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 had
been purchased for a trifling sum by the late Mr. Carew, and was now
in the possession of Lydia, to whom the actor-manager applied for
leave to inspect it. Leave being readily given, he visited the house
in Regent's Park, which he declared to be an inexhaustible
storehouse of treasure. He deeply regretted, he said, that he could
not show the portrait to Miss Gisborne. Lydia replied that if Miss
Gisborne would come and look at it, she should be very welcome. Two
days later, at noon, Mrs. Byron arrived and found Lydia alone; Alice
having contrived to be out, as she felt that it was better not to
meet an actress--one could never tell what they might have been.