Stephanie Barron: Jane and The Wandering Eye

I looked for the Medusa in scarlet, and the corpulent Henry VIII, and found them in animated conversation with Pierrot. “I did not know you were acquainted with the Conynghams.”

“I cannot claim the honour, my dear, though Her Grace was so good as to introduce them to my society. They were not even thought of, when I enjoyed the art of their parents — and their parents are many years deceased.”

“How melancholy to consider of it!”

“Age will advance upon one,” Madam observed with a sigh, “though I must remark that Her Grace seems to keep its deprivations at bay! How very well she looks, to be sure! And the Conynghams appear to have survived their early loss. Mrs. Siddons had the raising of them, I believe. They were of an age to be thrown together with her children — she possesses no less than five, like myself — and I cannot think but that they do her credit.”

“With such a rearing, it should be marvellous indeed did the Conynghams abhor the stage.”

“They were bred to the boards, as they say in theatrical circles. Miss Conyngham was educated in France, in company with the Miss Siddonses; and her brother, Hugh, was sent to the same college as the Kemble gentlemen patronised — a religious school somewhere in Flanders. [12] John Philip and Charles Kemble both attended a Roman Catholic college in Douay, Flanders. Their father was Catholic, their mother Protestant, and according to custom the sons were reared in their father’s faith while Sarah Siddons was raised in her mother’s. — Editor’s note. Mr. Conyngham would be about the same age as Mr. Charles Kemble, the Siddons girls’ uncle, and both are Papists, you know.”

“I was not aware,” I replied. “And do the Conynghams look to the Siddons family to patronise their careers? Mr. John Philip Kemble is presently the manager of Covent Garden, I believe — and might do much for his friends.”

“There has been a little coolness in their relations, it seems,” said Madam Lefroy, “owing to an unfortunate love affair. Hugh Conyngham was excessively attached to the younger Miss Siddons, and thought to have married her; but the lady turned her affections elsewhere, and he has not yet got over the disappointment. However, she was of a sickly constitution, and passed away some years since.”

“How tragic!”

Our exchange was broken by the clang of a gong — we turned as one, and perceived once more the Dowager.

Her Grace had got rid of the offending White Harlequin somewhere, and now leaned on her cane at the head of the drawing-room, as if on the point of speech. Lady Desdemona, seeming quite recovered in spirits, stood once again by her grandmother’s side. At the Dowager’s other hand was Henry VIII — or the actor Hugh Conyngham — possessed of his usual dignity. The entire rout fell silent.

“Dear guests and fellow devotees of the theatre,” Eugenie said, the faintest suggestion of France in her guttural tone and tender way with consonants, “the artistes of the Theatre Royal have honoured us tonight with their presence. It is my noble office to present the celebrated Mr. Hugh Conyngham, who will speak a short passage from Macbeth for our enjoyment. Mr. Conyngham.”

“Your Grace,” the gentleman replied, with the most elegant sweep of his hand, and the deepest of bows, “I am honoured to be of service.” And with that simple acknowledgement, he fixed his gaze upon the decorative plaster of the ceiling, his aspect at once become sorrowful, brooding, contemplative, and tortured by turns.

My heart, I confess, gave way to a painful beating; I felt the impertinent blood rise swiftly to my cheeks; and was glad for the support of a chair. Macbeth , as Conyngham plays him, is the very soul of tragedy; and I am but too susceptible to its power.

“If it were done,” HE BEGAN, IN THE HUSHED TONE AND SLOW pace appropriate to murderous thought, turning before our eyes like a cage’d tiger—

“when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well

It were done quickly. If th’ assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch

With his surcease, success; that but this blow—”

(Here, a swiftly upraised hand, a clenching fist, the agony of indecision in his aspect.)

“Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We’ld jump the life to come. But in these cases

We still have judgment here, that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice

Commends th’ ingredience of our poison’d chalice

To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,”

(The nobility of his consciousness! The foulness of his thought!)

“Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murtherer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, hors’d

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind.”

(A long declining wail, as though uttered from within a tomb.)

“I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’verleaps itself,

And falls on th’ other—”

The last words, whispered and yet utterly distinct, came like the gentle slip of leaves from a November bough; and his lips had scarcely ceased to move, when the applause that was his due rang forth in strenuous tumult. Every throat swelled with praise, and the madness of cheering all but blotted out Hugh Conyngham’s gentler thanks. The actor’s brilliant eye, and the fever of his cheek, spoke with firmer eloquence, however; and I read in his looks a grateful understanding. For such an one, as yet so young in the life of the stage — for he can be but thirty — to take his place among the Garricks and the Kembles, if only in the estimation as yet of Bath , must seem like glory, indeed.

The cheering did not cease; the clapping hands acquired a measured beat; and it seemed as though Hugh Conyngham must bow to the desire of the guests, and speak on — when the tenor of the hoarsest cries declined by an octave, and gained a sudden accent of horror and dismay. The acutest attention o’erspread the actor’s face; the crowd’s mood changed as perceptibly as though an icy draught had blown out the blazing fire — and I turned, to perceive a stumbling knot of bodies caught in an anteroom doorway.

“I fear some part of the Duchess’s acquaintance are but too disguised in truth,” [13] To be “disguised” in Austen’s day was to be quite thoroughly drunk. — Editor’s note. I said to Anne Lefroy. “We had best make our adieux , and summon the chairs, before this rout turns to a riot.”

“Nonsense. It is nothing but a bit of theatre — the stabbing of Duncan, I suspect.” She stepped towards the anteroom with the others, and protesting, I followed.

Craning on tip-toe, the better to discern the man who had stolen Hugh Conyngham’s scene, I comprehended a small salon to one side of the massive drawing-room, done up in Prussian blue picked out with gold. Its double doors were thrown wide and obscured by a press of bodies. The late Duke’s reception room? — Or perhaps a study? But all such observations were fleeting, for my eyes were fixed on one alone — the mettlesome Knight, my erstwhile dance partner. He strained in the grip of two stout fellows, and his reddened countenance worked in horror.