When the stage appeared down the winding of the road I was utterly ignorant of what he meant us to do, or if he had any definite purpose at all.
It came—the coachman was hailed. Mr. Charles shook hands with us and mounted—paying his own fare and that of Yates with their handful of charity-pennies, which caused a few minutes' delay in counting, and a great deal of good-humoured joking, as good-humouredly borne.
Meanwhile, John put his two hands on my shoulders, and looked hard into my face—his was slightly flushed and excited, I thought.
"Phineas, are you tired?"
"Not at all."
"Do you feel strong enough to go to Coltham? Would it do you no harm? Would you LIKE to go?"
To all these hurried questions I answered with as hurried an affirmative. It was sufficient to me that he evidently liked to go.
"It is only for once—your father would not grudge us the pleasure, and he is too busy to be out of the tan-yard before midnight. We will be home soon after then, if I carry you on my back all the ten miles. Come, mount, we'll go."
"Bravo!" cried Mr. Charles, and leaned over to help me up the coach's side. John followed, and the crisis was past.
But I noticed that for several miles he hardly spoke one word.
CHAPTER VI
Near as we lived to Coltham, I had only been there once in my life; but John Halifax knew the town pretty well, having latterly in addition to his clerkship been employed by my father in going about the neighbourhood buying bark. I was amused when the coach stopped at an inn, which bore the ominous sign of the "Fleece," to see how well accustomed he seemed to be to the ways of the place. He deported himself with perfect self-possession; the waiter served him respectfully. He had evidently taken his position in the world—at least, our little world—he was no longer a boy, but a man. I was glad to see it; leaving everything in his hands, I lay down where he placed me in the inn parlour, and watched him giving his orders and walking about. Sometimes I thought his eyes were restless and unquiet, but his manner was as composed as usual.
Mr. Charles had left us, appointing a meeting at Coffee-house Yard, where the theatre then was.
"A poor barn-like place, I believe," said John, stopping in his walk up and down the room to place my cushions more easy; "they should build a new one, now Coltham is growing up into such a fashionable town. I wish I could take you to see the "Well-walk," with all the fine people promenading. But you must rest, Phineas."
I consented, being indeed rather weary.
"You will like to see Mrs. Siddons, whom we have so often talked about? She is not young now, Mr. Charles says, but magnificent still. She first came out in this same theatre more than twenty years ago. Yates saw her. I wonder, Phineas, if your father ever did."
"Oh, no my father would not enter a play-house for the world."
"What!"
"Nay, John, you need not look so troubled. You know he did not bring me up in the Society, and its restrictions are not binding upon me."
"True, true." And he resumed his walk, but not his cheerfulness. "If it were myself alone, now, of course what I myself hold to be a lawful pleasure I have a right to enjoy; or, if not, being yet a lad and under a master—well, I will bear the consequences," added he, rather proudly; "but to share them—Phineas," turning suddenly to me, "would you like to go home?—I'll take you."
I protested earnestly against any such thing; told him I was sure we were doing nothing wrong—which was, indeed, my belief; entreated him to be merry and enjoy himself, and succeeded so well, that in a few minutes we had started in a flutter of gaiety and excitement for Coffee-house Yard.
It was a poor place—little better than a barn, as Mr. Charles had said—built in a lane leading out of the principal street. This lane was almost blocked up with play-goers of all ranks and in all sorts of equipages, from the coach-and-six to the sedan-chair, mingled with a motley crowd on foot, all jostling, fighting, and screaming, till the place became a complete bear-garden.
"Oh, John! take care!" and I clung to his arm.
"Never mind! I'm big enough and strong enough for any crowd. Hold on, Phineas." If I had been a woman, and the woman that he loved, he could not have been more tender over my weakness. The physical weakness—which, however humiliating to myself, and doubtless contemptible in most men's eyes—was yet dealt by the hand of Heaven, and, as such, regarded by John only with compassion.
The crowd grew denser and more formidable. I looked beyond it, up towards the low hills that rose in various directions round the town; how green and quiet they were, in the still June evening! I only wished we were safe back again at Norton Bury.
But now there came a slight swaying in the crowd, as a sedan-chair was borne through—or attempted to be—for the effort failed. There was a scuffle, one of the bearers was knocked down and hurt. Some cried "shame!" others seemed to think this incident only added to the frolic. At last, in the midst of the confusion, a lady put her head out of the sedan and gazed around her.
It was a remarkable countenance; once seen, you could never forget it. Pale, rather large and hard in outline, an aquiline nose—full, passionate, yet sensitive lips—and very dark eyes. She spoke, and the voice belonged naturally to such a face. "Good people, let me pass—I am Sarah Siddons."
The crowd divided instantaneously, and in moving set up a cheer that must have rang through all the town. There was a minute's pause, while she bowed and smiled—such a smile!—and then the sedan curtain closed.
"Now's the time—only hold fast to me!" whispered John, as he sprang forward, dragging me after him. In another second he had caught up the pole dropped by the man who was hurt; and before I well knew what we were about we both stood safe inside the entrance of the theatre.
Mrs. Siddons stepped out, and turned to pay her bearers—a most simple action—but so elevated in the doing that even it, I thought, could not bring her to the level of common humanity. The tall, cloaked, and hooded figure, and the tones that issued thence, made her, even in that narrow passage, under the one flaring tallow-candle, a veritable Queen of tragedy—at least so she seemed to us two.
The one man was paid—over-paid, apparently, from his thankfulness—and she turned to John Halifax.
"I regret, young man, that you should have had so much trouble. Here is some requital."
He took the money, selected from it one silver coin, and returned the rest.
"I will keep this, madam, if you please, as a memento that I once had the honour of being useful to Mrs. Siddons."
She looked at him keenly, out of her wonderful dark eyes, then curtsied with grave dignity—"I thank you, sir," she said, and passed on.
A few minutes after some underling of the theatre found us out and brought us, "by Mrs. Siddons' desire," to the best places the house could afford.
It was a glorious night. At this distance of time, when I look back upon it my old blood leaps and burns. I repeat, it was a glorious night!
Before the curtain rose we had time to glance about us on that scene, to both entirely new—the inside of a theatre. Shabby and small as the place was, it was filled with all the beau monde of Coltham, which then, patronized by royalty, rivalled even Bath in its fashion and folly. Such a dazzle of diamonds and spangled turbans and Prince-of-Wales' plumes. Such an odd mingling of costume, which was then in a transition state, the old ladies clinging tenaciously to the stately silken petticoats and long bodices, surmounted by the prim and decent bouffantes, while the younger belles had begun to flaunt in the French fashions of flimsy muslins, shortwaisted—narrow-skirted.