to avoid, for two reasons: firstly, because it involved the very probable postponement of his happiness; and secondly, because the obtaining this consent was an awkward process. At last he recollected that in consequence of Mr. Hughes being out of town, it was quite impossible to ask him.
"Very good," said Miss Hughes; "everything happens for the best. I am sure you would never venture to speak to him on the subject, so you had far better write. He will not keep you long in suspense, I know, for he is quite certain to answer your letter by return of post."
Mr. Hughes was then at Exeter; and as it certainly did appear to his destined son-in-law a much better course to write than to speak, even if he had been in London, he sat down without delay, and, after various trials, produced such a letter as he thought would be most likely to find its way to the father's heart. Miss Hughes approving of the contents, it was re-read, copied, punctuated, folded, and posted.
Next day the lady was obliged to leave town, to spend a short time with some friends at Gravesend; and the lover, very much to his annoyance and regret, was fain to stay behind, and console himself as he best could, in his mistress's absence, and the absence of a reply from her father, to which he naturally looked forward with considerable impatience and anxiety.
Five days passed away, and still no letter came; and poor Grimaldi, being left to his own fears and apprehensions, was reduced to the most desperate and dismal forebodings. Having no employment at the theatre, and nothing to do but to think of his mistress and his letter, he was almost beside himself with anxiety and suspense. It was with no small pleasure, then, that he received a note from Miss Hughes, entreating him to take a trip down to Gravesend in one of the sailing-boats on the following Sunday, as he could return by the same conveyance on the same night. Of course he was not slow to avail himself of the invitation; so he took shipping at the Tower on the morning of the day appointed, and reached the place of his destination in pretty good time. The only water communication was by sailing-boats; and as at that time people were not independent of wind and tide, and everything but steam, the passengers were quite satisfied to get down when they did.
He found Miss Hughes waiting for him at the landing-place, and getting into a "tide" coach, they proceeded to Chatham, Miss Hughes informing him that she had made a confidant of her brother, who was stationed there, and that they purposed spending the day together.
"And now, Joe," said Miss Hughes, when he had expressed the pleasure which this arrangement afforded him, "tell me everything that has happened. What does my father say?"
"My dear," replied Grimaldi, "he says nothing at all; he has not answered my letter."
"Not answered your letter!" said the lady: "his punctuality is proverbial."
"So I have always heard," replied Grimaldi: "but so it is; I have not heard a syllable."
"Then you must write again, Joe," said Miss Hughes, "immediately, without the least delay. Let me see—you cannot very well write to-day, but to-morrow you must not fail: I cannot account for his silence."
"Nor I," said Grimaldi.
"Unless, indeed," said Miss Hughes, "some extraordinary business has driven your letter from his memory."
As people always endeavour to believe what they hope, they were not long in determining that it must be so. Dismissing the subject from their minds, they spent the day happily, in company with young Mr. Hughes, and returning to Gravesend in the evening by another tide coach, Grimaldi was on board the sailing-boat shortly before eleven o'clock; it being arranged that Miss Hughes was to follow on the next Saturday.
In the cabin of the boat he found Mr. De Cleve,[21] at that time treasurer of Sadler's Wells. There are jealousies in theatres, as there are in courts, ball-rooms, and boarding-schools; and this Mr. De Cleve was jealous of Grimaldi—not because he stood in his way, for he had no touch of comedy in his composition, but because he had eclipsed, and indeed altogether outshone, one Mr. Hartland, "a very clever and worthy man," says Grimaldi, who was at that time also engaged as a pantomimic and melodramatic actor at Sadler's Wells. Mr. De Cleve, thinking for his friends as well as himself, hated Grimaldi most cordially, and the meeting was consequently by no means an agreeable one to him; for if he had chanced to set eyes upon Miss Hughes, great mischief-making and turmoil would be the inevitable consequence.
[21] Vincent de Cleve, facetiously nick-named among his associates, "Polly de Cleve," not from any effeminacy of character or manner, or his almost intolerable abuse of the King's English by the constant utterance of the most flagrant cockneyisms, but for his Marplot qualities, which ever prompted him to pry into everybody's business, and create by his interference the most vexatious mischief. He was an odd fish. Talent he had; he was no contemptible composer and musician, and in his office, as treasurer to the Wells for many years, strictly honest. Between Sadler's Wells and the Angel was an old building, immediately opposite Lady Owen's Almshouses, now also demolished, called Goose Farm; it belonged to Mr. Laycock, the cow-keeper of Islington; but had ceased to be a farm-house; and was divided into tenements; the first and second floors were each divided into two suites of apartments. On the first floor in that next the Wells, resided John Cawse, the artist, whose daughters subsequently distinguished themselves as vocalists of no common power, and made their début in 1820 at Sadler's Wells, where the late Mrs. Cawse was also an actress.
The suite next the Angel was occupied by the mother and sister of Charles and Thomas Dibdin; during the management of the Wells by the former, the sister, a short squab figure, generally the last among the figurantes, came on among villagers and mobs; but under other lessees was not employed, and died in Clerkenwell Poor-House. De Cleve occupied the rooms on the second floor above the Dibdins; but all have ceased to exist; and Joe, to use a common expression, outlived his enemy. A grave stone, laid flat, in the churchyard of St. Mary's, Lambeth, marks the spot where lie buried, Mrs. Frances De Cleve, who died in her thirtieth year, May 3, 1795; and her husband, the busy meddler, Vincent de Cleve, who died July 30, 1827, aged 67.
"In the name of wonder, Grimaldi," said this agreeable character, "what are you doing here?"
"Going back to London," replied Grimaldi, "as I suppose most of us are."
"That is not what I meant," said De Cleve: "what I meant was, to ask you what business might have taken you to Gravesend?"
"Oh! no business at all," replied the other; "directly I landed, I went off by the tide-coach to Chatham."
"Indeed!" said the other.
"Yes," said Grimaldi.
The treasurer looked rather puzzled at this, sufficiently showing by his manner that he had been hunting about Gravesend all day in search of the young man. He remained silent a short time, and then said, "I only asked because I thought you might have had a dinner engagement at Gravesend, perhaps—with a young lady, even. Who knows?"
This little sarcasm on the part of the worthy treasurer convinced Grimaldi, that having somewhere picked up the information that Miss Hughes was at Gravesend, and having heard afterwards from Mrs. Lewis, or somebody at the theatre, that Grimaldi was going to the same place, he had followed him thither with the amiable intention of playing the spy, and watching his proceedings. If he had observed the young people together, his mischievous intentions would have been completely successful; but the tide-coach had balked him, and Mr. De Cleve's good-natured arrangements were futile.
Grimaldi laughed in his sleeve as the real state of the case presented itself to his mind; and feeling well pleased that he had not seen them together, in the absence of any reply from Mr. De Cleve, he ascended to the deck, and left the treasurer to his meditations.
Upon the deck, on a green bench with a back to it, and arms besides, there sat a neighbour, and a neighbour's wife, and the neighbour's wife's sister, and a very pretty girl, who was the neighbour's wife's sister's friend. There was just room for one more on the bench, and they insisted upon Mr. Grimaldi occupying the vacant seat, which he readily did, for they were remaining on deck to avoid the closeness of the cabin, and he preferred the cold air of the