“You are an unprejudiced judge, Nell; you will not give a decree in favour of Shakespeare simply because you are a friend of his grandnephew,” said Killigrew. “Well, my dear, this play of ‘Othello’ treats of the love of a Moor for a beautiful lady named Desdemona. He gets her to run away with him, in order that he may have a chance of making a speech in the Court where he is summoned by the lady’s father. The poet artfully refrains – doth he not, Mrs Hughes? – from explaining why the father objects to the match, seeing that he had always treated Othello as an equal, and thrown the lovely Desdemona in his way. Well, then, there comes a naughty fellow –”
“Ah! now the play interests me,” said Nell. “The naughty fellow always interests me – ay, and everyone else.”
“His name is – what is his name? – oh, never mind; he, out of pure love of fun, makes Othello jealous of his wife, and he cuts her throat – no, he smothers her with a down pillow; and when someone rushes in to tell him he did wrong, he runs the villain through the vitals, makes a speech – he never loses an opportunity of making a speech – and then, to save his hearers from dying of the vapours, he stabs himself to the heart. Isn’t that the play, Mrs Hughes?”
“But what is the object of it all?” cried Nell.
“Oh, the object is plain enough,” said Killigrew. “’Tis to show, first, that one should never become on terms of familiarity with black men; and, secondly, that officers in the army should never become jealous of their wives – they’re not worth it.”
“And what have you to say to all this, Mrs Hughes?” asked Nell.
“What have I to say?” cried Mrs Hughes. “Ah, Nelly, what can I say if you have not read the play? For me to lift up my voice to plead for Shakespeare would be to degrade him. Put all the wit of all the moderns into one play and that play will contain less wit than the least of his comedies. Put all the tragical passion of all the moderns into one play and that play will be feeble by the side of a scene in ‘Othello.’”
“Oh, lud! and pray what else doth it contain?” said Nell. “Is there aught that would sting the Duchess of Cleveland – her that was the Countess of Castlemaine?”
“I have not yet read it with Her Grace before mine eyes, but I dare swear that it abounds in lines which should sting her to the very quick,” said the actress.
“If you promise me that there is something in some scene that will sting her, I’ll plead with Mr Killigrew on your behalf,” said Nell. “But, mark you, her skin is thick: the sting must be sharp and heavy to touch her. An elephant is not even tickled by the sting of a gnat. None of your rapier-thrusts will pierce her skin. Anything short of a battle-axe of satire would produce no impression on her.”
“Let me think – let me think,” said Mrs Hughes. “I fancy there is some aptness – by the hid, I have it. Did not His Majesty break out in a passion when he accused her of a too great fondness for Harry Jermyn?”
“Well, and if he did?” said Nell.
“Ah, so doth Othello when he accuses Desdemona of a too great fondness for Cassio, who was also an officer in the army – he smothers her on that account. Oh, every scene will stab that creature to the heart,” cried the actress enthusiastically.
“Her heart – heart, did you say?” shrieked Nell. “Doth the play say aught about a woman living without a heart?”
“I promise you that it doth, though I cannot recall the exact lines,” said Mrs Hughes. “Ah, I promise you that we shall make mincemeat of her; and the King, who is afraid to say to her face what he thinks of her, will hold us in high favour.”
“Psha!” cried Killigrew. “You have not convinced me that the playgoers will receive with high favour the strangling of a young woman by a burly black-a-moor – ay, or a brown-a-moor if that pleases you better. And so, Madam Ellen, you may set about the choice of your gown for the new masque at Hampton Court.”
Mrs Hughes pouted very prettily, and Madam Ellen said some very hard words regarding his unkindness, and then Mrs Hughes left the green room.
But, for all that, two days afterwards, the actress burst in upon her husband as he sat cooking a fish for dinner, and cried:
“Huzza – huzza, my love; the day is ours – the world is at our feet!”
“Then we shall e’en wipe our feet upon the world and eat a fresh Southwark plaice,” said her husband.
“Plaice! plaice me no plaice, sir, until you hear my news. What think you? Mr Killigrew hath resolved that ‘Othello’ shall be played a fortnight from to-day, and I shall be the first woman to be seen as Desdemona. What think’st thou of that news?”
The husband laid the cooked fish on the table and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Desdemona – ‘Othello’ – I can scarce believe the good news,” said he. “Dear wife, think that whatever fate may have in store for us, after the tragedy is played we shall have gained immortality – you as the first woman who played the part of Desdemona and I as your husband.”
He stretched out his arms to her and she was so excited that she was about to throw herself into these arms until at the last moment she remembered that she was wearing a comparatively new brocade – the gift of Nell Gwyn – which would most likely have to see Desdemona through three acts of the tragedy.
“Ah, you will have to moderate your transports, my James,” she said. “Your hands have been dealing with the fish, they would work ruin on my brocade.”
“That is the difference between a man and a woman,” said he mournfully. “A man is dreaming of immortality while a woman’s only dread is that her dress will be smirched. My beloved one, you shall be remembered through all ages as the first actress of Desdemona. People will talk of you hundreds of years hence when the greatness of Shakespeare is recognised as it deserves to be. Just now, alas! – But prithee, what has occurred to cause Killigrew to revoke his original decree regarding ‘Othello’?”
“I cannot tell,” his wife replied. “I was quite startled when he sent for me on my entering the playhouse, and announced that he had made up his mind to put on ‘Othello.’”
“It must be the King’s Command; or perhaps Killigrew hath read the play,” suggested the man.
“Nay, that is too extravagant a notion,” she cried. “What, the manager of a play-house read a play! Dear James, your imagination runs away with you sometimes! Nay, dear, I believe rather that we are in debt to Nell Gwyn for this favour.”
“And she is only interested in the play because she fancies something in it may sting her enemy Lady Castlemaine – I beg Her Grace’s pardon – the Duchess of Cleveland, I should have said. Alas! poor Will Shakespeare!”
“Good lud! he hath made us even forget our dinner,” cried the actress. “And you have cooked the fish as only you can,” she continued, looking at the plaice which was cooling on the table.
“Ah, my angel, what is one dinner to such as you who will be supping for evermore among the immortals?” cried her husband.
“What, indeed?” she cried, and then in the exuberance of the moment, she threw her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him heartily on both cheeks.
But all the same she did her best to avert for some time the joys of immortality by making an excellent dinner. Her husband had trained himself to become a capital cook, and thus he and his wife lived on the most affectionate terms. He not only relieved her of her responsibilities in this direction, he, in addition, taught her all she knew about her art, and had even brought her to appreciate in some measure the poetry of Shakespeare. He also went so far as to contribute to the household purse by giving lessons in fencing.
He had had a chequered career. Educated for the priesthood in the reign of Charles I, he had joined the King’s army in its conflict with the Parliamentary forces, and had suffered in consequence during the Interregnum. Before Charles II had been many years on the throne, James Hughes married Caroline Swift, and they had starved together very happily until the lady was permitted to join His Majesty’s Servants at the King’s
Playhouse, where she quickly made a name for herself.
On this account, as well as by reason of her continued affection for her husband, she was by no means a favourite with the other members of the company, of whom the men were no better than they should have been, while the majority of the women were certainly a good deal worse.
Mrs Hughes had always shunned, so far as she was able to do so, Burt, the leading actor of Killigrew’s company. She had detested him from the first hour she had seen him. He was a vulgar and uneducated man who aped all the airs and graces and vices of a person of quality. He boasted openly of his amours and had more than once been horse-whipped for making too free with a lady’s name. He did his best to give circulation to the report that he had in his early years captivated Lady Castlemaine, and he now and again found people who believed that he had actually attained to that distinction.
It was probably with a view of putting the seal upon his reputation as a man of fashion that he had played an infamous part in regard to Henrietta Crisp, who occupied a subordinate place in the King’s House. Her husband, Charley Crisp, was a man of good family who had ruined his prospects by marrying her while he was still at Oxford. The two hundred pounds a year, which his father allowed him, would have been sufficient to keep him while he was studying the science of medicine; but before he had been married more than a year he found that he had no time to study anything, save the best way to keep his wife.
She was as foolish as she was pretty, and no one about the theatre was surprised when one day, on her husband’s return from a visit to the country, she came down to a rehearsal with Mr Burt.
Charley Crisp was heartbroken at his wife’s treatment of him, but he was considerate enough to refrain from publishing his shame by means of a duel with her lover.
“She will return to me – she will return to me,” he had often said to Caroline Hughes and her husband.
He spoke the truth. After the lapse of a year, during which it was said that Burt treated her with the greatest brutality, she returned to her husband – to die.
Her knowledge of this incident did not tend to make Mrs Hughes look on Burt with any greater favour than she had previously bestowed upon him. The fellow abated nothing of his odious swaggering, and when some of his boon companions rallied him in regard to her coldness of demeanour toward him, he had smiled significantly, saying:
“Ay, the pretty creature is the best actress in the company.”
“Actress! but we were talking of the woman herself, not what she pretends to be,” said one of his boon companions.
“Quite so. The woman pretends to be – well, what the woman herself is not,” said Burt. “For a pretence of propriety Becky Marshall is clumsy compared to her, the sweet dissembler.”
“You mean –”
“I mean, sir, that the man who captivated a Countess – nay, she is a Duchess now – is not likely to be rebuffed by Caroline Hughes.”
And he really believed that her constant expression of dislike for him was only meant to draw him on. She had ignored him when they acted together in other plays, but it was impossible for her to maintain the same demeanour in rehearsing “Othello.” She was compelled to be with him on the stage for some hours every day, arranging his “business” that led up to the various situations of matchless power. He had thus many opportunities of exercising his fascinations upon her, and it need scarcely be said that he availed himself of all.
At the end of a week his net gains could be easily computed: he had won a single smile from her – no more.
Still this he regarded as distinct evidence that she was repenting of her former scorn of him, and that she meant to encourage him.
On this day her husband, as usual, walked home with her from the playhouse. They had scarcely reached their lodgings when he said:
“My dear wife, I should like very much to hear if you have aught to tell me regarding the play.”
“I have nothing to tell you,” she replied. “You saw all the rehearsal of the scenes to-day, did not you?”
“I saw – something,” said he. “Something that gave me a little shock of surprise.”
“What was that?” she inquired.
“You have confided nothing to my ear, and therefore I cannot but think that mine eyes deceived me,” he said.
“Tell me what you saw, or fancied you saw,” she cried.
“I fancied that I saw that man, that scoundrel, Burt, press your hand and look into your face when the scene between you both was at an end.”
There was a pause – an awkward pause – if it had been a few seconds longer it would have been a compromising pause, but she saved those few seconds – before she said:
“You were not deceived, my husband; the wretch had the impudence to hold my hand some time – some moments. That was impudent, but no more than impudent.”
“Impudent! And why did you not confess to me that he had done so when I gave you the chance just now?”
“Well, the fact is, my dear, I knew that – ’twas no more than the fellow’s impudence, and I did not wish you to be annoyed.”
“Heavens above us! you would lead that rascal on to save me from being annoyed!”
“Lead him on – lead Stephen Burt on – I – ? Oh, James, I am ashamed of you.”
“I shall never give you cause to be ashamed of me, madam, and I would fain hope that you will be equally generous towards me.”
He held up his head, and there was a certain subtle suggestion of coldness – of aloofness in that little movement of his. She felt it; and that was why she burst into a laugh – it really did not sound very forced – as she said with a pretty exaggeration of the already exaggerated Iago of Mr Mohun:
“Beware, my lord, of jealousy!”
Then she laughed again, and this time her laugh sounded very forced.
He remained solemn, and in an instant she became so also.
“My dear husband,” she said quietly, “have I ever given you cause for uneasiness, even for a moment?”
“You have never acted Desdemona to Burt’s Othello,” he replied coldly.
“Gracious Heavens! you do not mean to suggest –”
“I mean to suggest nothing, madam. If the opportunity had not arisen, the fascination which that man seems to exercise over all women might have continued harmless so far as you are concerned.”
“Fascination! the fellow is detestable to me, I tell you. Oh, I am amazed – hurt – humiliated.”
“The amazement and humiliation are not on your side only, madam,” said Mr Hughes.
She was tearful as she went into the bedroom to lay aside her cloak. He followed her with his eyes, and when she was gone, he continued looking at the door through which she had passed. Then he gave a long sigh.
“’Tis a trial – a great trial for her, and much more so for me,” he murmured. “But I must be cruel only to be kind; I must force her to put herself in the situation of Desdemona – she must feel what ’tis to be innocent and yet accused – to be the unhappy wife of a jealous husband. Oh, she must carry away the town by her acting of the character. Think of it! think of it! The first true representative of the greatest play ever writ by the hand of man! If she should fall short of what is needed for the true Desdemona, the play may be set back for another half century. God forgive me for my cruelty; but it must be so – it must.”
He was walking to and fro in the room before he had finished his mutterings, so that when his wife returned, he seemed to her the embodiment of a man consumed by the demon of jealousy. Then she fancied that she detected a wistful look in his eyes – it seemed to her that he was somewhat ashamed of himself; and, feeling this, her eyes also became wistful and she went to him with outstretched hands. He caught her hands in his own and kissed her warmly – only once, however; then he appeared to recollect his grievance – his imaginary grievance – against her, for he dropped her hands and turned away from her with a sigh.
She had too much pride to force herself upon hi
m. She left the room without a word.
At the rehearsal of the tragedy the next day, Burt greeted her effusively – so effusively as to cause the other members of the company to glance significantly at one another. She would have liked to strike the fellow on the face and then leave the theatre for ever; but she knew that she could not afford to give way to her impulses. She had a full sense of her responsibilities towards the poet whom she had been taught by her husband to love; and she would do nothing that might jeopardise the success of the play.
That was why she suffered Burt without rebuke to press her hand, and look meaningly into her eyes, several times during the rehearsal, and that was why, when she found herself alone with him for a few minutes while waiting for a scene to be set, she only shook her head, and smiled as he murmured in her ear:
“Beloved creature! my success on the night of the performance will be complete because the playgoers will perceive that the words of love which I speak to you come from my heart.”
She hurried away from him though he tried to stop her; but when she had got to the other side of the stage, she glanced back at him. She could feel her cheeks flaming when she saw the smile that was upon his face. It was a leer that told her he felt sure of her.
She did not tell her husband of this incident, nor did she say a word to him of the letter which Burt slipped into her hand the next day – a letter full of passionate protestations and implorations. He had loved her for months, he declared in fervid language, but only since they had been brought so close together in the play, had his passion become uncontrollable. Why was she so cold to him, when his heart told him she returned his affection, he asked. Why would she not trust her life to his keeping? Would not their happiness be more than earthly if she would but trust to his honour?
She read this letter when she was alone, and she crushed it in her hand and then with blazing eyes and quivering fingers she tore it into shreds and scattered them to the winds.
The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits Page 39