Chapter 10 - Page 2

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