GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

The managers who had formerly avoided Mrs. Byron were by this time dead, bankrupt, or engaged in less hazardous pursuits. One of their successors had lately restored Shakespeare to popularity as signally as Cashel had restored the prize ring. He was anxious to produce the play of “King John,” being desirous of appearing as Faulconbridge, a part for which he was physically unfitted. Though he had no suspicion of his unfitness, he was awake to the fact that the favorite London actresses, though admirable in modern comedy, were not mistresses of what he called, after Sir Walter Scott, the “big bow wow” style required for the part of Lady Constance in Shakespeare’s history. He knew that he could find in the provinces many veteran players who knew every gesture and inflection of voice associated by tradition with the part; but he was afraid that they would remind Londoners of Richardson’s show, and get Faulconbridge laughed at. Then he thought of Adelaide Gisborne. For some hours after the idea came to him he was gnawed at by the fear that her performance would throw his into the shade. But his confidence in his own popularity helped his love of good acting to prevail; and he made the newly returned actress a tempting offer, instigating some journalist friends of his at the same time to lament over the decay of the grand school of acting, and to invent or republish anecdotes of Mrs. Siddons.

This time Mrs. Byron said nothing about detesting the stage. She had really detested it once; but by the time she was rich enough to give up the theatre she had worn that feeling out, and had formed a habit of acting which was as irksome to shake off as any other habit. She also found a certain satisfaction in making money with ease and certainty, and she made so much that at last she began to trifle with plans of retirement, of playing in Paris, of taking a theatre in London, and other whims. The chief public glory of her youth had been a sudden triumph in London on the occasion of her first appearance on any stage; and she now felt a mind to repeat this and crown her career where it had begun. So she accepted the manager’s offer, and even went the length of reading the play of “King John” in order to ascertain what it was all about.

The work of advertisement followed her assent. Portraits of Adelaide Gisborne were displayed throughout the town. Paragraphs in the papers mentioned large sums as the cost of mounting the historical masterpiece of the national bard. All the available seats in the theatre — except some six or seven hundred in the pit and gallery — were said to be already disposed of for the first month of the expected run of the performance. The prime minister promised to be present on the opening night. Absolute archaeologic accuracy was promised. Old paintings were compared to ascertain the dresses of the period. A scene into which the artist had incautiously painted a pointed arch was condemned as an anachronism. Many noblemen gave the actor-manager access to their collections of armor and weapons in order that his accoutrement should exactly counterfeit that of a Norman baron. Nothing remained doubtful except the quality of the acting.

It happened that one of the most curious documents of the period in question was a scrap of vellum containing a fragment of a chronicle of Prince Arthur, with an illuminated portrait of his mother. It had been purchased for a trifling sum by the late Mr. Carew, and was now in the possession of Lydia, to whom the actor-manager applied for leave to inspect it. Leave being readily given, he visited the house in Regent’s Park, which he declared to be an inexhaustible storehouse of treasure. He deeply regretted, he said, that he could not show the portrait to Miss Gisborne. Lydia replied that if Miss Gisborne would come and look at it, she should be very welcome. Two days later, at noon, Mrs. Byron arrived and found Lydia alone; Alice having contrived to be out, as she felt that it was better not to meet an actress — one could never tell what they might have been.

The years that had elapsed since Mrs. Byron’s visit to Dr. Moncrief had left no perceptible trace on her; indeed she looked younger now than on that occasion, because she had been at the trouble of putting on an artificial complexion. Her careless refinement of manner was so different from the studied dignity and anxious courtesy of the actor-manager, that Lydia could hardly think of them as belonging to the same profession. Her voice was not her stage voice; it gave a subtle charm to her most commonplace remarks, and it was as different as possible from Cashel’s rough tones. Yet Lydia was convinced by the first note of it that she was Cashel’s mother. Besides, their eyes were so like that they might have made an exchange without altering their appearance.

Mrs. Byron, coming to the point without delay, at once asked to see the drawing. Lydia brought her to the library, were several portfolios were ready for inspection. The precious fragment of vellum was uppermost.

“Very interesting, indeed,” said Mrs. Byron, throwing it aside after one glance at it, and turning over some later prints, while Lydia, amused, looked on in silence. “Ah,” she said, presently, “here is something that will suit me exactly. I shall not trouble to go through the rest of your collection, thank you. They must do that robe for me in violet silk. What is your opinion of it, Miss Carew? I have noticed, from one or two trifles, that your taste is exquisite.”

“For what character do you intend the dress?”

“Constance, in ‘King John.’”

“But silk was not made in western Europe until three hundred years after Constance’s death. And that drawing is a sketch of Marie de Medicis by Rubens.”

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Byron, smoothly. “What does a dress three hundred years out of date matter when the woman inside it is seven hundred years out? What can be a greater anachronism than the death of Prince Arthur three months hence on the stage of the Panopticon Theatre? I am an artist giving life to a character in romance, I suppose; certainly not a grownup child playing at being somebody out of Mrs. Markham’s history of England. I wear whatever becomes me. I cannot act when I feel dowdy.”

“But what will the manager say?”

“I doubt if he will say anything. He will hardly venture to press on me anything copied from that old parchment. As he will wear a suit of armor obviously made the other day in Birmingham, why — !” Mrs. Byron shrugged her shoulders, and did not take sufficient interest in the manager’s opinion to finish her sentence.

“After all, Shakespeare concerned himself very little about such matters,” said Lydia, conversationally.

“No doubt. I seldom read him.”

“Is this part of Lady Constance a favorite one of yours?”

“Troublesome, my dear,” said Mrs. Byron, absently. “The men look ridiculous in it; and it does not draw.”

“No doubt,” said Lydia, watching her face. “But I spoke rather of your personal feeling towards the character. Do you, for instance, like portraying maternal tenderness on the stage?”

“Maternal tenderness,” said Mrs. Byron with sudden nobleness, “is far too sacred a thing to be mimicked. Have you any children?”

“No,” said Lydia, demurely. “I am not married.”

“Of course not. You should get married. Maternity is a liberal education in itself.”

“Do you think that it suits every woman?”

“Undoubtedly. Without exception. Only think, dear Miss Carew, of the infinite patieuce with which you must tend a child, of the necessity of seeing with its little eyes and with your own wise ones at the same time, of bearing without reproach the stabs it innocently inflicts, of forgiving its hundred little selfishnesses, of living in continual fear of wounding its exquisite sensitiveness, or rousing its bitter resentment of injustice and caprice. Think of how you must watch yourself, check yourself, exercise and develop everything in you that can help to attract and retain the most jealous love in the world! Believe me, it is a priceless trial to be a mother. It is a royal compensation for having been born a woman.”