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Read Ebook: Garrick's Pupil by Filon Augustin Prichard J V Translator
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Ebook has 1136 lines and 51790 words, and 23 pages
lady.
Whether influenced by this consideration, or whether she found it difficult to resist the desire which the painter had so delicately expressed, the Quakeress retired, escorted even to the threshold by Sir Joshua.
"Are you aware," he asked, returning to his model, "of my true purpose in sending this lady away?"
"In truth, no."
"Because she constrains you; because she casts a shadow upon your youth and gayety; in a word, because she prevents you from being yourself."
"Pray, how could you divine that?"
"My dear child, I have already deciphered three thousand human visages, and why should I not have learned to read the soul a little? The lady is your aunt?"
"Yes,--at least I have been told to call her so."
"And your parents?"
"And a genuine triumph it was! I was there."
"It was then that I was informed that I had an aunt, a sister of my mother, and I was forthwith placed in her care, in her guardianship."
"And she has rigorously acquitted herself of the mission which was confided to her."
The child heaved a deep sigh.
"Ah, Sir Joshua! It is not that she is unkind in any way, but she is my constant shadow. In the wings, in the greenroom, at the rehearsals, she is ever at my side, answering questions which are put to me, refusing invitations, reading letters which are addressed to me, and forcing me to sing psalms to put to rout the evil thoughts which I find in Shakespeare!"
"I see; and you long to be free?"
"Oh, yes, passionately!"
"And what use would you make of your liberty?"
"Oh, I can't fancy. Perhaps I might love virtue if it were not crammed down my throat."
"Good!"
"But you do not know the worst yet."
"Well?"
"The worst--is Reuben!"
"And who may Reuben be?"
"My cousin, my aunt's son; but he is no Quaker. He belongs to one of those old, rigid, cruel sects which have been perpetuated in shadow since the days of the Puritans. He is a fanatic; it would rejoice his heart to plunge into a sea of papist blood; meanwhile he torments me."
"Perhaps he loves you?"
"Yes, according to his light, which surely is not a fair light."
"And what is the proper method of loving?"
The girl burst into a coquettish laugh.
"You ask me more than I can tell, Sir Joshua."
"Indeed? Pray how, then, can one who is ignorant of the sentiment impart its faithful presentment to others? How can she communicate an emotion which finds no echo in her own soul? Who has the ability to teach her to invest her voice, her gestures, her glance, her very smile, with the woes and joys of love?"
"Garrick, I tell you!"
That name, cast haphazard into their conversation, caused a divergence.
"Poor Garrick!" exclaimed Reynolds ruefully; "it is scarcely yet a year since we left him alone in his glory beneath the pavement of Westminster."
The mobile countenance of the child actress reflected as a mirror the sad memory evoked by the artist; a tear glistened upon the lashes of her beautiful eyes.
"He was your friend?" she inquired.
"Oh, yes; one of whom I was very proud."
"Did you paint his portrait?"
"Many times. He posed marvellously, and never tormented me as he did one of my fellow-artists to whom quite unwillingly he had accorded some sittings."
"What did he do?"
"Changed his mask every five minutes, until the poor artist, believing that he as often had a new model before him, or the devil, perhaps, flung away his brushes in despair."
"Garrick once told me," said Esther Woodville, "that the son of a friend, recently dead, had sought him to complain of some trickery by which he had been deprived of a portion of his inheritance. A certain old man, to whom the deceased had intrusted a considerable sum, denied the trust and refused to make restitution. Do you know what Garrick did? Arrayed in the attire of the dead, he played the ghost, and played it so well that the wretch, terrified beyond measure, made confession and restored the property."
"I never heard the anecdote; it is curious," said Reynolds, taking a pinch of snuff.
He extended the open box to the actress, but she refused it with a slight grimace.
"That is my comrade, Mrs. Hartley."
"Exactly. She carries her little daughter upon her back and laughs merrily. Fanciful maternity! There are mythological beauties and modern beauties. The one will be a nymph and gently rest her limbs upon the velvet sward in the genial atmosphere of a Grecian landscape; the other, muffled up to her neck, her muff pressed to her nose, in order to conceal a mouth that is a trifle expansive, elects to promenade the denuded paths of her park and leave the imprint of her tiny, fur-clad feet along the snow. It is the cold, you understand, which lends brilliancy to the eyes and a rosy tip to the ear; it is the cold that gives color and life. Thus I strive to place every human being in his or her favorite attitude, amidst congenial surroundings, beneath the ray which is best calculated to illumine. And I lie in wait for the divine moment when the woman exhales all her seduction, the man all the power of his mind."
He paused for a moment.
"Well, and you!" he continued quickly. "I have not found you yet; I have no hold upon you. I must attempt some subterfuge."
Thereupon he raised his voice.
"Frank!--Frank!"
A masked door, which Esther had not remarked, opened almost immediately and a young man of perhaps two and twenty years of age appeared upon the threshold. Miss Woodville uttered a stifled cry and half rose from her chair.
"My lord!" she breathed almost inaudibly; "how comes it that--you--"
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