Cashel Byron's Profession

Mrs. Byron, under her stage name of Adelaide Gisborne, was now, for

the second time in her career, much talked of in London, where she

had boon for many years almost forgotten. The metropolitan managers

of her own generation had found that her success in new parts was

very uncertain; that she was more capricious than the most petted

favorites of the public; and that her invariable reply to a business

proposal was that she detested the stage, and was resolved never to

set foot upon it again. So they had managed to do without her for so

long that the younger London playgoers knew her by reputation only

as an old-fashioned actress who wandered through the provinces

palming herself off on the ignorant inhabitants as a great artist,

and boring them with performances of the plays of Shakespeare. It

suited Mrs. Byron well to travel with the nucleus of a dramatic

company from town to town, staying a fortnight in each, and

repeating half a dozen characters in which she was very effective,

and which she knew so well that she never thought about them except

when, as indeed often happened, she had nothing else to think about.

Most of the provincial populations received her annual visits with

enthusiasm.

Among them she found herself more excitingly applauded

before the curtain, her authority more despotic behind it, her

expenses smaller, and her gains greater than in London, for which

she accordingly cared as little as London cared for her. As she grew

older she made more money and spent less. When she complained to

Cashel of the cost of his education, she was rich. Since he had

relieved her of that cost she had visited America, Egypt, India, and

the colonies, and had grown constantly richer. From this great tour

she had returned to England on the day when Cashel added the laurels

of the Flying Dutchman to his trophies; and the next Sunday's paper

had its sporting column full of the prowess of Cashel Byron, and its

theatrical column full of the genius of Adelaide Gisborne. But she

never read sporting columns, nor he theatrical ones.

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.