of despair, having fallen from a state of the most serene confidence into the extreme of despondency. Her niece abducted; her son lost to sight but sought by justice for the events of the preceding day, of which she was beginning to comprehend the importance; her house occupied by soldiers; and even Maud gone, no one knew whither nor with whom! Such a conglomeration of misfortunes was indeed enough to disturb the steadiest brain and unseat the best established optimism. It was amidst such disorder that Frank found her, ignorant how to solve the problem, and fearing, if she claimed the aid of the authorities to find her niece, that by the step she should deliver over her son to his hunters.

There was no help to be expected from this poor, half-crazed woman; Fisher had his clients to attend to; while O'Flannigan, believing himself menaced as a Catholic, remained under cover in his lodgings.

Thrown upon his own resources, Frank registered a mental oath that he would find Esther, and during those days of terror and battle, indifferent to the prevailing trouble, insensible to his own danger, he came and went, pa.s.sing from the turbulent quarters to the more peaceful districts, searching the lost clew with impa.s.sioned despair.

From the first day he knew beyond peradventure that Mowbray's "Folly"

was deserted. Thanks to the persuasion that resides in a goldpiece, the footman who was left in charge of the place found no difficulty in permitting the young man to enter. He showed him all the secrets of the house, the subterranean pa.s.sages, even the boudoir where Reuben had pa.s.sed the night.